Pluma 2020: Time of Change

TIME OF CHANGE

EDITORIAL TEAM Edwin Castellanos Campos Ellen Mayock Seth Michelson Garrett Allen Alexa Caffio-Learner

TRANSLATIONS The translations from Spanish to English were completed by Adelaide Bell, Edwin Castellanos Campos, Emma Cleveland, Eleni Filley, George Folline, McKinley Hamilton, Mimi Miller, Megan Murchie-Beyma, Lauren Oakes, Julie Phipps, Caroline Rivers, and Joshua Valdez as a part of the Spanish 295 course “Vivir en comunidad.” Translators worked to maintain the natural flow of the interview format in the original Spanish. Words that were said in English in the original interviews appear in bold.

PHOTOGRAPHS All photographs were taken in Rockbridge County by Edwin Castellanos Campos.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Clover Archer, Laura Calhoun, Billy Chase, Marc Conner, Linda Cummings, Andrea Lepage, Kylie Piotte, Shirley Richardson, the Romance Languages faculty, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program, the English for Speakers of Other Languages organization, and the Executive Committee of Washington and Lee for the support they have given to this project. Additionally, I would like to thank Professor Mayock, who was the supervisor and main editor for my independent study. More than anything, I would like to thank every person who has allowed us to listen to their stories through Time for Change. ¡Gracias!

Edwin Castellanos Campos

PUBLISHED IN SPANISH IN WINTER, 2019.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION PUBLISHED IN SPRING, 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS WELCOME TO ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY – INTRODUCTION MEXICO “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way” �������������������������������������������� 4 “I Am Very Proud to Be an Immigrant. Despite the Unimaginable Difficulties, I Wouldn’t Be the Person That I Am Today Without This Aspect of my Identity.” ����������������������������������������������������������������� 9 “We Latinos Are Present” ������������������������������������������������������������ 14 “Returning provides the opportunity to compare my memories with the reality of things” � ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 19 “We’re not all the same” ������������������������������������������������������������� 24 “She Had Me in a World and then She Took Me Out of That and Put Me Somewhere Else” ��������������������������������������������������������������������� 27 “Simply, It’s Getting Ahead.” ������������������������������������������������������� 33 “Everybodys Dream, Right?” ������������������������������������������������������� 39 “The Sun Rises for Everyone.” ������������������������������������������������������ 45

EL SALVADOR “Half In and Half Not” ��������������������������������������������������������������� 50 “The United States is All I Have” ��������������������������������������������������� 54

COLOMBIA “Thank God I Came to a Place Where There Was Snow.” ����������������� 58

PERU “Chose between being American or Peruvian” ������������������������������� 63 “It’s what every Peruvian is going to tell you.” ��������������������������������� 69 “It Paid Off to Work Hard” ���������������������������������������������������������� 76

ARGENTINA “How do people engage in political participation?” ������������������������ 82

SPAIN “I prefer to get up in the morning looking for those other 20 things I do like and not spend my day looking for the 20 negative things.” ������� 87

MORE THAN AN IMMIGRANT – CONCLUSION

WELCOME TO ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY – INTRODUCTION “We Latinos are present” is the feeling of many Spanish speaking immigrants, but unfortunately Latinos are not seen that way in Rockbridge County. When I started at Washington and Lee University, I didn’t expect to meet many Latinos in the community.

Through ESOL, the Immigrant Rights clinic, and other organizations and events, I began to meet members of the community who have called Rockbridge County their home for a long time. Although there is a small percentage of Latinos that live in the county, all of them form part of the community like any other person who lives in the county.

This project started as a result of a conversation with several of the people who are a part of the publication. Each person who migrates to the United States has a story to tell and ideas to express. The publication continues a dialog between the Latino community and the university that will help form better connections, thus serving the well-being of the Spanish-speaking immigrants of Rockbridge County including the deepening recognition of the achievements and challenges of this community on behalf of the university.

With ten interviews in Spanish, the interviewees express how they feel in a country in which they weren’t born in and explain the path they have taken to arrive in Rockbridge County. By sharing the thoughts and ideas of each person, I hope that the members of the community who have minimal contact with Spanish speakers learn about the Latinos who live in, work in, and help the Rockbridge County community in Virginia. Also, seven Latino students who immigrated at a young age were interviewed to write their stories and to articulate their dreams and challenges to share them more broadly in the local community.

The people interviewed want to work in the community, study at a university, help their families and, more than anything, better their lives. Although all are Spanish speakers and immigrated to the United States, each person has a different story, which reflects the diversity among Spanish-speaking immigrants. All are more than immigrants and deserve to be heard and included like any other person who studies, works, and lives in our communities.

(35min26sec 05/15/18)

“WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY” My name is Julián Andrés Gómez. I come from the city of Guadalajara in Jalisco. My family is comprised of one sister and one brother. My parents are separated. All of them are in Mexico. I am 18. My brother is 14. My sister is 27. My mom is 40, I think.

I stopped going to high school because, well, I live alone and it’s burdensome to pay rent, your bills, and your food. I mean, to work and to study isn’t impossible, but it’s burdensome and it’s the reason that I left school, and, besides, I dream of helping my parents and I wasn’t going to be able to if I was both studying and working.

I have it in my future plans to take, as they call it, the GED, finish high school so that I can get a better job and be able to better help my family, which is the reason one comes here, to be able to help their family. I see myself having a trailer, I don’t want a luxurious car. If I could have a restaurant or something like that, what more could I want, right?

I was born here. But, well, when my grandpa was doing badly, my mother’s father, well, my parents didn’t have documents or papers, so, we left to go back there because he was really bad off. They were told to leave because it was certain he would pass away. It is the reason we went there and, well, to see how things were, to be there. And it was the reason that we stayed there for 11 years.

Here, when I was six years old, I moved back there. I spent 11 years in Mexico. My parents can’t come back and I was the only one who returned here to help them because of their earnings, the wages there in Mexico, it’s really expensive, from gas to even eggs and lemons, everything.

My brother, the youngest, is from here and my older sister is from there. My little brother is still with my family.

The reason you migrate here is because, to buy some sneakers here, you work for two days and you can buy them. There, you work for a month, but if you want to buy those sneakers,

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you don’t eat for that whole month to buy the sneakers you want, so that’s the reason people come here, because there’s more opportunity here.

I mean, a chance, something like that, that gives you the ability to get those things you can’t obtain there. That is like the opportunity that, well, from my point of view, I mean, what someone can’t have there, you can have here as long as you work hard, you know? So, that’s the reason people move here. It’s very difficult there.

Suppose, in general, a salary is a thousand (pesos) per week, but your water bill comes out to be 200, and rent starts at a thousand dollars. To buy yourself, well, over there it’s common to use what we call los chafas, those are the ones you wear and that’s one of the reasons you migrate here – to be able to make money and send some back over. Money here is worth more than there. That is the reason people come here, to be able to buy a car. What I mean is, what you can’t have there, you can have it here.

The way I do it is a biweekly paycheck is for my bills here, and the other biweekly paycheck goes to, like, spending for myself and part of it to send to my family. Well, more than anything my mom is who I send money to because my dad lives with another woman, and my mom, well, she’s single and has my younger brother. It’s her that I help. The balance, you have to manage yourself. You’re not going to spend two dollars on water here at the store that you have at home. Not spending money unwisely. Like I told you, it’s a biweekly paycheck for my bills and my rent and all that, and another biweekly paycheck, so to speak 70% for me, and 30% I send to my mom.

You teach yourself to manage money because, when your family is there, you’re used to your mom giving you a roof over your head and everything. You’re used to it and just as you get a sense of money, you waste it. Here, you can’t waste it because, if you don’t pay your rent, you’re out. There, well, if you don’t give money to your mom, well, they’re not going to throw you out. And it’s nice because you train yourself to value life, in a way. So, that’s what I like here because, in the future, sooner or later, you’re going to be with your parents. You have to let go of what you don’t need. Like they say, if you train yourself from then on, everything that follows will be a lot easier.

It’s what I like about living alone. To be paying for things, and, well, because if a

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family member arrives, you already more or less know where you are, you are managing better. Over there, well, your mom gives you everything. Here, you’re teaching yourself.

You’re in a country where they speak English. It is 100% important to speak English because even if you don’t have documents or papers here, speaking English, you can find a good job or merely leave for Mexico speaking English well. My sister works in that area. She’s bilingual and speaks English and Spanish well.

I didn’t know English and I started learning as a chipero. I don’t speak it 100%, but it’s been pretty difficult.

Like they say, if there’s a will, there’s a way, so if you want to, you can start to learn. But it’s a little more difficult when you don’t practice. I learned it, in part, as a chipero waiter. I listened to the clients and later they would ask me questions in English, so, I began to grasp some. Selling chips, I made 300 pesos every two weeks. A chipero is someone who brings chips to the tables. That’s why, like I mentioned, it was so hard not working in the afternoons on the weekends anymore. With 300 every two weeks, 600 per month went almost entirely towards rent.

It gave me the opportunity to start working there. And, well, later I learned because I spoke English when I was little and, well, in Mexico, 11 years I never practiced it, I forgot it. And then when I came back that I began to listen to it this way, I began to catch on again. From there, he promoted me to waiter. There, I’m not going to lie to you, you do make good money, if you’re a good waiter. It also depends on the kind of service you give, what tip they will leave you. In other words, if you treat the customer badly and they were going to leave you $10, they’ll leave you $2. If you want to save money, work in a restaurant because there you eat and everything. You’re there the whole day. There you can eat. You only go to your house to bathe, eat, and sleep. When you’re working in a factory, well, you spend on your lunch and you spend on transport, so you come and go on your break and in a restaurant you can stay, you eat there. There I was paying 500 at most; here I am paying 800. The restaurant lets me save money.

I already came determined that things weren’t going to be the same because now I have to work to support myself. It’s the only real difference. I already came mentally prepared that I had to work and, well, pay my rent. Being alone is awful. The loneliness is what sucks. It is the only difference that I’ve discovered as of now.

What I like here is that it’s calmer, more quiet. It’s calmer than the city. Those are the reasons that I like it here, like a little village. As its smaller, there’s less despapaye. I like it because everything is very close by, very close. You feel like in Mexico because everyone knows you. Since it’s a little town, you know

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each other. If it’s a city, some live over there, others over here. It’s all joined together. There’s only one Wal-Mart, everyone goes to that Wal-Mart, to the one in Lexington. But I would like it if there were more work. Yes, there’s work, but the jobs are very limited in this little town. Also, that they’d put public transport that includes more streets because, if you pay attention, in this street there’s no transport that takes you to Lexington.

You meet some Latinos at your job, they know others, they introduce you to them. The others know others; they introduce you to them. That’s how you get to meet Latinos at your job. Amongst the Latinos you begin to meet through your job, your co-workers know others, your co-workers’ friends know others, and that’s how your friendships start to spread, one can say. A Latino here in the United States is very different from over there in México. Like I said, here they have more opportunity. I like the people here better, the Latinos.

A Latino sends most of the money to Mexico, so they look for the cheapest things at home. You don’t know if they’re going to deport you to Mexico so therefore you don’t buy the best. I don’t have that fear because I know. The Latino community isn’t going to buy a good car because, if they deport them, the government will be left with the car. They don’t buy a nice house because, if they deport them, the government will be left with it. When I was here, my sister wanted beautiful beds and would say my friends have this one and this one, and this was what my mother said to her, we can’t have it because, if the government comes to throw us out, everything will be lost. She would say we’ll send it over there. In Mexico there’s none of that stuff about being thrown out. That’s why we Mexicans stay only in trailers or apartments. It’s rare that you’ll see a family renting a big house. A Latino family, or it’s because they have money, or it’s because they’re living here and they’re going to stay. But for the majority of Mexicans, you come over here for a few years, send money, prepare your stuff, make your home and return there. They leave for their homeland. It’s what the majority of Mexicans do. Well, a Latino.

