After Ruth Aguilar lost her job eight years ago, she locked herself in her house for two straight years. She spent days and nights writing down recipes, cooking them and perfecting the amount of the ingredients.

She had worked at a laundry for 23 years and needed a change of pace, she said.

"I told myself, 'Today, you start a new life,' and so I started developing my business plan. This time, I wanted something of my own. I decided I was going to open a restaurant, and I wanted to provide authentic Salvadoran food," said Aguilar, who emigrated from San Vicente, El Salvador, in 1981 while the country was in the midst of a civil war.

Her immediate family was spared, but many friends and neighbors didn't survive, she said. She followed her mother, who had left El Salvador five years before, to make a living in Albuquerque.

"I left with a sister and my 1-year-old son in my arms," said Aguilar, 55. For months, she slept on the floor, and she wore the same clothes and the one pair of high heels she had brought from El Salvador. She couldn't afford tennis shoes, so she went to work as a hotel maid wearing the heels. "My feet were killing me. I'll never forget that," Aguilar said.

She saved every penny and had purchased two homes, and after she was laid off in 2003, she had enough money saved to fulfill her American dream.

Aguilar opened Pupusería y Restaurante Salvadoreño in 2005 in Albuquerque. Last year, she opened her second restaurant at a Santa Fe site off Cerrillos Road, and today she's looking for a third location in Rio Rancho. Aguilar imports spices and ingredients from El Salvador and Los Angeles, she said.

"I tell my children, 'I want to leave you a patrimony that I've built with the sweat of my forehead,' " Aguilar said while she sat in her Santa Fe restaurant near a wall adorned with an American and a Salvadoran flag. A waitress was busy cleaning tables and sweeping the restaurant floor. Inside the kitchen, a cook was making chicken tamales, wrapped in banana leaves.

Aguilar's son, Edwin Aguilar, now 32, is a U.S. Army veteran. He and his mother alternate days and shifts at both restaurants. Ruth Aguilar's daughter, Lupita, 20, is a jeweler in Albuquerque.

Edwin Aguilar said he's happy to work with his mother, but he gives her full credit.

"I just help," he said. "This is all my mother's work."

With her businesses operating, Ruth Aguilar is in a position to help the community, she said. She hosts the Salvadoran Mobile Consulate when it comes from Arizona to provide services for Salvadorans in New Mexico, and sometimes she partners with the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque to hold cultural events.

Her success, her fine clothes and her wavy, honey-colored hair have not changed who she is, Ruth Aguilar said.

"I have not changed one bit," she said. "When I go back to El Salvador, I still walk barefooted and carry a basket over my head. I take pride in that. We are all the same. We are all brothers and sisters."