By Bella Garcia
Like reaching for a freshly brewed pot of coffee, 37-year-old Ana Salas-Lopez feels her dream of owning a coffee shop is within arms reach.
It’s a dream that pays homage to her childhood and is the one thing that has remained as Salas-Lopez became a mother, executive legal assistant and business management student at California State University, Long Beach. It was only now, almost 30 years later, that she had the space to achieve it.
“Having Matthew [her first son] at 15 probably saved my life. It saved me from going down a wrong path where I was originally headed,” she said.
Salas-Lopez’s head tilted as she paused to remember details of her tumultuous past. When she was 1, her mother fled from an abusive relationship with her father and immigrated to the United States from Mexico with her and her three siblings.
Salas-Lopez lived in a five-bedroom house in Los Angeles with 12 family members. She recalls her mother juggling three jobs to ensure her and her siblings had the essentials they needed.
“My mom wasn’t very present in any of our school activities or a lot of our achievements because she was always at work,” Salas-Lopez said.
With an immense amount of independence, Salas-Lopez grew into a rebellious teenager who revolted against the boundaries her mother set and ran away to live with her boyfriend when she was 15 years old.
It was during this time that Salas-Lopez became pregnant with her first child. In 2003, three months after giving birth in her freshman year of high school, she began homeschooling and working with her mother cleaning offices.
“I worked graveyard shifts…I was working under the table for my mom’s friend, because I was still so young and they wouldn’t give me a job otherwise,” Salas-Lopez said.
After graduating high school, she studied nursing at Los Angeles Valley College for a year and a half until her then-partner’s unemployment pushed her to drop out to provide for her family.
Though Salas-Lopez said she thought she would be back in a year, her return to college took 12 years.
Throughout those 12 years, Salas-Lopez held around eight jobs, often working two at a time to provide food and clothing for her son. During this time, in 2008, her second son, Jayden, was born.
In 2015, Salas-Lopez enrolled at Orange Coast College and shortly after transferred to Long Beach City College. In 2019, she began working at Nguyen Theam Lawyers, LLP as a legal assistant with no prior experience.
Today, she serves as her boss’s executive legal assistant, managing personal affairs, office tasks, litigation work, and more.
Salas-Lopez’s coworker and friend, Cole Sturges-Andersen, said, “I feel like she is the glue that holds the office together. There aren’t any lengths that she won’t go to ensure we all feel special and supported.”
In 2022, Salas-Lopez began her studies at Long Beach State. The transition brought unforeseen adversity, Salas-Lopez said, as the new curriculum was more difficult and brought strain into her home life.
Her absence within the home was felt by her partner, Sokhan Theam, as Salas-Lopez said that he was used to her being home and doing everything like cooking and cleaning.
Things have improved for her since her first semester, as Salas-Lopez said that she feels she has been able to effectively manage her time better while dealing with work, school and her family life.
“I no longer give my time away to just anybody. I feel my time is very valuable because I have so little of it…there are only certain people and things I’m willing to give my time to now,” she said.
She holds this value as she awaits walking across the stage to accept her bachelor’s degree in spring 2025. Within the next five to 10 years, she has her eyes set on opening the doors of her dream coffee shop inspired by her grandfather.
“When we were younger he would brew a cup of coffee and he would sit around and talk to us. He would welcome other people,” she said, “It was kind of like a community thing that he created, so when I envision the coffee shop that I want, I want it to feel like you are at home.”
Though she admits to wishing she would have attended college right after high school, Salas-Lopez said that she feels completing her degree at this point in her life has made her appreciate the focus and work she has done to get here.
“Since graduating high school, I’ve wanted to get a bachelor’s degree but because of all the choices I made in between then and now, it’s a bigger accomplishment for me now,” Salas-Lopez said. “I feel proud of myself for doing it.”