All Latinos continue striving for their American Dream. And that, well, we like to lend a hand to each another and to give it our all because that’s why we came here. I mean, if you see a Mexican who’s trying to say something at the store and they can’t and you know that, well, to help them, right, it’s what we like to do for each other. It’s what we have, that, well, we like to help each other like that.

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(17min17sec 10/29/2018)

“I AM VERY PROUD TO BE AN IMMIGRANT. DESPITE THE UNIMAGINABLE DIFFICULTIES, I WOULDN’T BE THE PERSON THAT I AM TODAY WITHOUT THIS ASPECT OF MY IDENTITY.” We wanted to escape the violence, the crime, and have a better future by obtaining an education and, thus, a good job. It was a decision my parents made because I was too little to make a decision for myself.

I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know English. I didn’t know where we were going to move to. I only knew, they told us that we had to leave our country for our safety and to survive. Everything happened very quickly, and there are parts of the story that, honestly, hurt to remember. The violence was normalized. Some family members had to stay and I haven’t seen them in more than a decade. I don’t know when the time will come that I will see them again.

I miss the culture, the people, and my family because they can’t come to the United States… But at the same time, I don’t miss the violence or the lifestyle.

Yes, I would like to leave the country without the fear of being deported. I would like to visit my family and explore new parts of the world. What I miss most is the culture… The traditions that I grew up appreciating.

When I was being accepted to multiple colleges with full scholarships, I recognized that I deserved to be here because I had to earn my place in my new country and work twice as hard to compensate for the programs that I don’t qualify for (federal aid from FAFSA and other scholarships that require

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citizenship). There are definitely times when I feel like people like me are not welcome or treated correctly due to lack of empathy or proper knowledge on the subject of immigration, and that’s sad to recognize.

I think with this political climate, the people who are against immigrants feel empowered to speak of their opposition, and it’s not easy to know that Dreamers like yourself are the subject of many politicians or that your people are called “criminals” and “rapists” and that there are kids who grow up believing these things. I feel like we are losing the humanity of people in the midst of all the politics.

The ignorance. People who come from different backgrounds, some more privileged than others, don’t realize how desperate people are to seek a better future. If they took a little time to hear the immigrant’s side, they would understand the person’s motives better.

There’s a lack of respect and dignity and humanity with children being separated from their families at the border. Not being sure of my future due to the complications with an education and careers, which many people are not informed about. I think that all of the legal restrictions when you’re only here with a permit or whichever status that isn’t “citizenship” makes you feel hopeless about your future. You have to do more than the majority of people who are citizens to achieve the minimum.

I was forced to give up on many of my dreams because of limitations.

Although I initially wanted to go to law school, I know that I couldn’t take the bar exam because I am not a citizen. I also had to be realistic with myself and recognize that I didn’t qualify for the majority of scholarships that would help me get to the next step in my career. Right now I’m not sure what my aspirations are, but I know that I am taking all of the right steps to get to that point and doing all that is in my control.

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I would like for them to understand the lack of representation that we feel.

The only changes that are being implemented are those initiated by students.

I would like if people took the time and effort to learn about immigration and listen to people’s stories and to their motives for coming to this country. Also that other people knew how frustrating or difficult it is to wake up on the other side of the country knowing that your family members can be deported and that you never know when the last time that you’ll see them is and that you can lose them in a matter of seconds. Also, people want to “do the right thing” but the system is broken and forces people to act in situations of desperation. I would also like to see people who, if they have power or their voices will be heard, use their influence to communicate what we can’t because of our fear.

Although being undocumented has limits and it’s something that’s difficult to understand, I am very grateful that my experiences have forced me to be stronger because in reality there has been no other option. I am very proud to be an immigrant because I have surpassed all of the obstacles that have come my way and I have gotten to where I am now. Sometimes it’s disheartening that I can’t share this valuable aspect of my identity because I am afraid of how other people will respond.

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(18min01sec 10/17/2018)

“WE LATINOS ARE PRESENT” My name is Camila Horta Montaño. I was born in Jalisco, Mexico and I arrived in the United States with my parents when I was one year old. Like many immigrants, we came to look for better opportunities. My parents had the goal of giving my brother and me the experience of an education and other opportunities that they couldn’t have. They couldn’t advance in their studies and they didn’t want that for their children. So, they brought us to the country of dreams. We came to the United States. It was hard at first. Obviously, it’s difficult to start in a new country that you’ve never known, with an unfamiliar language. I later growing up understood that the transition from Mexico to the United States was difficult for my parents. But they fought, so, that motivates me to fight and to continue with my studies with the purposes that they had for us.

I learned English as a student. My parents, unlike many immigrants, they didn’t try to force us to learn English and assimilate, but my parents saw the benefits of teaching, to us, their children, both languages perfectly. So they tried to or had one rule at home: “Habla español en la casa.” At school you speak English or Spanish, whatever you want. That is very different from what I hear from other students because sometimes I hear that they did not understand or take in Spanish well because their parents wanted them to speak English well and understand it. And for me it was the opposite. If I came in—the moment that I entered the house, if I wasn’t speaking Spanish they wouldn’t listen to me. People didn’t listen to me and that started since kindergarten. I remember in kindergarten arriving home with books on English prepositions and having to read it and not speak English with my siblings because it wasn’t right. We had to speak Spanish so that helped me a lot in the future, I believe. I remember in middle school, and in elementary school, it was a little hard to be able to speak and write English grammar

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because it was a transition where there were many students who spoke Spanish, and later I entered into a different school system where they used a lot more of the academic and academic writing. I remember scribbling in papers that I felt weird about because I couldn’t express myself well in English or correctly. But slowly I learned to write and speak it well.

My parents made a big effort so that I understood what was going on in my country. Growing up, we watched the news in Univision each day. I always watched TV in Spanish. Later, I looked for other ways to learn about my country and all of that. But obviously I think that I don’t know much or enough and it’s sad. I’m from there; I represent it. They’re my roots. Not knowing enough about my family or about what’s going on over there.

Of course, I miss being able to travel. It’s incredible how much I don’t know about my family there, and, yes, my parents are still in communication with them but that connection is missed. There’s also the fear of traveling, obviously, even coming to a university far from home. I’ll never forget when I told my mom that I wanted to study out of state. My mom’s worry with questions of what could happen. I was okay with certain documents and all that but there is always worry. Obviously at a school like W&L there’s the opportunity and more or less the guarantee that you can travel outside the country—but that’s not the case for me and many other students. As a student, you have to tell your classmates and people that, well, that truly isn’t possible for me. It’s at times more difficult to explain the situation to others than to myself. You miss out on opportunities and what could have been if you had the opportunity to travel or to see other places or to return to where you were born.

It’s complicated because I feel like I’m a part of the United States, but there are moments on the outside, truly, that I am not like really part of the United States. This country reminds me, with laws and comments, that this country doesn’t want me. Very early my parents. You hear the stories of the students who turn 18, send their college applications, and discover they’re undocumented students. And they, not knowing, didn’t have that in mind in the process of applying to colleges; and at times the financial opportunities Pluma • 15

aren’t there. My parents wanted to avoid this because they’d heard that story before. So very soon, I’m not sure how old I was, 11, well, maybe.

They told us about the situation and gave us that perspective. When I finally understood my situation, I remember spending hours remembering the past and finally having justifications for the lack of certain activities. That’s why we avoided doing certain things. That’s why we excluded ourselves from certain activities. Because there was fear for what could’ve happened to us, to my parents, to my family. And in that moment, I realized that it was different, that the United States was going to view us differently and that I had to take caution with what I did.

As an immigrant, I had been able to adapt to situations. It’s necessary and it’s how I was raised. When I got to college, I understood what I was getting into. I met students like me (who are in the same situation legally) before starting and I thought, if they can do it, why can’t I? I still have those hopes of... it’s going well for me, obviously there is shock from social life and a lack of diversity, but I think that all students are feeling that. I’m not alone in that, obviously. There is a lack of practicing Spanish. There are certain activities and organizations that are for people like me. The university has contacted me about my situation and, if I have any questions, I can go to them or with any situation that I don’t feel good about, I can go talk to them, with representatives. The support is there, but there’s still a lack of awareness of people’s situations. Sometimes things are said and students and professors don’t think it applies to students who are sitting in their classes.

I’ll never forget that I’m an immigrant and that certain situations are going to be different for me, but you have to fight to change, to change what’s happening or to have a positive effect. My parents wanted me to

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be reserved about what was happening to them and to our family legally.

They didn’t want their children to be so political or so vocal for the same reason, out of fear. But for my sister and me, if we don’t do something, we wouldn’t be a part of the discussion that’s occurring right now in the country— the discussion of immigrants. We were feeling like we’re failing as representatives of a large group of immigrants. We Latinos are present. We work hard. And we want to be active in the conversation that involves us.

We are part of communities, families, and proud to be here. That has been a challenge, like convincing our parents that what we’re doing is to help them. To accomplish the dreams that they had to give us, opportunities that they didn’t have.

For my future I hope to be a citizen. But, before that, my goal would be to educate myself and eventually educate others. Being in education, I would love to be a teacher at a point in my life, but I know that I have a responsibility to my family also and to the large community in my city that has welcomed me.

I think I’ve already said it a lot, but, my parents. The sacrifices they’ve made.

I will never be able to express to them the gratitude I have for them. Without them I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be fighting for them. My parents have influenced the person that motivates me academically. My older brother, as the first child going through the same situation, he has taken opportunities, sacrifices and steps bigger than I have. He was advancing, but the sense of risk was always following him, his motivation to continue and to fight for his education is the reason why he’s a great mentor to me.

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(19min36sec 10/17/2018)

“RETURNING PROVIDES THE OPPORTUNITY TO COMPARE MY MEMORIES WITH THE REALITY OF THINGS” My name is Mario Lionel Pérez Soto. I was born in Guanajuato. Everything had to do with work. My dad came on a work visa. He was the only one here and he felt that we would have a better life here than over there, so he bought us plane tickets, and we came when I was two years old and, well, obviously, I don’t remember that, but we only stayed a bit longer and, afterwards, recently, about eight years ago, we started the process to become citizens, and we’re residents.

Some of my first memories are when I was four years old. My mom and dad had like semi-separated for some weeks and my mom took us, my sister, brother, and me, to Mexico to live with her mom in case her marriage with my dad was ruined beyond repair.

So, when I was four years old, I remember being with my cousins. Being in the house of my grandma. I remember a store that was called “la nave,” where we bought snacks and whatnot. And, well, my first memories were playing in the street between the house and the store telling stories of “la mano peluda” and “el diablo,” simple things like that.

The first time since arriving here at the age of two, the first time that I went back was when I was four. But then my dad and my mom got back together or they resolved what happened between them. Since then, we have returned to visit from time to time, I think about three times, but the two most recent times have been these past two summers.

Returning provides the opportunity to compare my memories with the reality of things.

And, well, obviously since I feel so much pride in being Mexican, I have created this idea of Mexico and my family members over there in Mexico as perfection. With wellintended nostalgia nothing bad can happen, but now I can analyze things, now I can critique certain things that deserve critique. Every time I’ve gone back, I don’t know if this is common, but both sides of my family, the Perez and the Soto, are very superficial.

They focus a lot on themselves. There is a lot of negativity—you have to have brand clothing, you have to earn a lot of money, you have to go out to party, and all of that.

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And I don’t know, it’s completely different from the idea that I had created, that it was a simple place where everyone loves each other and respected each other. Reality has given me the opportunity to see that, well, it is a culture, at least in my family, it’s a bragging culture, very individualistic, having a negative attitudes about oneself and everyone else, who cares?

