Betty L. likes to dream big. During her time working at Christian Health Care Center, she has consistently pushed herself to take on more and more responsibilities.
She knows she has so much to offer. Those who work with Betty call her a team player. They see her work ethic, her willingness to take on difficult tasks. This attitude served Betty well during nursing assistant training, and it helped her get hired as a CNA, progress to becoming a unit secretary and then become what she is now — CHCC’s nursing department scheduler.
Betty dreams big, and she’s also a “Dreamer” — a term taken from the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, never-passed legislation that would have allowed people brought illegally to the United States as children to remain in the country under certain conditions.
Betty came to the U.S. from her native Guatemala when she was 4, and she has never known another life. However, because she did not have legal residency, she was destined to live a life trying to stay under the radar. In high school, she told her father that she didn’t want to graduate — after all, there would be no point, she said, with college barred to people like her.
Betty speaks Aguacateco, the Mayan language used in her hometown of Aguacatan, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. She’s also fluent in English and Spanish and considers herself a Sumas native. Even while growing up, getting married and having a son, she worried what her future would be. Could she even stay in the U.S.?
Eventually, thanks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Betty was able to apply for residency.
“My dad always encouraged me to keep going, keep working,” she says. “He said you never know what might happen. If I had listened to myself, I probably wouldn’t have graduated high school and gone on to have a good career.”
More on that later.
Working at CHCC
Betty enrolled in the nursing assistant certification class (now offered through Lynden Healthcare Education) in 2016 and was hired at CHCC as a nursing assistant. When a position with greater responsibility came open, co-workers encouraged her to apply.
Betty served first as Baker secretary and then in rehab. The work was fun and important to CHCC residents and family members — coordinating transportation to appointments, admitting patients to the rehab clinic, coordinating lab supplies, answering call lights when able, etc. — and Betty enjoyed it.
The job also required her to help out periodically with nursing scheduling, and Betty was hooked.
“I fell in love with it, secretly,” Betty says. “I was growing as a secretary, but I knew that I wanted to be able to offer more.”
She saw the challenges CHCC was having with staffing, and she wanted to do her part to help fix it. Scheduling is about understanding the team, being on their level, she says.
“My goal as a scheduler is to keep staff happy and to keep residents happy,” Betty says. “I need to be available to residents and staff as much as possible. CHCC really has a family vibe, and you know that your boss will be supportive whenever something comes up that might take you away from work. I try to think that way in my role as a scheduler, too.”
Ultimately, the work she does to keep staff happy pays dividends in resident care, she says.
“If nursing staff are stress-free and happy, residents feel taken care of.”
Becoming a U.S. resident
After Betty and her husband married in 2017, she applied for U.S. residency. It took years of paperwork, but the time eventually came for Betty and her family to go to Guatemala to finish the final stages of the process — an interview at the U.S. Embassy in her home country to ask for permission to become a resident of the States.
“There was a 50/50 chance that I could not return to the United States from Guatemala,” she says.
It was a stressful morning.
“I got there at 5 a.m. and waited two hours before they started calling people back. The scariest thing was sitting there and waiting. Four of the five people in front of me were rejected. They were told to come back in a month with more information, more proof. That was really scary, listening to them get shot down over and over and over. I didn’t know where my future was going to be in the next day.”
When she finally was called in for her interview, the process was simple. The officer — from Bellingham, of all places — asked a lot of questions about her husband, her marriage, her life in the States. In the end, she gave approval.
“She said I was good to go, and that was so exciting,” Betty said. “Now there’s no stress, no fear.”
As soon as she is able to, Betty plans to apply for U.S. citizenship. After all, she can’t imagine being anywhere else.
“I am very grateful to be at CHCC,” she says. “My co-workers are all just like family. It’s hard to imagine ever leaving; I couldn’t get this anywhere else. CHCC is a family-oriented employer and very friendly to residents and family. Until people actually see it, it’s hard to believe just how great it is here, but it’s really true.”