On Mother's Day, here are three stories of immigrant women who sacrificed much for their families.

BESSIE ALCANTRA

The most difficult eight months of Bessie Alcantra's life unfolded in 1963, when she returned to Hawai'i, a place she had left as a 2-year-old nearly three decades before.

A wife and mother of four, she had come back hoping to latch on to the beginnings of a new life for her family. She was alone, living in a room in a cousin's house on Colburn Street in Kalihi.

"Being away from my children, not being able to see them grow up ... it was hard," said Alcantra, now 74. "I could not eat, I could not sleep."

But returning to Hawai'i, she said, "was the only way I knew I could provide a better way for my children."

On the first day of her job hunt, Alcantra learned the hard way that buses did not stop with the wave of a hand as they did in the Philippines. When told during an interview at the Dole Cannery that she needed to call home for additional information, she had to ask how to use a telephone.

Alcantra's family raised enough money to bring her husband and oldest son, Vincent, from the Philippines to Hawai'i in 1964. In 1968, Alcantra's mother and youngest son, Chito, came. Daughters Alma and Aida came later that year.

In 1965, Alcantra's husband left for a construction job on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and never returned to the Waipahu house they had bought together. The couple divorced in 1973.

Alcantra found work as a room attendant at the Halekulani Hotel, a job she held for five years. She was then asked to work at the Hawaiian Inn, now known as the Dynasty Hotel, as an inspector, second only to the executive housekeeper.

As the kids continued to attend public schools, Alcantra worked a second job in the evenings as a housekeeper. She later took on weekend side jobs as a cleaning woman for friends of guests at the hotel. Also, Alcantra also went to school, earning an associate's degree in hotel management.

"I slept very few hours," she said.

Alma Caberto, Alcantra's oldest daughter, said the extent of her mother's sacrifice hit home for her when she traveled to the Philippines and saw poverty all around her.

"What really touches me the most is she took the chance to leave us and come in hopes of a better life," said Caberto, 49, who owns Community Mortgage Services and is president of the Filipino Chamber of Commerce. "She was able to see the future for us."

Caberto's brother, Vincent, 51, owns a construction company. Their sister, Aida, 48, runs a spa and is also a flight attendant. The youngest, Chito, is an architect. All graduated from Waipahu High School.

After the four children had made their way to college, hotelier Andre Tatibouet hired Alcantra to be executive housekeeper at the Aston Ka'anapali Shores. Supervising a staff of 100, she held the job from 1980 to 2003.

Alcantra, who now is working on a book about her life, said there's only one way a mother can ensure her kids are successful:

"I told them to look at me as an example," she said. "Whatever hardship you have, you have to endure and sacrifice."

MARIA NARRUHN

Maria Narruhn spends the bulk of her day tending to sons Marsh, 33, and Carl, 27, at the family's Kuhio Park Terrace apartment. Both are ill with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, a disease that progressively weakens facial, shoulder and arm muscles.

"They cannot walk, they cannot help themselves," Narruhn said. "They just become weaker."

Her husband, Tosiuo, also needs care, having been diagnosed with heart disease, high-blood pressure and diabetes.

Doctors have not been able to explain the cause of their sons' illness.

"I think it's because of the nuclear testing in our area," said Narruhn, who was a 10-year-old on the island of Fefan in 1954 when the United States set off a hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll.

Under the Compact of Free Association agreement between the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia, Narruhn's family, like other Micronesians, is eligible for services in the U.S. The treaty also allows free movement between the countries.

Narruhn first came to Hawai'i in 1991, when Marsh's condition began to deteriorate. Over three years, Marsh had two surgeries and countless doctor visits. In 1994, the two went back to Chuuk after Narruhn's mother had a stroke.

In 1996, doctors from Shriners Hospital advised her that Carl needed care in Honolulu. She returned with Carl and another son, Robert, who came to attend college and work part time to help out with family bills.

The value of schooling was always stressed, Narruhn said, noting, "Non-educated people don't get good jobs."

Gradually, as more family members moved to Hawai'i, the Narruhns moved into larger apartment units. "Two by two, our other kids came to help me, and I found jobs for them to work so they can help pay our bills," Narruhn said. The last of the children arrived in 2001.