I owe so much genetically to my mother because I am more or less a masculine replica of my mom. She showed me a lot; she gave me a lot of advice and gave me all these lectures that I needed in those times. And my way of being has a lot to do with her teachings and her grace and, well, I owe her everything, and everything I do, I do to make her proud.

Both of my parents are completely Mexican so the way that they raised us was with very Mexican traditions. So, up until the age of seven, which was when I began kindergarten, I did not know much English. In my opinion, I have lived a very Mexican life here. But I feel that here they gave us the opportunity to have a much better education than the one we could have had in Mexico. And I don’t know whether to say it was fortunate to not grow up there, and I don’t know how to compare it, but here, we have, we have had our own house without renting. Almost without renting because almost always they rent us a home, but without having to share it with so many family members. Over there in Mexico, even though they don’t live in the same house, it is very common for the whole family to come visit my grandma, and they spend their time there. But over here, we have been separated for some time and, well, since I am very introverted, it’s much better for me not to have to interact with so many people.

It is difficult to say at what moment I felt part of things, because I grew up in a community that was, I would say, 90% at least Latino or Latinx, so I never felt different while I was in my community at home, to be honest I began to feel different when I came to this school.

Before coming I had my idea, oh this school is in the south, this school has its traditions and a culture that has a lot to do with the confederate states. So, I was a bit afraid. But I decided to apply and for sure come to this school, and I had the opportunity to be in the ARC program before classes started, and I don’t know if I owe so much to this

20 • Pluma

program, but it’s designed to help students to, I don’t know, have a more comfortable integration than the usual or normal one. So when I came in the summer to take part in this program, there were a lot of students who were a part of the minority, Many people with whom I could relate to and later when classes began and the wave of white American students came with so much money in that time is when I truly began to feel the reality of the differences that exist from the usual student in this school to someone like myself who participates in these diversity programs.

Besides, last year, sometimes you get together often or you don’t get together often, but usually naturally you create groups of friends similar to you. So last year, I hung out a lot with Latinos and this year as well, but this year I am more like used to that. But last year, my group of friends were Latinos or African Americans or minorities. And so like that group helps you forget that you are in this school because they are similar people, they are people who have had similar experiences to yours, and when you have to enter a class or you have to go to a activity with a group that you haven’t chosen, well, it becomes very apparent that the way you imagined this place could be, it falls apart in reality. That was one of my biggest challenges last year. Having to accept that. That I cannot change reality and that I have to accept that or at least get used to it.

I know that I am not going to convince people who already think that way to not do so but the first dialogue that the president had that we have not, Donald Trump, the one who won a lot of popularity amongst racist people that Mexicans are rapist or criminals, and not only Mexicans but obviously Latinos in general because there are people who don’t understand or who don’t know and confuse Mexicans, so this also involves all Latinos but that’s not how we are. It is very dangerous to belittle people with such cultural individuality to one group and for that group only for their make-up for them to be malicious; it’s ignorant to say that. I just want everyone to, I don’t know, grow.

To get to a point at which we can respect one another and talk and communicate and have a dialogue instead of simply judging and saying, oh no this person is this and that because of that, but we don’t have to talk and understand, but for now I don’t know if this change will happen.

Pluma • 21

In the future, hopefully they accept me to medical school, and afterwards I become a doctor, and when I am a doctor I want to do a few years of voluntary service with Doctors without Borders and, afterwards, I would like to be a part of a hospital in a place in which they don’t have the services that wealthier places have. So, helping in places where they don’t have the help. I would like to do that for a few years and later, decades in the future, I would like to become surgeon general of the United States and try to create political changes. Wanting to be the surgeon general came from a project I did during high school in which I noticed the injustices that have to do with people based on their gender, because it is much easier for a man, say, for example, with contraception, I don’t know but it is much easier for a man to have access to certain medical luxuries than for a woman, even if it has to do with solving problems with being pregnant or having a kid. It is much easier for a man and I don’t know if by then that will be solved but hopefully with my influence and hypothetically being surgeon general, I would like to help people who need the help.

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(18min44sec 10/11/2018)

“WE’RE NOT ALL THE SAME” My name is Adoración Cruz. I was born in Zacatecas, Mexico. I came to the United States in 2001. I am a student at Washington and Lee. I grew up in the United States, in Nevada, for 17 years, or since I arrived in the United States.

We had family here. My grandparents are U.S. citizens but because my dad got married before he should have, he couldn’t get his citizenship. So my dad has been in the U.S. since he was 16 and he worked here with my grandparents in Chicago. Afterwards, he went to Mexico and met my mom. They got married and they got a coyote to bring us all here. They first brought my mom and then they brought my sisters and me, separated from our mom. Afterwards, our grandparents and my dad picked us up in Arizona and they brought us to Nevada. We didn’t really understand of what was happening. I was a year and a half old. I don’t remember anything from Mexico. And I haven’t been able to return to Mexico since I arrived. I would like to see Mexico but, at the same time, I know that the city I was born in has a lot of violence.

So, because my family, my grandparents and a lot of my family lives in Nevada, not with us but in a city near us, we knew of Nevada. It was always a place for my family. We never felt excluded; everyone knew the Cruz family. We had friends because where I live it is very rural. Even the police, we were friends with the police, so we never experienced a lot of fear living in Nevada.

Afterwards, when I arrived here and my mom went to Nevada, we began to see that we should be really scared. Even though we had never been scared in Nevada, my parents told us “you can’t tell anyone that you don’t have papers,” so we don’t speak much about that. And after that, I hadn’t spoken with my friends about my citizenship. It’s difficult because I can’t do a lot of the things that they can do, especially with work that I want to do but can’t. I want to work in environmental sciences as a teacher or, like, not a park ranger but something like a park ranger. Or to do environmental science research. My interest is specifically agriculture

24 • Pluma

because my dad always loved horses and cows, and where I grew up there were a lot of cows, so I always liked to be with animals and to be outside.

My mom has had a lot of influence in how I express myself and has always said to me that I have, well, a lot of charisma and that is something that I should embrace. My sisters have been a great influence academically, because they, I think that they are a symbol of the effort that we Latinos put into everything we do and are very studious and very intelligent and put more effort than is required.

When I arrived in Virginia, I saw that there was a lot of hate for the immigrants here. I think that the administration has not helped me. There were professors that did help me. I have talked to them about the problems that I’ve had as a DACA student here and I have trusted Professor Rosalva a lot because I took a class with her, voices of immigrants, and she understands because she too is an immigrant. I think that if I tried to talk to someone, with a dean or someone else in the administration, they wouldn’t help me or they wouldn’t understand me.

I think that the university doesn’t feel that Latinos have the potential that we do have. We’re not all the same. Someone from a different Latino culture doesn’t represent my culture. We are different people. Our culture is different.

Even though we are united because we are Latin Americans, that doesn’t mean that someone from another country knows how I feel or the experiences that I have had. We aren’t all the same.

Pluma • 25

(28min48sec 9/25/2018)

“SHE HAD ME IN A WORLD AND THEN SHE TOOK ME OUT OF THAT AND PUT ME SOMEWHERE ELSE” My name is Adela González. I am 22 years old. I am originally from Mexico, Guanajuato, Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato. I lived with my grandparents until my grandmother passed away when I was five years old – that was when my mother came to get me. All of this was in Mexico. When she came to get me, she took me to Celaya, Guanajuato, which was a city compared to the ranch I lived on in Dolores, Hidalgo; it was very different. And when she took me with her, she already had my baby brother.

My brother’s name is Christopher. He was around a year old. And after that I only lived with her for about two years, maybe three, because I was eight years old when we came here. I didn’t know we were coming over here. And then, well from what I remember, we went on a bus. I, as always, imagined that we were going to visit my grandfather. And then we arrived to be with my grandfather and my aunt; I have an aunt named Erika, but we are more like sisters because we grew up together. So then she, my grandfather, and they were waiting for us to go to the city to the bus terminals because we were going to leave. But I had no idea where we were going to go. I was seven or eight years old. And then we reached the terminal, but I no longer remember things about Mexico. The only thing I remember was the trip we went on to get here.

We got to the terminal of Dolores Hidalgo and I only remember that we went on a bus and spent a lot of time on the bus. Well, to me it was a long time; we were on it for maybe two days, but to me it felt like an eternity.

I think it was like a lot of Mexicans and immigrants because they all wanted something better. And like I’m telling you, my mother, my grandmother, she had passed away and all of her siblings were here, the majority of them because she had seven brothers and seven sisters and most of them were here and she decided to come here too.

Pluma • 27

I have an image, a memory that’s very like VIVID, of a photo of one of my aunts. She was in the street with a lot of snow, lots and lots of snow, all of it, like that, white. And my mother would tell me it was the United States. That there my aunt was, in the United States. So, then I remember that photo and I said that I want to go there but, well, I was a little girl. My mother didn’t know anything, anything here.

Basically, in Mexico, I took care of my brother because I was the oldest, so when I had moved to live with my mother, I took care of my youngest brother. I’m telling you, he was like a year old and I had to take care of him. I went to school. Well, I would walk there on my own because in the city you’re able to go walking. Sometimes, since I did not know how to read the clock, sometimes I would not go because I did not know what time it was. When I would wake up, I would think it was too late to go to school and stay at home with my brother. And I think it would have been, I don’t know, I really think that I would have gotten lost out there. I don’t even think that I would have even finished school in Mexico in the city we were living in.

I first arrived in Texas because my uncle was there. And this uncle basically had made a deal with one of his acquaintances, that this person would get us across as his daughters, but in reality we weren’t. I remember that the man brought us, like, to the edge of a road but it was more like a cliff and there waiting for us was a man, only one man, because it was just my aunt Erika and I. The two of us traveled together, well, we crossed together and that man crossed us in the river. The two men actually, because in reality one alone was not able to cross us both. Keep on walking he would tell us, we’re almost there, almost there, and it never came. We walked maybe like one full night until the following day, until the morning, and we got to a mobile home. From there they took us to a gas station and at that gas station our uncle picked us up. Then, we stayed at his house for about a week because my parents were crossing separately.

They took more time.

And at the same time, I’m happy my mom brought me here because, well, I do imagine that if I were in Mexico, I wouldn’t have even finished school. I wouldn’t know what

28 • Pluma

would have been of me. And I remember I really liked school in Mexico. And in the time that we came, I had been given a scholarship. But I remember that the day after they gave me the scholarship in school, I did not go because we were already traveling from the ranch to my mom’s house. And I arrived here and started third grade but since I arrived in February, I actually came like during the end of the school year, so I had to repeat that grade, and I liked it a lot; I did like it.

From Texas to Virginia. My uncle brought us by driving all the way here. To Virginia since the majority of my mom’s family is here. So her plans were to stay for some time with one of her sisters while my father worked and bought a house. But in reality, he started to work in a dairy and here, while you work in a dairy, they themselves give you the house where you are going to live that is a mobile home, a trailer. And so that’s how they gave us a trailer because my mother and father worked in the dairy.

Now we try to visit each other often, almost every weekend and every fifteen days, since my mother has a big family and she and her family are very close and she always, like I’m telling you, my mother always tries to visit me or I visit her, but we do see each other often.

I think that I’ll say that I like the Rockbridge area. I like it because it’s, like, very calm.

Nature is everywhere, and I like it a lot because it reminds me a bit of the ranch. That’s why I like it a lot. And the people I have met and have bumped into are really good people; they are friendly people and very loving.

