Her then-5-year-old daughter, Adelamaria, sent it to her so she could dry her sweat after a long day at a clothing factory.

It's the only gift Mendoza has ever received from her only child, whom she left behind in Eñcinitos, Guatemala, for a $4.25-an-hour job ironing clothes in Los Angeles.

"I keep it like a memory," Mendoza said, holding the towel as tenderly as she would a baby. "Without knowing me, she thought of me."

It has been almost two decades since Mendoza has seen her daughter. She came to the United States as an undocumented worker but now has permission to be here. She could leave the country, but she would lose her U.S. immigration status and could not return.

She has applied for residency, but it could take months or years - even as each day seems only longer and harder.

Holidays, such as Mother's Day, are a terrible reminder of how Mendoza's decision to flee her tiny farming town has provided her family with an almost worry-free lifestyle but cost her a child.

Was it worth it? She missed Adelamaria's childhood and passage into womanhood. She missed every birthday party, Christmas and Easter with her family. And she missed her parents' funerals.

"Sometimes, I regret that I came to the United States," Mendoza said this week as she flipped through the dozen or so photos she has of Adelamaria. "The only hope I have is the dream of seeing my daughter again."

Adelamaria, now 19, also questions her mother's decision. She has always been surrounded by family in Guatemala, but she sometimes feels alone. She has gotten to know her mom through telephone calls but yearns for details - her favorite color, food and drink, a bit of gossip, boy talk.

"My grandma was practically my mother, and she was great, but she couldn't replace my mother," Adelamaria said this week in a telephone interview from Guatemala.

And there's a question Adelamaria wants to ask her mother in person: How could you leave me?

Guatemala to L.A.

Growing up in the 1950s and '60s in Eñcinitos, Mendoza and her seven siblings didn't have the nicest shoes and clothes, but they always had enough to eat.

"You only bought what you could afford," she said.

Mendoza's father, Jilberto, farmed corn, rice and black beans while her mother kept house, made tortillas and took care of the kids in a two-bedroom mud-brick home next to a river.

By the late 1970s, though, some people started heading north to California to work in factories. Mendoza's brother-in-law went first and her sister later followed, leaving her two children - an 18-month-old daughter and 8-month-old son - with Mendoza, who cared for them like her own.

Guatemalans were lured to the United States by the better-paying jobs, Mendoza said. In the early 1980s, laborers made $25 to $30 a month in Guatemala; they could get $700 a month in California.

In 1983, Mendoza left for California to take the kids to her sister. She was in the United States illegally but got a factory job within days. She stayed in Los Angeles for a few years but went back to Guatemala when she got pregnant and broke up with her boyfriend.

Mendoza gave birth to Adelamaria on July 4, 1987, in Guatemala City. All she could think about was how she was going to feed her daughter and give her an education.

Heading north

Mendoza thought about it for months and, with her parents' approval, made her decision.

At about 3:30 a.m. on July 19, 1988, she slipped out of the bed she shared with her 1-year-old daughter.

She picked up Adelamaria, who was wearing pink pajamas, cradled her and tucked her back into bed.

It was the last time she hugged her child.

"I told her she had to stay with my mom because I had to go work, but I wasn't abandoning her, because I loved her very much," Mendoza said, swabbing her cheeks and eyes with a napkin. "I said I would [go to the United States] for four years, and I would return."

Within a few days, Mendoza was folding and shipping clothes for $4.25 an hour in an L.A. factory. Within months, she was sending her mom about $400 a month for doctor visits, food, clothes and house repairs.

"They had no worries about money," she said. "I sent them money for everything."

About five years later, Mendoza applied for political asylum and got a work permit.

"La migra could come do raids all they wanted, and I felt safe and protected because I had permission to work," she said.

Mendoza moved to the Salt Lake City area in 1994 and found work at another clothing factory, where she now makes $7.90 an hour. Only three of about 30 employees in her department are in the U.S. legally.

For years, Mendoza has wanted to give up and return home. She hates the way her bosses belittle her and her co-workers. She hates the way Latinos get blamed for everything that goes wrong at the factory. She hates the discrimination she faces.

"I'm treated like an animal, just here to work and work," she said.

Then, Mendoza thinks of her daughter.

When she was about 6, Adelamaria started asking, "Mama, do you think you'll be here by my next birthday?"

''I'd say, 'Mija, I don't know, but the day will come when we'll be together,' '' Mendoza said.

But had she stayed in Guatemala, she never would have been able to afford the big birthday parties attended by everybody in town, and the food, cake and piñatas.

Adelamaria's 15th birthday marked her emergence into womanhood, her quince años. Her mother's labor made possible her white, frilly gown and crown and the tent, tables, chairs and disc jockey for the party. The photos taken that day are the most recent Mendoza has of her child.

These days, she pays Adelamaria's tuition for a private Catholic school and a computer course.

And she's saving to buy her daughter a computer.

Looking back, and ahead

For Adelamaria, it was hard to be away from her mother.

It took her years to warm up to the stranger on the phone that she was told to call "mama."

All Adelamaria knew is that her mother was working far away in the United States because she needed to take care of the family.

So Adelamaria had only her daydreams.

"I wondered if she looked like me. I wanted to ask her who my father was," she said. "I wanted to ask her why she had left me here so young."

Adelamaria understands that her family was very poor and her mother left with good intentions, but she doesn't think it was worth it.

"I would have preferred that she would have stayed with me," she said. "Because everyone always wants their mom."

So she waits for the moment she'll meet her mom, talk to her, maybe take a trip to Guatemala City together.

And 52-year-old Mendoza prays that this year she'll become a U.S. resident, allowing her to visit her hometown. If all goes smoothly, her immigration attorney tells her, that could happen in October.

One day, she hopes, Adelamaria can come to live with her and her husband in Utah.

Until then, Mendoza said, they'll just continue to talk on the phone. Just the other day, Adelamaria called to ask her mother for some money to pay a school bill.

"I'll send it to you Thursday so you can pay that. Do you have enough to pay the college?" Mendoza asked. "Make sure you take care of yourself and we'll see each other soon, mijita."

She hung up the phone and wept.

jsanchez@sltrib.com