Most are on their own now, and some have families. Dominick, 32, Helenty, 31, Robert, 30, Josepha, 29, Larry, 28, Darling Rose, 25, and Robin, 23, are all working here. There are five grandchildren.

Darling Rose is staying with her parents and helping care for her two ill brothers.

Maria and Tosiuo, both 62, also have taken in granddaughter Marmen, 9, as an adopted daughter. Only one child resides outside of Hawai'i. Hermaine, 34, lives in Guam and is going to college there.

The couple, both former teachers, long for home, where they remember a simpler life. What they ate either grew in the fields or was caught from the ocean, Maria Narruhn said. "That's my thought, but how can I leave my kids?"

The working children do not want to return to Chuuk permanently.

"They have jobs here. If they go home, no money, no jobs," their mother said.

Her children have assured her, however, that they will tend to needed upgrades at the family home in Fefan. "They plan to go back just to renovate our house and do some improvements in our yard," she said.

Narruhn also has confidence that the ill sons will be cared for long after she is gone, but she frets about the burden that will be passed on.

"It takes so much effort, and so much patience," she said. Several of the girls care for Marsh and Carl on Saturdays so their mother can have one day to relax.

A family surprise is in the works for today — Mother's Day. "They won't let me know what it is," Narruhn said. "My kids are very precious to me. It makes me very happy to see them growing up. And I'm always thinking about how to help them have a good life."

THUONG NGUYEN

When Thuong Nguyen's oldest child, Ngoc Yen, was a Seattle University student, she stayed up every night waiting for her daughter's phone call.

"The family is just so important to her," said Bao-Yen Nguyen, 18, Thuong's second daughter.

Bao-Yen Nguyen will be graduating from Farrington High School in a few weeks and is the recipient of a scholarship to attend Stanford University. She said she, too, will call her mother every day while she's away.

"Just to let her know how my day is going," Bao-Yen said, noting how her mother would worry about her sister when she didn't call.

Thuong Nguyen, 55, may worry out of habit.

Because of husband Lam Nguyen's involvement in the South Vietnamese army, he was placed in a re-education camp. He was also forced to live in rural areas, away from his family in Ho Chi Minh City.

When the United States offered political asylum in the early 1990s, the Nguyens jumped at the chance to escape persecution and provide their two daughters with better educational opportunities.

The family now lives in the Ka'ahumanu Homes housing complex in Kapalama. Lam works for a food service company, where he volunteers for as much overtime as possible. Thuong has stayed at home to pay better attention to the girls.

"We think it's an important thing for my sister and I have to have someone like my mom at home," Bao-Yen said. "When we first came here, it was very hard for us to adjust. We came from a wholly different place and we didn't know anyone."

Bao-Yen was 5 when the family arrived in Hawai'i. Her sister was 10.

In addition to education, public service and giving back to the community have also been stressed in the girls' upbringing, Thuong said in Vietnamese, with Bao-Yen translating. For example, the sisters have taken part in volunteer work with their church group, the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Society.

At Stanford, Bao-Yen intends to study engineering. She wants to one day teach either high school or college students in Hawai'i.

Ngoc Yen has earned a degree in psychology and is preparing for an entrance examination for graduate school. She eventually wants to work in a field that helps protect the environment, Bao-Yen said.

Bao-Yen said she will eventually return to Hawai'i to be close to her parents and sister, and give back to the community that took in her family more than a decade ago.

Thuong said it's important for mothers to remember to give more than just material things to their children.

"They need to be there for them spiritually and mentally so that they can reinforce in the child the need to be able to see the world — not just as buildings and jobs and careers, but how they can be better human beings," Thuong said.

Thuong also stresses to her children the importance of being humble.

"She doesn't do a lot of things people can see, but she does a lot behind the scenes," Bao-Yen said, noting a long list of church volunteer work. "And she always teaches me ... that serving others is a reward in itself."

"Physically, she's not as strong as other people, but I think she's the strongest person I know," Bao-Yen said. "She left her homeland, everyone she knows. She's gone through a lot of things to come here for her daughters."

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.