The only thing I didn’t like, well, it was obviously when I got here I did not know how to communicate with other people and I wanted to, I wanted to talk. I remember the first day that I went to school, it was in the afternoon when I arrived, I do not know what I said to my mom, but I’m pretty sure it was in English, but I think I tried to say to her, “I need to go to the restroom,” but, well, she did not understand me and I also knew how to say to her that I’m not doing well or I am good. That was one of the things that I did not like, that I was not able to communicate with other people. And I also since at that time I was little, well, I was a little girl; I did not realize that my classmates,

Pluma • 29

would laugh and call me names. Since I was a little girl, I did not understand what they meant. It’s not until one grows up and realizes, oh that’s what they were saying to me that they were insulting me, right? And that was what I did not like, that I was not able to communicate.

Well, now that I’m my age and I already know how to speak English well and all, I speak English and the people understand and communicate with me. It is totally different. It is something good. It is something beautiful that you can communicate with the people that you want to. You have no barrier to speak. I would have wanted my mom to have told me that we are going to go to the United States. There they do not speak Spanish. It is going to be different than what you are used to. But no, she said nothing to me. Like I’m telling you, I did not know we were going to come here. So it was something, it was something completely different, like she had me in a world and then she took me out of that and put me somewhere else.

The only thing that I miss are the years that I lived on the ranch with my grandmother since I looked up to her like she was my mother with my uncles, her children, it is what I miss. Because it was so different, like I’m telling you, first I was at the ranch and later in the city. It was very different on the ranch than in the city because in the city I was scared to go to school alone but I had to go alone. But on the ranch, no. I was able to go alone and walk wherever I wanted. That did not scare me because, well, there was nothing to fear on the ranch but in the city it was so different because, what I heard, people say they robbed children and this or that, so it scared me. The only good thing I remember, and miss is life on the ranch.

I am happy here in Rockbridge but my husband would like to move to a different state. In the future I see myself working. In reality I want to be an LPN, a licensed practitioner nurse. But I believe that is only a certificate and I want a degree. So then I want to be like a nurse or an RN but I do not want to do the job of an RN. I want to do the job of an LPN, so right now, I am looking to be that in the future. I

30 • Pluma

see myself working in a clinic or in a doctor’s office, living in Lexington and helping my husband. And when I am, like, this super old lady and my children have their careers, I am going to move to Mexico, that’s what I say now.

A few of the Hispanics I know are women I met in my year of high school or through Luisa. She is a beautiful person. Okay, well, in reality, I met her through Project Horizon in the youth group that she had before and a girl from school told me about the youth group she had, and I said yes.

My advice would be not to give up. Anything is possible if one fights. Anything is possible, in reality, we all create barriers for ourselves. We make the excuses ourselves, “oh, it’s because I’m an immigrant”. For me, there is no need to be a conformist and make the excuse of being an immigrant because, when we want to, it’s possible. And especially now that there is a lot of help for immigrants and such, whether it be for a job or education, everything is possible. And also to be intimidated about not knowing the language or that they do not pronounce things the same as Americans, to not be afraid of that because, well, since we are all physically different; even when we speak Spanish, we always sound different. We are not all going to sound the same.

Well, as Latinos we are people who are, “we’re caring people”, we’re people that we like to help, we like to give, and we care even when you are not family or you have not always known us, there’s lending hands for anybody, that is from Hispanics and that we are working people, we do not give up.

Pluma • 31

(25min01sec 04/29/2018)

“SIMPLY, IT’S GETTING AHEAD.” My name is Manuel Torres Navarro, and I was born in Oaxaca, Mexico. I was born on September 12, 1987. I grew up with my 7 siblings, 4 men and 3 women; we’re all here, well, this is one of those things about moving forward from where we come from. My siblings had the opportunity to be in this country a lot earlier because it was much easier to come to this country. And, well, my father, who died 15 years ago, also had the opportunity. Since he came to this country. I didn’t live with many people because, well, because one lives closed off in his world with the things that have happened. I had three sisters; my sisters created their own lives. They got married and left. And, well, I stayed alone with my mom there in Mexico, while my siblings were here in this country doing something to help us. I was given the opportunity when my father returned to Mexico to come here 15 years ago, and I stayed 3 years. On February 12, 2002 I came here to this country and, sadly, when I returned to Mexico in 2005, that was when my dad died; when I returned to Mexico, I really saw the crisis there. The work was harder. The poverty, uh, I didn’t think about staying here in this country when I came the first time. It was just that you find yourself in this country because you look for a way to get ahead and I returned here, after about 4 months, I came back here as an immigrant again, and now here I am.

The first time was like, since my siblings had already come here; one just wants to get ahead for their family and themselves. I mean since my brothers had made their lives with their wives and children and I just wanted to get ahead as well. I am the youngest in the family and I also wanted to do the same, but, well things didn’t turn out that way and here I am again alone. It has already

Pluma • 33

been so much time since I have seen my mom, like 3 years since my dad died and it has been so much time and I have wanted to go to Mexico but the situation is really difficult. You can go to Mexico, but you can not return to this country and before it was easier but now it is not.

I migrated to the United States, it was because a brother of mine was here.

You pay a person to bring you to this country without any problems. The only thing is you pay a lot of money to be able to come to this country. I came through land in a desert, I walked the first time, I walked eight hours when I came the first time, but then the second time I came, it was more difficult since I walked 3 days and 4 nights in the desert. I passed through Phoenix, Arizona, the desert.

The first time I felt strange because, well, I had never gotten to know the United States, but little by little one gets used to the system of work over here, of hanging out with people and to be honest one gets used to this country not only for having been born here but simply to help out the family. When you go to Mexico and see how the situation is in Mexico and how the situation is here, you try to come to this country. But you’re here in this country to help out the family, but you simply, are distanced from your family, and that’s very difficult.

I did not know what being in this country meant.

It has changed a little because you earn a bit more from what you earned in Mexico, since the situation in Mexico has changed. You can work in Mexico, but it’s for the minimum wage. If you have a profession, they give you a job, but if you don’t have a profession, you work in whatever there is. And, well, on the other hand, here, not knowing anything, they give you a job; despite not knowing anything, you learn little by little. You learn things as you go.

I have seen some people affected by the change of president because you know that DACA became an opportunity for many people, so it did affect them. But it has helped some people. I had the opportunity to apply for that,

34 • Pluma

DACA, but in reality one comes to work and help out your family so one does not have the mentality of coming to study in this country. But seeing the reality of things that in the future you will need it. There was an opportunity to come when DACA began. There was an opportunity for me to apply but since I did not meet the requirements, I wasn’t able to apply for it. Because I did not go to school for the same reason that I did not have anyone here, it was just my brother, so that they would give me permission to start school. For fear of getting into problems with the police or immigration, he did not want to sign me up, and I also didn’t want to get him into trouble.

Honestly, yes, Lexington is calmer. I lived in New Jersey in 2009 for two years, and I came back because of the economy. Living in the city is a bit more expensive, and here it is calm, cheaper. And this is where I arrived first in this country and I found myself here. I came to this country in 2012, on February 15, I arrived in Lexington when I was 15 years old.

Here people are very kind. Here nothing has changed since I have been here.

Everyone has been very kind. Being people of color, here since I have been here I have never experienced racism against Hispanics, as has happened in other states in bigger cities. Racism has always existed, but here for now it’s fine; since I arrived a long time ago nothing has changed. It always stays the same and well here I have liked the calmness, one walks in the streets calmly late in the night without having a problem with anyone, and that’s what I have liked about this country.

Well, now, I do connect with many people from my childhood and family members I haven’t seen in years, but through social media, like facebook, instagram, or whatsapp.

I communicate now, there are several Latinos who come from the state where I come from. You realize that Lexington is a little town, much like the town I come from. It is the same size and the Latinos here come from the same town

Pluma • 35

and we know each other. But there are people I have met who come from other states and have lived in Lexington but one has spent time with them despite them not coming from the same town because we’re Latinos. Well, not that all the Latinos here are from the same town, but, there are Latinos we never get to meet. Truly it gives me great pleasure to meet many people who live in this small town of Lexington and to get together with others.

Here in this country, you get to learn many things. You first come not aware of many things. There are people who have been here some time, and they help you so you can come to this country. But when you first comesto this country, you come close-minded; first of all you do not know the language, and second you don’t know anything. And one when one gets here to this country you always ask for support from other Latinos to get ahead and, little by little, like that, you learn as you go, helping one another.

I’ve learned English as a necessity. Because here in this little town, where I lived before moving to New Jersey, for as long as I have been in this area, the majority speaks English. It is very rare that you find another Latino, being a person of color or white they don’t speak Spanish. Very rare that you find someone. I have been in New Jersey and there the majority spoke Spanish.

When I went to Jersey, everyone spoke Spanish. It’s almost the same language.

But, here, since I have lived here, the majority only speaks English. When you come to this country and end up in an area like where I am it becomes very difficult to speak the language. I’ve learned English through the jobs that I have had. I have worked in the kitchen, in construction, always asking people

36 • Pluma

because honestly I never had the opportunity to go to school and learn the language, and there are things that I need to learn that perhaps I haven’t.

Well, now, the Latinos here know each other, and we are together. I know many Latinos, and what I would like for people to know about me is that I don’t want people to be racist towards Latinos, that we come to this country to get ahead. Now, well, getting ahead is very difficult because of the government in the country is a bit racist and now with whatever this president has done, as long as one is here, one is very thankful.

To be honest, when you come to this country and you step on the land, you get used to it. I was in New Jersey and, to be honest, I like living here in this country, in this state of Virginia, since it is very quiet. There are fewer racist people. Everyone respects you despite your being an immigrant and for now I don’t think about moving elsewhere. Here, things are fine, it is calm. Simply put, it’s about getting ahead.

Pluma • 37

(22min33sec 05/04/2018)

“EVERYBODYS DREAM, RIGHT?” I come from Mexico. Well, like everyone, one always leaves from the country, well, with the intention to get ahead because, as everyone knows, Mexico is a country where there are opportunities but not enough money to get ahead. Not enough in order to someday have a good life. And, well, here, truthfully, this country is a land of opportunities where one can always move forward as long as there is a desire to do so. Even with having the entire family here in this country. But it really is something that can’t be done because you have to have (travel) documents, something you can dream about someday having. You wish that one day you could travel to Mexico and come back, why? Because this country is the best. Honestly, there is nothing better than this country because here one lives in tranquility, and nonetheless, in Mexico it is somewhat difficult because, apart from the crime, there are a lot of bad people and in this country, there aren’t. This country is something beautiful. It is everybody’s dream, right?

When one is in Mexico, one dreams about coming to this country and, well, here, one has a pretty good life because as long as one has a job, one lives well.

Going back to what I was saying, as I always say the intention is that someday, when one migrates here one day one dreams of that day, saving a bit of money or to build oneself a house. My intention here was to come to this country, save myself a bit of money, and return to study in Mexico. But, well, the years have gone by and I did not expect to stay here so long. As one thinks, right? I thought to stay for just a couple of, let’s say, some three years and save myself a little bit of money and return. But now many years have passed to where already one never imagines that it will happen tomorrow morning. Now that I have my family. I met her. We met and now I already have, or rather we have 2 kids.

And, well, the truth is that now more than ever there is nothing more than to move forward and continue fighting. And as I tell my wife, I am currently taking English classes though ESOL and I also want to fulfill the GED. And Luisa was telling me too that I could go to university here in Buena Vista. And if I want to Pluma • 39

they say that I can go and that there are easy-stop payments. And that is what I was seeing. And it is something interesting, something good because one day I also would like to have a job, and well, that more than anything. And yes, well, I am thinking about that also because I already have a family and there are bills that one has.

