Today we’d like to introduce you to Zalarita Alvarez.
Hi Zalarita, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
# My Story
My story is one of survival, motherhood, sacrifice, family, and starting over—but it is also a story about legacy.
My family has deep roots in Tampa history. **Francisco Milian, my great-great-grandfather, was a Cuban-born community leader who became mayor of West Tampa in the early 1900s.** Historical accounts describe him as a cigar-factory lector, a role in which he read newspapers and other materials aloud to cigar workers, and as someone deeply connected to the working-class Cuban community of West Tampa. He served as mayor beginning in 1901 and was elected to multiple one-year terms.
Knowing that this is part of my family history means a lot to me. Long before I was fighting my own battles, someone in my family was navigating adversity and making his mark on the community around him. That history is part of the legacy I carry with me.
But my own childhood was far from easy.
From the age of **12 until I turned 18, I was a foster child.** I experienced things during my childhood that no child should ever have to experience. Growing up without the stability and security every child deserves forced me to learn how to survive at an incredibly young age.
There were experiences and trauma that shaped me in ways I didn’t always understand at the time. There were moments when I felt completely alone, unwanted, and broken. I had to grow up carrying things that were far too heavy for a child to carry.
But somehow, I kept going.
Those years became part of the foundation of the woman I would eventually become. They taught me what it felt like to need someone to fight for you—and that experience would later become one of the reasons I became the mother who fights so fiercely for her own children.
Becoming a mother changed everything.
My children became my reason to keep fighting, even during the moments when I was struggling the most. I have spent years putting their needs before my own, sacrificing, rebuilding, and doing whatever I could to give them the stability, love, and opportunities that I wanted for myself growing up.
I wanted my children to have what I didn’t always have.
I wanted them to know that no matter what happened in life, their mother would show up for them.
More recently, my family went through one of the most difficult chapters of our lives when my daughter began facing serious and complex medical challenges. She was diagnosed with **OHVIRA syndrome**, a rare congenital condition involving the reproductive system that has required extensive medical care and procedures.
Watching my child go through pain, uncertainty, procedures, and medical appointments has been one of the hardest things I have ever experienced as a mother.
When her health became a major concern, I made the decision to leave Florida and move to Houston so I could get her the medical care she needed. I left behind the life I knew and essentially started over from nothing.
There were moments of uncertainty, financial struggles, housing struggles, family struggles, and battles that I never imagined I would have to face.
There were also moments when I was terrified. As a mother, you can handle a lot when the person hurting is you—but watching your child go through something you cannot simply fix is a completely different kind of pain.
Through all of it, I kept going.
I kept showing up for my daughter. I kept showing up for my other children. Even when I was exhausted, overwhelmed, financially struggling, or emotionally broken, I continued fighting because my children needed me.
Social media eventually became a place where I started sharing pieces of my real life—my struggles, my humor, my motherhood, my healing, and the things people don’t always see behind the scenes. One of my videos unexpectedly went viral, reaching millions of people, and suddenly people who didn’t know me were seeing a small piece of my personality and my story.
But the viral moment isn’t really what my story is about.
It’s about everything that happened before and after it.
It’s about a former foster child who grew up with uncertainty and hardship and became a mother determined to create something different for her own children.
It’s about a mother who packed up her life and moved states because her daughter needed her.
It’s about learning how to rebuild while carrying the weight of medical uncertainty, financial pressure, family struggles, and the responsibility of raising children.
It’s about loving your children so deeply that even when you feel like you have nothing left to give, you find a way to keep going.
And it’s about legacy.
My great-great-grandfather left his mark on West Tampa more than a century ago. My childhood shaped me through experiences I never asked for. Becoming a mother gave me a reason to turn those experiences into something different.
I don’t want my children to inherit my pain.
I want them to inherit my strength.
Today, I’m still rebuilding. I’m still learning, still healing, still fighting for my children, and still trying to turn some of the hardest chapters of my life into something meaningful.
