I don't remember a version of my mom who didn't know how to sew. It's always been a part of who she is. And I remember, as a little girl, watching her hands move over the fabric and wanting so badly for her to teach me. But she hesitated. For a long time, she wouldn't let me near the machine.
At first I didn't understand why. Now, as a mother myself, I get it completely.
WHY SHE WAITED
Sewing looks gentle from the outside, but it isn't. There are needles. There's a machine with a foot pedal that speeds up the harder you press it. There are shears, pins, and an iron that can burn you if you're not paying attention to the steam. It's a craft that punishes carelessness. You can sew straight through a finger if you rush. My mom knew that, and she wasn't going to hand that risk to her daughter before she was ready.
So I waited. And it wasn't until 7th or 8th grade, in a home economics class, that I finally learned the technical side of it. In class I learned how to hand sew, how to thread a sewing machine, and how to wind a bobbin. I still remember the pride I felt when I brought my first purse, my first pillow, and my first skirt home.
THE FIRST HOMEWORK WITHOUT A LANGUAGE BARRIER
That's the part of this story I think about the most.
I would come home from school with sewing homework, and for the first time, my mom and I could work on it together. That might not sound like a big deal, but for immigrant families, it is.
Our parents are usually working, hustling, thinking about the basics. Do we have enough for rent this month? Can we make groceries last until the end of the week? There wasn’t always room left over for sitting down and helping with homework. And for my mom specifically, homework came with an extra weight.
Growing up in El Salvador during the civil war meant that being home was an expectation. She didn’t get the chance to go to school the way I did. She made it to the 2nd grade, and then my grandfather pulled her out so she could help around the house. Math, English, Writing- those were simple subjects where she didn’t feel "smart enough" to help me (however, I constantly remind her that she showed up for me in every other way that still made a difference). Even if she felt she could help, there was always the language barrier; everything was in a language she didn't speak.
Sewing was different.
When I struggled with a button, she could show me. When I had an idea and couldn't figure out the pattern, she knew exactly what to do. For the first time, her expertise mattered more than any classroom lesson could. And I think it reminded her, and maybe even proved to her, that she was smart, capable, and powerful in her own right. Watching that shift in her is something I'll never forget.
LIVING VICARIOUSLY
When I told my mom I wanted to study Fashion and Textile Design at NC State, her reaction told me everything. If she had hesitated, even a little, I probably would have talked myself out of it and chosen something that felt safer, something that would have earned her approval more easily. But she didn't hesitate. She was thrilled.
She told me she felt like she could live vicariously through me, because becoming a designer was always her dream too. Unfortunately, life didn’t provide her the resources or the support to chase it.
But here's the thing: I don't want her to just live vicariously through me. I want her to finally get to live her own dream, too — as a designer, in her own right, beside me.
A BOND THAT KEEPS GROWING
That's exactly what's happening now, through Descalza.
When we travel to El Salvador together, when we sit with the artisans, when we're working through a pattern or a fabric weave. Her opinion still matters to me the way it did when I was learning to sew that first skirt. She's working with fabrics and makers she grew up around. I'm building a brand rooted in where we both come from.
To this day, sewing is still the thread tying it all together, connecting me to my mother, to my heritage, to my family, and to the little girl who just wanted to sit beside her mom and learn.
That's how sewing connected me to my Salvadoran roots. And it's still doing it, every single day.
-Caro Arias
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