Mother's Day Story About a Special Mom from Puerto Vallarta Kern Golden Empire
go to original May 10, 2015

Special Mother's Day Report: Maria Coward (ZicT2Pac)

Bakersfield, CA - Mother's Day is today and we've been asking you on Facebook to tell us why your mom is so special. And your responses were amazing.
     
We got emails from kids, husbands, in-laws, and friends. Dozens of people wanting to highlight the special ladies in their lives.     
     
During this three-part special report, Kern Golden Empire shares a few stories of some wonderful moms in Bakersfield.

You might know this first mother: she is the owner of a popular Bakersfield business and a single mother of four.
     
But her kids say it's what people don't know about their mom that makes her extraordinary.

Smiles, and many times, even hugs are on the menu when owner Maria Coward is working, which her kids say is pretty much every day at La Costa Mariscos.

"A lot of people know my mom, but they don't know the adversity she faced coming here," said Adriana West, Coward's daughter.

About 37 years ago, Coward, a single mother, packed up her kids and left Puerto Vallarta to start a better life in Bakersfield.     

"Everybody talks about the American dream. All I talked about is to provide for my children," Coward said.

Her daughter shared how she struggled when coming to America.

"She'll tell you about a story where she worked for a restaurant here in town and they didn't want to hire her because she was a woman. And so she said give me a chance give me an opportunity and I will show you how good I am. And so she worked for free for a while until they finally hired her," said West.

"There were times when I had three jobs and having to take care of kids," Coward said.

"She gave her last dime to us," said her son Alex Joya, adding how his mother would always do what she could to provide for them.

"She would take us out to eat and going out to eat would be going to McDonald's because we couldn't go to restaurants or anything like that and we would split a cheeseburger and my mom would go without. She wouldn't eat because we didn't have the money," West said.

The money she saved, she scraped together and bought a place on 21st Street in downtown Bakersfield and called it La Costa Mariscos.

Read the rest at Kern Golden Empire.