Jessica Dominguez was born in Iquitos, Peru, but at the age of 14 she left for the United States in search of study opportunities.

Her trajectory is not different from that of thousands of Latin American immigrants who come to this country in search of new opportunities: when she arrived in Los Angeles, she started working in different fast food restaurants and in cookie and cosmetics factories. She worked in the mornings and went to school in the evenings. 

She learned English and that helped her to get better jobs, such as in life and auto insurance companies. Years later, she met the man who would become her husband, with whom she had two children, and decided to devote herself entirely to them for 15 years. However, during that time she continued to go to school to fulfill her dream: becoming a lawyer. 

“My dream was always to represent families, specifically those seeking a better future for their children”, she recalls in an interview with AL DÍA. “But the pain of witnessing what a divorce does to a family pushed her to specialize in another field: immigration law. “I discovered how powerful it is to represent a family that needs to stay together, I fell in love with the idea”, she says. Twenty years later, today she lives by her purpose, “keeping families together”, and is dedicated to giving a voice to those who live in fear because they do not have legal immigration status. 

Aside from her work, Dominguez enjoys writing. She decided that all these victories in her life, as an immigrant and as a woman, should be recorded in a book, Mujeres victoriosas (Penguin Random House, 2017), to inspire other women.

 “I want every woman to realize, to remind them of what their souls already know, that we have powers that help us to make the decision not to live as victims because of circumstances or events in our lives, but that if we decide to take action, we can live as ‘victorious women’. It is a decision accompanied by action that we have to take every day”, she said.

Now, Dominguez has just published a second book, Mujeres victoriosas combatiendo la ansiedad (Penguin Random House, 2023), with the goal of making her readers understand “that anxiety is real and should not be ignored, that seeking help is of utmost importance and that it can be overcome. But to do so, we have to be intentional and daily train our minds to use anxiety in a healthy way and not allow it to turn into disorders”, she insists. 

Seeking Help, a Priority

According to Dominguez, the latter is especially important for Latinas, who are more likely to think that seeking professional help is not a necessity or a priority. 

Drawing from her own story and that of other “victorious women who dared to ask for help”, Dominguez explains how to fight stress, anxiety and depression and how important it is to ask for, seek and receive help. 

“Mujeres victoriosas has become an international movement thanks to social media, the group of women involved in leadership, and the worldwide reception our content has received”, she said. “It is our followers who have confirmed with their messages that anxiety is an issue affecting all women, regardless of where they live. Therefore, I believe that every woman in the world can connect with us”, she concluded.