Like everyone, walking through the desert, walking. And well it is a fairly difficult walk because there are many nights walking, where one, sometimes one says, well, more than anything I said in the first night that they, let’s say thrown in the desert when we were about to walk, the one who brought us told us, they said there are only three nights left to walk, but when we were in the desert, they told us five more nights of walking, but it was five nights of walking that were pretty difficult. I at some moment thought, what am I doing here, I told myself, the first time that they get me, I think that I will go back. I told myself because it was difficult. It was very complicated because as one, well, more than anything, I was not used to leaving my town because I studied there. So I did not leave my town. There in the desert, I would tell myself, the first time it happens, well, thank God we crossed over in good health and now we’re here working, always dreaming that someday we would have documentation to live peacefully in this country, to work and get ahead is the dream of everyone.

Here I arrived for the same reason, being that I have family in this town here in Lexington. Since I came over here, I arrived here in Lexington, Virginia. And, well, it’s almost twelve years here in Lexington since I arrived.

The experience is very different because here it’s a beautiful experience. Here one comes to learn many things that one wasn’t able to in Mexico. Because like, well, I am from a a very small town has approximately 100 habitants or fewer.

A very small town, and being here in this country, you learn many things. Here you learn plenty of good things. Well, when one arrives, one doesn’t know. One doesn’t understand any English. It’s a bit complicated, right, but the good thing

40 • Pluma

is we’re still here. And quite a beautiful experience, to be honest. It’s a country that’s very great and I can’t lie that what more could I want than to stay in this country and not return to Mexico.

I would hear people say more than anything that when one gets to this country it works out well for them. They earn a bit more. They save some more. And when they get here, it is a very good country with many opportunities to get ahead. As long as there is a desire to work. But when one does not speak English, it’s a bit more complicated to communicate with Americans. It’s a bit more difficult.

For work, and more than anything the ESOL program has helped me plenty.

I can write more than I can speak because they always give me more to write than speak. So now what I always try is to speak it now more than anything, right? I know that if I don’t say it right, they will correct me. So now we’re learning more. Honestly, there are some people who get along in a bad way and they tell you that but it doesn’t happen often that someone messes with us because at work there are people who have always gotten along well with us.

But there isn’t anyone who speaks bad of us.

I work in a sawmill. Almost since I arrived, I have been at this job. They have always said that we are excellent workers, even if we’re not, but one always tries to do their best. As I tell my wife, as long as one has a good job, well, it doesn’t matter, let’s get to work. We have to be responsible and be punctual, I tell her.

And that matters when one is responsible and, little by little, you move upwards.

Sometimes they have the concept wrong that we like to fight, but we’re not all the same. There are times that we are held responsible for others. Because sometimes they think that we are problematic or that we are only around drunk and so we are held responsible for others’ actions.

Immigration makes you think a lot of things. That they are going to come all of a sudden. That they throw us all out. More than anything, one thinks about it because of our kids. My daughter and my son were born here. Some day, the Pluma • 41

day they grow up, I want them to have a career more than anything. Enough education so one day they’re able to have a better job. So they have a better future. So there isn’t anything to worry about. For me to learn many things here. To learn because there are many opportunities here for the kids because over there in Mexico there aren’t the same opportunities, there are more here for them. Not to say that one day they might get one in their job and take you and they keep your kids. And what do I know, but even if one gets scared or concerned, what can one do? We are already here. There isn’t anything left but to do our best. So, whatever comes tomorrow, so be it. What matters is to do our best at work and take care of ourselves. Move? I don’t think so because I, as I say to my wife, if one day we can buy a house, I think that it would be best here in Lexington because I like it here in this quiet town.

Well, it is a very quiet town. It’s a calm town that always, well, the people I have met are good people who help you even if you don’t speak English. There are always people who treat you well, that say hi to you, and it is a beautiful town that I have gotten used to. Sometimes when I go out, let’s say to the small towns nearby, I realize if I moved there to those towns perhaps I would not get used to them, because I have gotten used to this town over time.

Almost all of us know each other and we get along well because as I was saying, we are “brothers,” we come from the same place. And, well, we always visit each other for parties, for a birthday we get together, but almost all of us get along well. For the same reason sometimes work doesn’t allow it. Sometimes you come home tired and you want to rest and to see your kids and play with them for a while, and on the weekends you want to go out for a while somewhere or to buy what is needed.

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I would tell them, well, if it is someone new that came to this town to perhaps introduce them to people more than anything. Take classes in English because honestly it is really necessary. Sometimes one goes to the store and can’t ask for this or the other, more than anything, I always, when I see someone, even if I don’t know them, say hi to them or I always try to be helpful to others, let’s say that they need something that they need something from me. I never say no. Unless I really am not able to, but I have always tried to help people because just as they help one, one never knows when you might need help from others.

Sometimes you have it all, but tomorrow, who knows. But there are people, you know, even though we’re “brothers,” there are times that we don’t help each other when we need help but I do think that more than anything I would help them, perhaps I would help them get a house or a job that they need.

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(12min47sec 10/01/2018)

“THE SUN RISES FOR EVERYONE.” My real name is José Antonio Fuentes. Some people call me Toño because of my second name José, and I was born in Querétaro in 1980. Mexican, one hundred percent. Yes, I have family in Arkansas, DC, and Texas.

Well, like any immigrant, I came here for the famous American Dream, a better life. Sometimes one accepts what every person tells them; it’s not what one is told. Pure money. You go with what you hear that over here by crossing the border you’re going to get money, but no. You have to work like everyone, start from scratch to be someone in life. But here they have given me opportunities that my country did not give me. Things that I never thought I would have in my country, I came to have them here. Let’s not say money. Money, well, anyone is able to have it. Better life. Better opportunities. Even if one is an immigrant, well, it’s all the same.

The difference when you arrive to a new country is the language and you know that adapting to another language is very difficult because of those habits, those that you have, you are never going to forget them, but you have to learn a new life, new habits for everything.

I went to a school for adults but I’m never going to lose my accent unfortunately. School for adults. The accent when you learn as an adult is different, but it’s nice to have an accent, to be honest, that I do not even now where you are from.

First, the discrimination. There are many things that have been closed to you.

Many times they close the doors for you in some places for not speaking the language and, for being undocumented, there are many people who want to humiliate you.

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Whoever wants to succeed will do it wherever they want, as they say. I do not say the way because we all know the way but more than anything, well, not having documents eliminates many opportunities that you can fulfill if you have them. But it is never too late to do what you want to do in life.

I in Mexico wanted to be a professional soccer player. Because of money, I was not able to make it. I want to be a commentator. I’m accomplishing it, and well not a soccer player because of my age. You only have a part of your body here and there that can function. This is the reason.

I like to express what I feel to be, who I am, I do not like to invite anyone I just want it to be me. I grew up with this. It is the culture of my parents. I grew up with music. I am originally a rancher. I like Vicente Fernández. We all grew up with him. They say I worked in bars and disco clubs as a DJ and friends recommended me to work in radio. Some wanted to hire me and they said no, maybe, who knows, and in some of them due to documentation, not much could be done, but anyway here we go on. Carry on and, if you can, arrange for documents. That’s a dream I have.

The comparison of when I came from Mexico, well, I was younger and right now the mature years are beginning and you already dye your hair, and there are signs that we are maturing. Before I arrived, I would have liked to have known English and have had documents to be here legally and work like anyone. As a matter of destiny, I had to enter undocumented and work in the shadows like millions of Hispanics, Hispanics wherever we come from, Mexico, Latin America, Central America, Colombia, from wherever it is that by not having a valid work permit many doors are closed to you. And, besides, they think that anyone who comes from over there is a criminal, and that is not true. We came to work. We came to have the jobs that others do not want.

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I miss my family and my parents. I recently went there but the first time I came back it was about eleven years that I hadn’t seen them. And it was difficult to be away from your parents. Those who gave you life. As I say again, it is for a lack of documents that I can’t go. I am able to go but not able to return. It affects many things emotionally, physically, the time the memories are running out too. As I say, those of us who have parents to take care of and bless them and those who don’t, well. Many times our parents leave us and for not being able to travel or for not having money more than anything because this is the United States, where you either make it or break it.

Childhood is what we all remember. Walking freely where you want.

Unfortunately, in Mexico you can no longer walk freely. You are not able to leave your young children with whom you’d like because, sadly, crime has taken its toll.

What I like is that it’s very calm here, and I got used to it here. I have been here since 2005 and I arrived here and I stayed here. It is the only place that I have lasted more years than all those places I’ve been to. In the long run I do think of staying here. If I get documents, be here and finding an established job or doing something on my own. Well, I like everything here, just one or two people who do not like Hispanics, but, like everyone, nobody is perfect.

Right now the connection between Hispanics is in part through the radio, through the radio and through soccer. The community is growing year by year if it’s not through one person it’s through another. There’s more of us each day. We are making ourselves known. There have started being events for Latinos. For it to have been the first time was great. We hope to repeat it next year in a bigger place and with many people if possible. I, as I told Luisa,

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as long as I continue in the radio, I will continue to be the voice of Latinos.

Equality is what I would like to see in the community.

To work hard and to be someone in life. Never look down, always look up. Many people want to see you with your face down when they tell you something, especially some employers. As Latinos, we have rights. Even if we do not have documents, we have rights.

More than anything, for there to be, as I told you, equality. To not have racism. They should not, because you do not have a education here in the state where you live, make you feel any less because the sun rises for everyone, not just for those who have documents. When we sit at the table, we are all the same; documentation doesn’t matter.

Something I would like to comment on is about all the Latinos here.

Wherever we come from, to work hard because the sun rises for everyone.

And if I fall, to get up and keep on going. Life is like that. Life is not all about money. Not all about gold. If you want something, you have to work. In life everything costs something. There is no free lunch, and more so here in the United States. It is not how they frame it. Those who come to your country tell you very nicely how there is such an opportunity here. Yes there is an opportunity, but if you have documents and you have everything, even then it is still difficult for them. There is no option but to work hard, since the sun rises for everyone.

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(16min01sec 9/22/2018)

“HALF IN AND HALF NOT” My name is Lucas Mateo Molina Peña. I am from, well, I grew up in San Jose, Missouri.

It’s outside Kansas City, but I was born in El Salvador in Morazán. And I lived there for about eight years before we came here. I just turned 21 years old. In El Salvador, my mom was a doctor. My dad was a psychologist. I have a very big family on my mom’s side. She has seven brothers. My dad has two. We know each other well, even though we’re very spread out. I have a good relationship with my family.

My parents wanted to move from El Salvador when we were little because they thought that we would be able to have a better education here because, well, my parents lived through the war the Civil War of El Salvador. The country was barely recovering from that when we were born. So they believed that we could receive a better education here. And also the gangs like MS-13 were growing, and it was becoming dangerous, and as kids of a well-known psychologist and doctor, we were scared that they saw us as targets.

I lived there until I was eight, so I remember much more than my siblings. I remember the weather well. I remember the food a lot, that’s the best. My family, the mountains, all of that was very nice; I remember the beauty. I remember going to school there, the Salvadoran ice cream because they had the little carts on the side of the beach. My parents took us to the beach almost every weekend. Where I lived, we had a lemon tree in the yard because our house was designed with a garden without a roof in the center, so we had a coconut tree and a lemon tree. In El Salvador the majority of the people have their own fruit trees where they live. I remember that my dad had a tree when he was growing up, or a “stick,” as they say, a mango tree and another one that was an avocado tree, and he would pick them whenever he wanted.

In El Salvador we took English classes and my parents wanted us to learn English, but I was thinking “when am I going to use it,” so I never liked going to the classes. But, yes, I didn’t know anything about the United States. El Salvador was what I knew best. Like

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the people here who have only seen the United States, for them it is their whole world.

It was that way when I was there.

