Why As A Latina, I Am Voting For Tom Foley

Es el momento de un cambio.  It is time for a change.  I came to this country from Peru almost 30 years ago.  There were many challenges for me, I didn’t speak much English and I didn’t know how to drive and I was brand new to this Country.
As I was beginning my life in Connecticut, with my husband and his family tragedy struck.  My husband died as a result of a workplace accident at the General Dynamics plant.  He had a TBI and was hospitalized for four years before he passed away.  I was devastated, in an unfamiliar country, with a young child and by myself. While establishing my Connecticut roots my foundation was suddenly gone.  I was instantly an immigrant single mother with a young son struggling to acclimate to this brand new land of opportunity.
Right here in Connecticut I realized the American dream.  I picked my child and myself up and moved forward.  I had never worked in America let alone my life because I had come from an affluent family in Peru. I got a job, I got two jobs, I sent my child to school everyday and made sure that he had the life I would have had with my husband had he still been with us.
I perservered but things are getting harder here in Connecticut and I am not sure that my story, the story of so many immigrants in Connecticut, can be replicated today.
Today in Connecticut our economy is struggling, things are more expensive and families of all backgrounds and income brackets are struggling. I have to scrap funds together and work two part time jobs to send my only son to college. One of my jobs is even in Rhode Island.  The job climate here in Connecticut is so bad that in order to find a job with more than 30 hours a week I have to drive 2 hours a day to a different state.
This is not the dream I left Peru for.  I did not leave so that I had to drive across state borders to find a job that will employ me for 30 hours a week.  I believe that there are no jobs in this state because of the policies that Dan Malloy has implemented.  Companies are leaving Connecticut and we have yet to recover all of the jobs that were lost during the recession. The fact Connecticut lost 3600 jobs in August says it all.
I did not leave so that I had to scrape resources together to pay for my child’s education, health insurance and all the taxes that Dan Malloy has piled onto hard working families like mine.  We need a change and we need a new direction.  I believe that the people who will bring that change are Tom Foley and Heather Somers.
Tom Foley and Heather Somers are committed to making life in Connecticut easier for families like mine and people like me.  They want to repeal the car tax in cities, which will unburden so many families who are getting taxed just because they have to drive to their place of work.  They will also be friendlier to businesses, which might make this state more attractive to employers.  I hope so because then I won’t have to drive to Rhode Island just to find a job that will give me 30 hours a week.
Tom and Heather also know that education and safety are important parts of the Connecticut puzzle.  Dan Malloy has done little to improve safety and education in this state.  Tom and Heather will make it a priority.  It is frustrating to see this state struggle so much under the failed leadership of Dan Malloy.  But there is a team of two who can turn this state around.  Tom Foley and Heather Somers.  I believe that they have the vision and skills to turn this state around and that is why I will be casting my vote for them on November 4^th.