I want people to know that you can be broken and still keep moving. You can come from the foster care system and still build a family. You can lose everything and start again. You can come from a painful past and still create a beautiful future.
My daughter’s journey with OHVIRA syndrome changed our lives, but it does not define her. And the struggles my family has faced do not define us either.
My childhood is part of my story, but it is not the ending.
My family’s history is part of my story, but I am still creating my own legacy.
I’m not at the finish line. I’m in the middle of the story—and I believe the best chapters are still ahead.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Absolutely not. My journey has been anything but smooth. I’ve faced childhood trauma, difficult relationships, financial struggles, homelessness, and moments where I felt completely broken. There have been times when I had to make impossible decisions while still trying to be a strong mother for my children.
One of my biggest challenges came when my daughter began facing serious medical issues. I made the decision to leave Florida and move to Houston so she could receive the care she needed. I left behind everything familiar and had to rebuild our lives from the ground up. There were times I didn’t know where we would live, how I would provide, or how I was going to keep everything together.
At the same time, I’ve had to navigate family struggles and the emotional challenges that come with fighting for my children and trying to keep our family together.
There were definitely moments when I questioned how much more I could take. But every time life knocked me down, I found another reason to get back up. My children have always been my biggest motivation.
I’m still overcoming obstacles today, but I’ve learned that strength doesn’t mean you never break. Sometimes strength is putting yourself back together, one day at a time, and continuing to move forward even when you’re scared.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work today is really an extension of my life and my experiences. Before becoming a full-time content creator, I worked as a private caregiver. About two years ago, I made the difficult decision to stop working so I could dedicate myself to caring for my daughter and being there for her medical needs. At that point, my priority was my child—not my career.
During that time, I began sharing more of my life on social media. What started as simply being myself and documenting pieces of my everyday life eventually grew into a platform of its own. I became known for my humor, honesty, motherhood, and willingness to share the real parts of life—not just the picture-perfect moments.
Today, I’m a content creator and storyteller. I create relatable content centered around real life, motherhood, family, struggles, healing, humor, and rebuilding. I’ve also begun working with brands and creating content that feels authentic rather than forced. I want people to feel like they’re connecting with a real person, not just watching an advertisement.
What I’m most proud of is the community I’ve built. My content has reached millions of people, but the numbers aren’t what mean the most to me. It’s the messages from people who tell me that something I shared made them laugh, encouraged them, or made them feel less alone.
What sets me apart is that I didn’t build my platform from a perfect life. I built it while living through some of the hardest chapters of mine. I stepped away from my career to care for my daughter, put my family first, and eventually had to rebuild my own life while continuing to show up for my children.
I’m not afraid to be vulnerable, laugh at myself, tell the truth, or show the messy parts of life. I think people connect with me because I’m unapologetically real. I’m not trying to portray a perfect life—I’m showing people what it looks like to keep going when life gets hard.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
The people who deserve the most credit for my journey are my children. They have been my biggest motivation, my reason to keep going, and the reason I’ve continued to push forward even during the hardest moments of my life. So many of the decisions I’ve made—including stepping away from my career to care for my daughter—have been because of them.
I also have to give credit to the strangers who have become supporters of my journey. People who found me through social media, watched my story unfold, shared my content, sent me encouraging messages, and reminded me that my voice matters. Some of these people have never met me in person, yet they have supported me during some of the most difficult chapters of my life.
Those unexpected supporters have meant more to me than they probably realize. They’ve shown me that sometimes the people who believe in you aren’t necessarily the people who have known you the longest—they can be complete strangers who simply connect with your story.
My children gave me the reason to fight, and my supporters have reminded me that I’m not fighting alone.
Pricing:
- I don’t know what this means
Contact Info:
- Instagram: HTTPS://www.Instagram.com/zalarita
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/z.alvarez1022
- Twitter: https://x.com/zazaljhm
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@zalarita89