Being an immigrant arriving at a young age, the hardest thing was to learn the language when I was growing up and also, because it was harder for my parents to learn English, I had to translate a lot. So that was a bit hard for me; I had to be a bit faster than the rest of people because I had to be translating things that were for adults at the time. But growing up I felt more or less normal because I didn’t know too much about what immigration was. Being a kid, I acclimated to the culture, growing up as kids do, and I had good elementary and middle school experiences, good friends, and all of that made me feel like I have acclimated and assimilated a bit, well, to American culture.

However, I still have Salvadoran culture, especially when I’m at home, because I speak Spanish with my parents and we make good Salvadoran food and all of that. We are in contact with my family who is still there.

What I miss the most is seeing my family because my grandparents are still there. It’s much harder for them to come visit us now because they’re older. The beauty of the country, I do miss that a bit, because it’s a very beautiful country.

My life has been kind of in “limbo” as they call it being in the middle of two things, and well, being DACA in the legal state of being half in and half not.

That part has been weird, but personally for me I feel like the majority of the kids who are from here. You know, I like this country. I’ve grown up normally, I know the culture, I like the sports here. I’m Catholic, so a great influence has been my faith. The priests have helped me. My parents have been a great influence with everything that they have sacrificed for me. Showing me that hard work brings good things. And to be a good person with others. Faith and my family have been great influences. I had many good teachers and coaches in high school who have shown me that with hard work you can do good things.

The only difference in that is that of my status that, you know, changing a few things that I can or can’t do because part of the school counts me as an Pluma • 51

international student but they treat me as a domestic student, so I don’t have to go to the gatherings that they have for international students.

But the majority of people, if they just see me, they don’t think I’m an immigrant until I tell them because my way of being has been acclimated to the two cultures. I feel very comfortable behaving as a person in the American and Salvadoran cultures; it depends on the people I’m around. I think that is very human because naturally one will want to be similar to the people around them.

What I would like is for them to do something about immigration. Something solid that would make more sense than what we have right now. My plan right now, I am studying pre-med here, so I hope to go to medical school after graduating and do my residency so that I can be a surgeon or other type of doctor. I have my options open because who knows if I’ll like something else in medical school. But, yes, for me personally what I am focusing on the most right now is to be a doctor, to be a good person in the future, and to be able to help other people here. What I would like to do is, if something happens with immigration and something happens that allows me to leave the country and come back, I would like to do something with the Doctors without Borders, like in Africa or Asia or Latin America or a place where doctors are needed for maybe a year or so. To be able to use my training to help people who need it.

There aren’t many of us in the university, but what I do believe is that we are a good representation of what we Hispanics can do. I think that the school has been doing many good things for the students that aren’t white Americans. What I think the school can do better is treat everyone as students, especially those who have DACA. We are a bit different and I think that the school does a lot and I like that. I think they do a lot of good things.

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(12min29sec 10/16/18)

“THE UNITED STATES IS ALL I HAVE” My name is Victoria Maribel Castro Lozano, and I was born in San Salvador, El Salvador. I moved to the United States with my mom when I was almost two years old. My dad was already working here and we moved to be with him later. All of my family are immigrants. We are all from El Salvador. Only my little sister isn’t. She is American. She was born in California. We moved from California to South Carolina and now we are living in South Carolina.

We moved because my dad couldn’t find work in El Salvador and we had to move here. He moved to the United States to work and was sending us money and he saved some, but my parents wanted me to grow up with both of them and we moved to the United States to be with him so that we could have more safety and I could go to a school that would be better than in El Salvador.

I was really little when I moved, and the United States is all I know. I grew up here. I was like 13, I think, when they told me that I wasn’t a United States citizen and I had always thought before that I was American and that I had all of the rights that Americans had. When they told me, it was a shock, it kinda changed everything for me.

I don’t remember much. My first memory is in California with my cousin and all that. I only remember my family, like my grandmother and my aunt, but not much. The United States is all I have, it’s where I grew up, it’s where I want to work, where I want to live, all of that.

All my life I thought that I was an American. When I was in the fifth grade, I think, my Spanish teacher was saying that we were going to take a trip to Puerto Rico and I wanted to go because of Puerto Rico, of course. But when I was talking with my mom, she told me that I couldn’t go. She said that if I go, I won’t be able to come back. And that was the moment that, like, I

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realized that I just wasn’t American. Since then, I have had to come to terms with both of my identities and had to unite them, when before I never had to think of them.

In the future I want to visit. I want to know my family who can’t visit me here. But I’m not thinking of moving there. I don’t want to move to El Salvador because of all of the stories that my family tells me about El Salvador being very dangerous, that there are all the gangs and all of that, and I don’t think that I can do the things that I want to in El Salvador, and I do want to visit, but I don’t want to live there.

In Washington and Lee, I think there are, it is sad, but there are more Latino people in Washington and Lee than I had in Clover, South Carolina. This is where I met, this is where I met the first other dreamer and stuff. I had never had someone to serve as a guide who knew the struggle of being a dreamer and that is so important for me. Yes, there are problems. It’s very conservative. It has a history that I don’t like and I don’t feel comfortable with. But they give me opportunities that I wouldn’t have been able to have otherwise.

Now I have more people I can talk to and I have more people who do know what it’s like to be Latino, what it’s like to be an immigrant, a dreamer, and that is so important to me because I couldn’t talk to other people about that and now I can. It’s like I can’t state the value of that and how important that is to me.

Like right now all of the things that they are talking about that they are going to take away the TPS and they don’t know what they are going to do with the kids. That’s why it’s more difficult because my sister is American and I’m in college right now and we don’t know what we’re going to do if my dad can’t work here and if he has to go back to El Salvador. I feel like our lives would be over if that happened. I don’t know what we can do if that has to happen.

I want to live in the United States to start. And I want to work in a museum. I want to teach everyone who goes to a museum about their history. About other people from

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other cultures. I want to teach other people and I want to share the stories of immigrants and I want to share that immigrants are Americans too. We have rights like Americans and all that.

When I was little, my dad took me to all of the museums that were near us in California, and there it started. I want to teach more. I want people to go to a museum and to be able to learn and see their cultures in a museum and to be able to share them with other people.

I would like for people to know that we are not drug dealers, that we are not criminals, that the government does not give us free things. We have to work like every American. We have to work more because they don’t give us equal opportunities. I just want people to realize that we’re like everyone else, basically.

My life in general, my mom, because all I do is for her and because of her, she sacrifices so much. I remember the time my grandfather died, and I remember that she couldn’t go back to El Salvador to go to the funeral. But she was saying that it was worth it in the end because her daughters were going to go to a good school. They were going to a good school and here we have chances and safety and that made me realize I have to work hard for her.

And Washington and Lee, I think, like LSO because here I have more Latino friends that I didn’t have in South Carolina and now we are more dreamers. Now I can talk about my story more. I have a support system here that I didn’t have back in South Carolina.

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(35min44sec 05/01/2018)

“THANK GOD I CAME TO A PLACE WHERE THERE WAS SNOW.” My name is Alma Luciana Gómez. I come from Bogotá, Colombia. I have a daughter in Louisiana. She became a citizen and asked me if I would want to come to this country and I said yes, that it was a great opportunity for me. I filed the paperwork and, thank God, everything worked out. I’ve been here for four years now and, thank God, I’m a resident now. It was a very quick process. I came the first of February of 2014, and it’s been four years now in this country. The opportunities for work are very different here than in our country. Over there, the elderly have fewer opportunities. They aren’t needed for anything. But in this country, us of older age are useful. They hire us regardless of age and give us the opportunity. I love working. Whatever job there is I will do it.

Up until this day, I feel very fortunate and blessed to have a job.

I made the decision precisely for the opportunities that we don’t have in our country. The jobs. As I have already said, in Colombia older people aren’t useful—for businesses nor the government. They just want to hire younger adults. But here they want whoever will work, regardless of age.

I work in a hotel, in housekeeping. I’ve been working there for three years. I feel very happy. They respect me a lot and I am very content.

Despite the language barrier, it hasn’t been an obstacle to work. I’m interested in learning more of the language. You won’t speak it completely but you begin to understand. And there’s no longer a barrier for working. It’s no longer, if there’s a desire to learn, and listen, and communicate sufficiently. I came four times with a visa to help my daughter with her kids, she stopped having kids, and so, no more United

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States. When she became a citizen, she offered to bring me and I didn’t doubt it for a minute, as you see I’m now here legally, thank God.

All in all, the job is very good. I have bought a lot of things that I never could have in my own country. Everything is much easier. It’s more, there are more job opportunities for both documented and undocumented immigrants, opportunities regardless of age, that for many there’s no longer an energy to work. I consider myself to be very motivated with a lot of strength and I do my work with a lot of love.

To change the quality of work, the language is the only thing that limits us. I believe that when someone immigrates to a country, when it’s not the same language, you have to make the decision to learn it. In Colombia I was a secretary for a government business. I worked in banks.

Well, I would like to know the language to work in a different job. I have speak now with more confidence, I consider myself to be 40% there but there’s a lot more of course, but, like the saying goes, better late than never, but with the opportunity, thank God for ESOL, which has opened the door to my receiving tutoring in this language, I know that I will achieve it. Also speaking with the people, like friends, neighbors, coworkers, watching TV, like movies, the news, you learn a lot of words.

It’s a town, Lexington, even though it’s a small city, it’s a city that allows one the opportunity to work. Here there are a lot of jobs even though it is a very small city. I came to Lexington for the opportunity to work. I met the wife of a son of a woman who needed the help of someone to take care of her ill husband, and I was able to contact them and she told me to come. She thought for approximately two months and I ended up staying with them for three years. I met the woman here, but who

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I met in Louisiana, was the wife of the son of the woman I mentioned before. Our first conversation took place over Skype and the woman told me that she liked my attitude, and so come to work and I did without a doubt. My daughter, who I lived with then, said to me, “Mom, my home isn’t the United States. If you get a job somewhere else, don’t hesitate,”.

And that’s what I did.

I am very happy. The climate, the people, and the job opportunities, thank God I have them. For me, the snow was a beautiful thing that I had never seen before, only in movies. I saw the movies and dreamed of touching it, feeling it. Thank God I came to a place where there was snow. The weather here is marvelous.

In the supermarkets like Kroger and Walmart, I hear people speaking Spanish and it gives you joy and you begin to form new friendships through speaking the same language and you ask, “Where are you from? How long have you been here? Where do you work?”… “At work.

In Roanoke.” I also go to Roanoke. There I met a friend who is also from Colombia. There’s a friendship, we invite each other to celebrate a birthday, to go out to eat, or to go shopping.

On Saturday I had a birthday party. There was a Colombian, a Honduran, Salvadorans, Mexicans, Latin Americans and we spoke precisely of this. I told them that I have been doing very well here because I’ve never been out of work. The opportunities are always there.

But one of them told me that not everyone says the same thing as me.

Many people don’t say the same. There are people who come and say that it is very difficult. Me, I don’t know how to explain why. And so I told her that there are three types of people who come or migrate to any country and they are: tourists, students, and people who come to work. I

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consider myself as someone who comes to work. And there are people who don’t. Who don’t feel comfortable because they don’t want to make an effort. There are, of course, it’s difficult in the beginning but if you are motivated you will overcome the challenges and even laugh later on.

Nevertheless, I will also say that a great limitation is being here while undocumented. People have been here 13, 14, 18 years and are happy.

They have work but don’t have documentation. And if here they don’t welcome you, they will over there. But people hold themselves back and never continue. The majority of Latin Americans that I have been able to get in contact with are undocumented. Perhaps this closes them off to certain opportunities. Not everyone welcomes undocumented immigrants. It’s very true, the pay. That for being undocumented they don’t pay you fairly. But they understand and they know it and they say that it’s still much better than their own countries. They are pleased.

My favorite thing to do here in Lexington is go hiking. I have been many times. There is a group here that meets every Friday in Lexington.

