Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Esperanza Rodriguez bows her head in prayer during a prayer meeting at Kennedy Brothers transitional housing. (Adriane Jaeckle / El Paso Times)

No luxury art pieces hang in Valerie Estrada's Northeast home.

Instead, dozens of certificates that commend her children for their educational accomplishments are tacked on the living room walls.

"They are all so smart and intelligent," the mother of four said, happily pointing out the awards. "I think I can get a doctor out of one of them and an artist out of another. All I want is for them to finish their education, to do better than me. They are all on their way there."

Each of her children -- Christine, 16; Hector, 14; Sabrina, 12; and Joevon, 10 -- gets good grades in school, and each has plans for the future.

"I hope all of them go to college," Estrada said. "Hopefully, I can at least pay for one of them to go."

Estrada encourages her children to do well in school by sharing her experiences with them.

She reminds them of the difficulties faced by people who don't get a good education, and she rewards them for doing well in school -- $1 for every A and 50 cents for every B on their report cards.

'I am very protective'

But after 16 years of raising four children on her own, washing their clothes, helping them with homework and making ends meet to get them necessities, Estrada cannot imagine their packing up to leave the city.

"I just don't know what I would do," Estrada said. "I know it is probably something that I should be thinking about right now, but I always try to take things one day at a time. I am very protective. I barely let them go out that door, let alone to another city."

Attending the University of Texas at El Paso is a reality for families like the Estradas. About 82 percent of the nearly 20,000 students at UTEP are from El Paso County high schools, say university officials. The resistance by some El Pasoans to leaving town for better jobs or other opportunities, and the desire of many parents to keep their children nearby, is one of the reasons experts say El Paso has not achieved its full economic potential.

Estrada doesn't care which college her children attend, just as long as they go. And having her children receive their higher educations at a nearby school would allow her to help them financially while they attend college.

The mother, who is a newlywed, has grown accustomed to giving her children the support she did not receive from her parents as a child and, in some way, she feels she has gained the same from them.

"She would talk to us about how she used to be treated and how she used to live," daughter Sabrina Najera said. "I am thankful that she doesn't treat us the way she was treated."

In fact, Estrada's children have a much better life than their mother did. Besides encouraging them in all their endeavors, Estrada goes out of her way afford some popular brand-name clothing and shoes for her children.

"As a parent, whether you have or don't have money, you make it a point to make sure your children have what they need even when you don't have money," Estrada said. "I don't know how we parents do it, but we find a way. I have really been blessed by God."

'I can't leave'

Esperanza Rodriguez encouraged her children to leave El Paso.

"I told them to go, to find better lives for their families," she said with a smile. "But they always said, 'No, because you are here.' "

"I tell them, 'Don't think about me; think about you.' "

Her requests have gone unheeded.

All four of her children -- two sons and two daughters -- are now grown, married and living and working in the El Paso area. And they are all content, Rodriguez said -- perhaps not wealthy, but having what they need.

They've all had opportunities to leave.

Sergio Gutierrez, the baby of the siblings at 26, has had job offers with good pay from Colorado and New Mexico. Even in his line of work -- contract landscaping for Wal-Mart -- he knows he could earn more in other Texas cities. But he has stayed, and he said he's done so for the same reasons his siblings have.

"For me, she's everything," he said of his mother. "I can't leave."

Gutierrez said his mother's disability has also played a role. Before her eye surgery years ago, she had cataracts and other conditions that impaired her vision and balance.

"Imagine you were somewhere else and they told you your mom fell," he said. "What's the first thing you'd want to do?"

He laughs at the notion that he's a "mama's boy," but he said that factor also could play into how he's learned the world works. "The older people take care of the young kids," he said, "because the young kids are going to take care of the older people."

Rodriguez said the unity of her family gives it strength. They don't have to ask others for help and can take on their problems themselves.

Gutierrez knows that staying in town may cost his family economically, but that doesn't bother him.

"I was brought up poor and I've been a happy person poor," he said. "It's not the money. It's the love we have for her."

Certainly Rodriguez understands this. She spends at least a month each year visiting and caring for her own mother, who lives in Aguascalientes, Mexico. It's the town where Rodriguez grew up -- and where she hasn't lived for decades.

This article was published in Week 2 of the El Paso Times Poverty Series.