Music was a lifeline for eight-year-old Susan Cruz, when she and her mother fled violence in El Salvador in 1978 and headed for California. In this next in our series on immigrants’ first days in the US, Cruz looks back on her tumultuous introduction to America. Music was a lifeline for eight-year-old Susan Cruz, when she and her mother fled violence in El Salvador in 1978 and headed for California. In this next in our series on immigrants’ first days in the US, Cruz looks back on her tumultuous introduction to America.