Precisely, the woman who hired me, she’s in the group. You pay $15 for the year and there is one person in charge. They send you the e-mail, we’re going to such place on Friday, can you or can you not make it?

And the people say yes, and meet somewhere in Buena Vista or closer to Roanoke in some other place. I found out about the group through the woman I work for. There are Latin Americans and Americans. They are mostly retirees. It’s very nice here. We go to the mountains. This is what I like the best. That’s what I like. Sometimes I leave work on these days depending on where they are going. There’s always a new place.

It’s amazing, the fact that you can just walk up a mountain, get to the top, and you can see its beauty. That’s a great joy.

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(20min50sec 10/18/2018)

“CHOSE BETWEEN BEING AMERICAN OR PERUVIAN” My name is Luis Escobar, or Luisito, as my friends call me. I was born in Arequipa, Peru, the Independent Republic of Arequipa, as they say in my town. I came to the United States when I was one year old or so, when I was a baby. So I have lived here in the United States almost my whole life. From time to time I go back to Peru.

Almost every two years. In past years I have gone back to Peru every year to visit my family, my grandparents, my aunts, almost all of my family lives there in Peru right now, including my uncles who lived in Miami, have moved to Peru. Right now they are in Lima, very happy and everything. But no, I love the United States and have lived in various states. I have lived in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and here. I’m now studying here in Virginia, and well, I love the United States, but sometimes it’s a bit difficult, right? When I was in elementary school and everything being the only Spanish-speaking, well, only Hispanic in some of those places. The only Peruvian, honestly, a bit difficult. I remember in third grade and second grade something like this, the teacher was talking about the Incas and was telling the class how the Incas were from Mexico or something like that, which is very, very incorrect, and I was sitting there. I was very quiet but then I told my teacher that the Incas were from Peru and she told me that no, that they weren’t that they were from Mexico. I went to the computer to get on Google to show her that they were from Peru. Since my mom is from here, from the United States. We love my mom, but, well, it’s a bit difficult because when I was younger I did not speak Spanish so I had to learn with my grandparents in school and everything on how to speak Spanish. My identity as a Peruvian and American and all of that was very interesting, to be honest. Right now I am comfortable with my identity as a Peruvian American, both at the same time. But I know that it wasn’t very simple deciding between the two.

I was born in 1996, when Peru was experiencing much terrorism. It was very dangerous. Additionally, in Peru in that time period, well, in the 20th century, it was

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very dangerous, so there was a lot of war and all of that. So, my dad, he felt that Peru was not a country with opportunities, that he was screwed, really, and my dad had spent a lot of time in the United States--when my grandpa studied twice in the United States, once for his masters and another for his doctorate in California and North Carolina; so, my dad already knew the United States. On top of that, my dad studied for his doctorate in North Carolina, so he got to know the United States and my mom there. Also, since it was very easy to go to the United States and it was better, well, it was easy in that time period to come to the United States because it was the best, best of all. It was difficult for my dad, of course; he told me that he missed his family so he probably missed his mom and everything, and she passed away last year. It was very difficult for him. He always tells me that it was for me and my sister so we could do whatever we wanted. That is the story of all immigrants, right? My dad always always always always has given me his knowledge and I have seen his work and I have learned from his work and his struggles and everything; I think that a lot of my life is due to my dad. I am studying here because I learned from my dad and mom, but more than anything I have seen how my dad has worked here in the United States; he has maintained his identity here. I have learned a lot from his life here.

I really don’t remember anything about when I came, I only remember Delaware. I don’t remember Pennsylvania, where I first arrived, but I remember Delaware and that I moved there when I was three years old, something like that, I remember that, but aside from that, I don’t remember a lot.

When I lived in Illinois, it was very easy because a lot of my friends were Cuban, Mexican, and I think Puerto Rican, something like that, but in that time period I was very comfortable with my Peruvian identity, right? What changed was when I moved to Arkansas because that was a bit more difficult because there I was in classes where there weren’t any Hispanics, and I was only eight years old and my identity as a Peruvian was not very strong, so, it changed a little. Before I spoke a little Spanish, but afterwards, not so much. Before I played soccer and after I didn’t, not so much. So it was also a part of something that there were a lot of Mexicans in the town where I lived. They were immigrants, and people were a bit racist and so, to avoid that racism, I would always say that I was not Mexican, that I was Peruvian, which is very different. That isn’t good, to say, because it places Mexicans in a bad position, right? But that was part of my experience, part of my Hispanic experience, to 64 • Pluma

differentiate myself from all of the stereotypes that they have here in the United States, and I tried hard not to be lazy and those things they say about Hispanics here in the United States.

What I have loved most is getting to know my family, more than anything meeting my cousins, my aunt and uncles, since there is always a lot of love over there in Peru.

And the food’s not bad either. But yes, I love more than anything my family who has a lot of love for me; it’s truly marvelous. I regret that I have not lived with my cousins here all of these years. I have not had any cousin close in any place where I have lived. So to return to Peru, to have all of that so close and easy, it’s wonderful for me. And also to feel really comfortable, well, when I did not speak Spanish, I did not feel very comfortable. But now since I can communicate in Peru I feel much, much more comfortable because I can sit anywhere in Arequipa and I don’t feel weird.

There, no one is going to ask me where I am from, everyone knows that I am from Arequipa, that my family is from Arequipa, that we are all arequipeños, which is a very different feeling.

I love the United States. What I like most is that I have the liberty to do whatever I want.

What I see in Peru is that it’s sometimes a bit difficult to change, let’s say, when one studies to be an engineer. They’re always Edwin the engineer. But here in the United States you are Luis or Edwin, per se. You are a person and can change to become what you would like whenever you want. And there’s a lot. You can do what you would like. I also love the cultures here in the U.S. that we have don’t have in Peru. I really do love the United States.

I believe that in middle school, well, obviously when I was eight or six years, when I was not thinking about my identity, I felt American. But in middle school when I was trying to say that I what identity I have, in that time period is when I saw myself something like this. I was talking with a lot of people, with my people and all of that, I was talking a lot about that and in the end I decided that I wasn’t. I did not have to chose between being American or Peruvian. I could be both at the same time, and without sacrificing things, I could have both. And I think in that time period my way of thinking changed.

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For me, Washington and Lee has always been good. I have the Johnson scholarship, and so the school is paying for everything. And when I was applying to universities to see where I wanted to study, I had another similar opportunity to this in a university that was a bit more comfortable. But, since my idea was to do something with the scholarship to work in a place more difficult, then I knew when I started to study here in Washington and Lee that it was a bit more difficult to be a Hispanic here. And I see that sometimes it’s a bit difficult because the university doesn’t have some things on campus. They have not celebrated anything Latin American. They do like taco nights and that’s tacos and that’s one thing from the Latin American culture. So, yes, it was a bit difficult being Latin American more than anything. To be Peruvian, to not only be Latin American, but to also be Peruvian and for people to have an idea of the differences between these. And for there to be a community here. When I arrived, there wasn’t any Latin American community in reality. There were some people from Argentina and that was it. It hasn’t always been easy. But little by little it has changed with LSO and all of that it has changed a bit. Now we have a community. There’s a groupme and people knw that there are Latin Americans here. That there’s a real culture. Now they not only talk about Latin Americans, they talk about Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica as different things. So it’s changing little by little.

Well, If I could be whatever I would like, I would like to work in an international development.organization. Specifically, in computer science because my dad worked in that when he began his career. And I have seen everything that has come from international development. For example, my dad came to the United States through an international scholarship of USAID. My mom studied in some places with the help of USAID so I see the change, especially in Peru, the change that international development

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has in the lives of people who live in a country. Since Peru has changed a lot in 10 years. So, I want to be a part of that change. Not only for Peru, but for Latin America, for the world to help people who don’t have, who don’t have the opportunities that I have to help my cousins and my sister and brothers. That is what I truly want to do. But I believe that this coming year I will work with Microsoft doing something like coding. But, I don’t know, in 10 years I hope that I can work in an international field.

I think that more than anything I want the United States to know that Latin Americans, the Latino identity, as you say over here, it’s not only one country. It’s not just one culture. And it’s even older than the United States. I want the United States to know a little more of the Latin American culture and its history and how it has influenced the United States and likewise, since we’ve always been siblings.

But the United States doesn’t know this, and doesn’t know the differences between boricuas and ticos and Peruvians and all of that. I want them to know all of that.

Perhaps they also have the same idea of Europe and of Latinos which are different countries with similar cultures. A common history, but they also have their own individual histories, their own cultures

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(27min33sec 10/15/2018)

“IT’S WHAT EVERY PERUVIAN IS GOING TO TELL YOU.” My full name is Daniela Isabela Vidal de León Cortez. A very long name. I am from Trujillo, Perú. I was born in the north of Peru, on the coast. At 16 years old, I went to Lima to get my bachelor’s degree because, well, Peru is a very centralized country like many Latin American countries. Many students must go to the capital if they want to study in the university, a good university. So at 16 years old, I went to Lima for college and during my fourth year, I went to Texas, UT Austin, for an exchange program. So, I completed a semester at UT. There, some professors gave me the idea to get a PhD here in the United States. So, I returned, finished my degree and applied for a PhD in my last year of college, and ended up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I applied for jobs last year and ended up here in Lexington, Virginia.

When I was in Texas, I became aware of the opportunity to pursue a PhD on a scholarship, which is not something common in Perú. In Perú, it costs you a lot of money for a PhD. And as that wasn’t the case with my family, I had never considering pursuing a PhD. I thought that it was something that maybe I would do in the future when I was, I don’t know, 40 or 50 and I had lots of money to pay for it, but at UT they told me about the opportunity to apply for scholarships.

When you apply for a PhD, you apply for a scholarship at the same time. That’s not common in Peru. It is common in the hard sciences and engineering, and there are more scholarships, but no one does a doctorate in political science on a scholarship. So, I was interested in the idea of continuing to study. I didn’t want to stop studying. I was afraid of having a job, and I said, why not apply? The worst thing that could happen was that the university wouldn’t accept me. I applied during my senior year of college. I considered Europe at one point, but one of my professors told me, “try the United States first, your first choices, your top options,

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and if it does not go well for you, apply for universities in Europe next year.” But since it went well for me, I did not apply to Europe, I came here.

Before going to Texas to do the exchange, I had no idea. Actually, I wanted to go to Mexico to do an exchange in Mexico City. But when I applied, I applied for the CIDE in Mexico, to a Science Po in Paris, and to UT, and I was accepted by all three, but the exchange office said no, that it was better in Texas because it was a great university, and my French was terrible so I couldn’t go to Paris, and that it was a great opportunity, that it was going to benefit me a lot and I was going to improve my English. So in the end I went to Texas but no, I had no idea what to expect and truthfully Texas is a very interesting place. But Austin is like a bubble inside of Texas. So I think that’s why I really liked it because it’s very liberal, very cosmopolitan and that’s why I decided to go back to the United States and stay here. And when I applied for a PhD, I wanted to stay in the United States, that is, ever since I applied, I knew I wanted to work here. I never had the intention to return to Peru.

