It seems to me that you did not have good counseling on how to choose safeties, matches and reaches. In that sense, your mom’s suggestion of a gap year and using a counselor will probably help - it won’t get you accepted places you weren’t before (I have a caveat here) but if it helps you find a good fit that you are happy with, then it will definitely help. You will also need to find something useful and constructive to do with your gap year - for your own growth, but you may even find that what you might end up doing would also help with college applications.
The caveat above - it’s possible that your essays could have used significant improvement, and a counselor might be able to help you improve on those. Better essays and a productive gap year might - might - improve your chances at one of the colleges you were turned down at.
The CC to UC route is also an option ( @Gumbymom i think will be best placed here also to talk about that), if you don’t mind missing out on a “full freshman experience” (though I understand some CCs are trying to replicate that with dorms etc). The other advantage of this route is, of course, cost. A number of students from my daughter’s (highly regarded public) high school have gone this route.
We are also immigrants. Although my daughter had a bit of an advantage over you in that she moved just before high school so at least had a full high school record here, I can completely sympathize with how difficult it is to get to grips with a college application system that seems so different from elsewhere in the world. We did hire a counselor to help us navigate it, and it really helped us. Best of luck with what you choose going forward.