Before I went to Texas, not much. I knew English, or I had studied it for three years at an institute, which is common in Peru. Your parents pay for an English academy. You go from Monday to Friday and learn English. So I read very well and could understand more or less well and could write relatively well, as if I were a ten-year-old girl, but I didn’t speak it very well. So when I got to Texas, it was very difficult but I was very lucky because I ended up living in a house with a lot of people, like 100 people, in a co-op. I don’t know if they’re very common, they’re houses that students manage and students take care of everything in the house and are subsidized by the government. So rent is very low and of course there are also parties every day, so it is super chaotic but the good thing is that, well, one thing was that it was very cheap, which was good for me because I came from Peru and the other thing that was very beneficial was that there was only one person in the house apart from me who spoke Spanish. So they were all Americans, well there was an American who spoke Spanish perfectly who was the only person

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I spoke Spanish with but no one else spoke Spanish. My roommate only spoke English even though she was from a Latin American family. She didn’t feel comfortable, so she didn’t speak Spanish. That forced me to talk, I would even tell people, if I say something wrong correct me because I’m here to learn. Seeing people correct me was funny because, for example, I struggled to say “honey” so I would say “jonei” (as if it were a Spanish word) and they made fun of me. And like that, with all of the jokes, they helped me a ton. And the classes were very difficult, that is, Texas is a very good university and during the exams it was, like, wow, to see how fast people wrote. For me, it took a lifetime to write a single paragraph. I knew I wasn’t going to do so well in English, but it was super good because I noticed and several teachers mentioned how there was a change from the first class to last class. And yes, I also realized that there was quite a bit of change.

What I’ve been studying has always been political science. Bachelor’s degree in political science (BA in Peru), master’s degree in political science, at Chapel Hill, and also a PhD in political science at Chapel Hill. And I study two things that are a little separate but interrelated. One is social politics, especially health policy, and the other issue is representation and especially representation of minority groups such as women or immigrants.

I think getting used to the culture of the people from the United States. They are very friendly but their way of being friendly is very different from our way of being friendly that we have in Latin America. I mean, for example if someone says to you in Perú, hey, come to my house tomorrow, you go to their house tomorrow but here it is very common to say oh we should hang out tomorrow, you should come over to my place, and everyone knows it’s a lie. I mean that no one is inviting you. You can’t appear the next day at their house. So this is an extreme example of how it was hard for me to get used to it. Okay, the people are being friendly, but it doesn’t mean we’re best friends or that we’re going actually going to hang out on the weekend. So I believe that this is a way that we have seen the majority of my friends in Texas, and the same thing in North

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Carolina, who were foreigners (Italian or Spanish or Argentinian or Turkish or from other countries) because like that was the nexus, this thing of us feeling different from everyone else and that we shared a few things from our cultures, but other than that, that is, it was not that I only had international friends; I also had American friends but I think that’s what caught my eye the most.

I think, so far, very good. I think that in general the university environment is very similar if you go to a university located in California or Texas, in terms of how they are usually more liberal and cosmopolitan than the rest of the city. I imagine that if I were a middle school or high school teacher at a rural school, my experience would be very different. But here I feel like the people are friendly. They know a lot so it doesn’t happen that I have dumb questions like what part of Mexico is Peru in or, I mean, no one has asked me that here, but they have in other places. I think that in general it is a good experience. Also, outside of the university, the people are very kind, they want to know more about your country, your culture. I think that in general a very natural curiosity but well intentioned.

I have not had up until this point any experience where I have felt discriminated against, well, I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ve spent much time here, but so far no (from the beginning of August). I imagine that over time I will have a lot of good and bad experiences like I had in North Carolina.

Yes, I go to Perú two times per year at least. There are years that I go more. I go two times a year because my family is there. Only my husband and I are here. And besides, I study Perú. One of the cases for my doctoral thesis was Perú. So, this also allows me to travel to Perú and just see my family, which is ideal. What I miss the most, even if it sounds so cliché, is the food. It’s what every Peruvian is going to tell you. Because we have a dumb obsession with food, that if you are Peruvian you die for your food. Also, I miss my family a lot, but I see my family. Besides, I never lived with my family for that long. At 16 years old I lived by myself in Lima, so I was very used to it, which is not very common in Latin America; I know you live with your parents until you are 40 years old but, in my case, I was never used to being with my family, but it is nice to see them twice a year. To have the opportunity to be with them.

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I think about my mom, my dad, my PhD advisor, and my husband too. They are the first four people that come to mind. But I think that the person who has the greatest influence on me has been my dad. My dad is a person who does not travel much, he has only been to Mexico, because I practically forced him, I bought him a ticket when I was in Mexico and I told him, you have to come because I already bought the ticket, but in spite of this my dad is the type of person that I think made me see clearly that you may not have the time, or the money to not be able to travel, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to know about other countries and cultures. I mean, in the way that my dad did it and taught me in Trujillo, the city that I’m from, it’s not like there were many people from other countries for us to meet. We weren’t that lucky. We were all from Trujillo but by reading we were able to learn much about other cultures and within Perú there is a lot of regional diversity. We have the coast, the mountain range, the jungle, and my father also emphasized that, to try to learn, to understand it. There is a lot of discrimination of people who are not from the coast. And my parents are not from the coast; they are from the mountains despite the fact that I grew up on the coast and I think that he always pushed this idea on me that someone has to know where people are from instead of having stereotypes, like the people from the mountains are like this or the people of that color are like that; in my time, it was not very common for parents to discuss those issues. My dad did tend to talk about those issues. At least in the context we’re talking about.

Here I have been lucky enough to take this tenure-track job, so the plan is to have tenure in 6 years maximum and to be able to have a stable job in Lexington, in Washington and Lee, and continue with my research agenda, where I am interested in topics of social policy and minority groups, that’s what interests me. In itself, I don’t know what other topics I am going to research in the future but to stay here and continue to combine the passion that I have for teaching with the passion I have for doing research, something that this university allows you to do, but at others it is more difficult because the career is tough.

In general, I would say two principal things that I would like for people to know. One, that there is a lot of diversity in Latin America. And because of this, my first class that I

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teach, Latin American Politics, is about diversity. I believe that when we do not know a place, like, for example, I do not know the Middle East very well, I do not know Africa very well, we have this perspective that all is equal. So, you go to whatever country or part of Latin America and we have this perception that all is equal. That it is chaotic, and it is poor, and it is corrupt. But in reality in Latin America there is a lot of diversity and the best way, well there are many ways to find this diversity but one is obviously to travel. But travelling is not accessible to everyone. So, if you can’t travel, a great way to find diversity of people is to meet them and we’re lucky that there are so many countries here. Know them and take the time to ask them what their country is like.

And what good and bad things it has. And the other thing is that the people here from Latin America, the professors, the students, we are not that different from the American professors and students. In the end we want the same, we have the same plans for our careers and our future goals are similar. I believe that this, to have more understanding of these similarities that we have, helps to dispel many of possible stereotypes. We all have stereotypes, and meeting people one by one is what helps us to remove these stereotypes.

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(39min07sec 04/27/2018)

“IT PAID OFF TO WORK HARD” My name is Luisa Flores Durán de Smith. I am 32 years old. I came to the United States when I was 22 years old. The first time I came was in 2008; with the J1 visa exchange visitor program. I stayed for four months, just on my college vacation and then I returned again to Peru to finish college. Then I returned to the United States in December of 2009. At that time, I had already finished college. The first time I came, in December of 2008, I met the person who is now my husband. Then, while I was in Peru, we kept in touch. We got married in 2010.

It was difficult in the beginning of my marriage, because my husband was not earning a lot, he worked at Hardee’s, in a fast food restaurant. As I was young, I did not know much about money and all those things, and my parents did not know that I had stayed here because I had gotten married. They thought I was studying, since that was my plan.

But given our economic situation, that was impossible.

I should have applied for my Green Card in March (when my marriage happened) or at the latest when I finished my J1 visa in April, but I did not do it. I just applied for my Green Card in December. I was without documentation for a few months because my visa ended in April and I had to return to my country. Sometimes that’s why I understand other immigrants like me. I understand the desperation you feel to want to apply for your documentation, but not having the money to do so, wanting to work and not having the permit to do so, wanting to return to your country to see your family and not being able to do so, wanting to overcome it and not finding the resources to do so. I was without work for three months. Why? Because I was not in the United States legally. I should have left.

It was hard for me because I was used to having everything legally. It was also difficult not being able to return to Peru to see my family. So, I spent all that time saving money.

I saved money to be able to send my paperwork, around $3,000, according to the lawyer. My case itself was a little simpler than that of other immigrants since I came with

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a visa, I had a social security number, I was married. After raising the money for my documents, I sent my application in December of 2010. Finally, in May of 2011, I was able to have my green card and in July, I was able to go to Peru with my husband to visit my family and at last I was able to tell my parents.

I understand what it’s like to be afraid. I was without documentation for 8 months; even though I was married to an American, I was afraid that the police would find me; even though the police never stopped me, I was afraid to go out on the street. No one ever judged me, but I felt that fear of not being legally in this country. When I returned to Peru, I thought I was not going to return to the USA because they were going to find out. I was still followed by that fear, even though I went to my interview and did the paperwork normally, I was still afraid of that.

Then I came back to the United States and continued working. My husband went to college and finished it. Now he has a good job and so do I, but it was different than I thought at first. When I came to the United States, I thought I was coming to study because I went to college in Peru and studied for five years. So, coming here, I realized another reality because in my country I never knew what it was like to not have money. After getting my documents, I worked plenty all the time and I bought my house after three years of my husband and I being in the United States. Many people say to me, hey, how did you do that, you married a man of gold, perhaps, because many people I know they don’t have what I have. Then, they tell me but why should something strange happen, surely you married a millionaire. But it was totally different. We both worked very hard and I earned a lot more in the restaurant, and with that money I helped him pay for college because we don’t have student loans. We paid for everything by working. My husband once had three jobs and I worked every day, seven days a week working and paying for everything we have.

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There was a friend who was a grade below me, and he told me that he had gone to the United States to practice his English. Then he told me, well, you’re going to the United States, it’s like $1,500 for the paperwork you need for an interview. I went to the embassy and had an interview in English. Obviously, I knew English, but not perfectly, I knew a little English. You had to go to a fair where you were hired. They got everything for you, but you had to take exams. So, that whole process took from May to November until they gave me my visa, but I did not spend much, about $1,500 at the most. But I came with a work permit, so I was able to work. The visa is called J1. I liked the experience of coming to another country and being able to practice English. I liked it because I met different people, but the place where I worked was Hardee’s, a fast food restaurant.

I thought that the United States was like New York. It was all New York. Because the first time I came, I came to Lexington, so, that’s why, I’m telling you. For me as you saw in the movies, you see huge buildings like in New York, like California, like Hollywood, but no. Since I am from the city, I am from Lima, I am from the capital of my country, so I was used to seeing buildings. For example, in my house we don’t have a garden. We have to go to the park to see green. So, I thought it was like that. But I realized that everything was so green, and the people were very kind. I was also quite surprised by that because I thought that sometimes people say I don’t greet you or things like that, but on the contrary, I really liked that people greeted you, that people were friendly.

Racism I cannot tell you, yes, I have felt racism, because it has not happened to me. I do feel that sometimes now where I am, it appears to me that being Latina, sometimes people think you don’t know much, that you lack knowledge. But racism, no, it has never happened to me.

I would like to change the opinion they have about Latinos. Here what people think about Latinos is that they drink a lot. That they don’t speak English, that they take people’s jobs away, especially in Buena Vista, it’s what the people think. And it also happened to me once that my parents were at Wal-Mart with my sister and some teenagers shouted ‘beaners’ at them. That disrespect bothers me.

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I feel much prouder of who I am now because at first I thought that I would never have anything, because my husband and I lived in a small room that we rented without our family. Now I have been able to pay for my sister’s college and I have been able to bring my parents. I have my house, I have several cars, my husband finished college, and I realize now that I am in this moment of my life that is totally different from what I had lived. When I came, I said, oh, I will never be anything, I will never have anything. I said, what am I doing here. Why did I go to college?

I could have worked in Peru. So, I say, what am I doing here, but now it paid off working hard, it helped me a lot. Now I realize that there is no bad job. Any job is good while you are working and being productive. If one wants to excel, that’s fine, you excel, and you have to work for it, to surpass yourself, if that’s what you want to do, but you’re not going to ask a person why he works in the field or why he works in what is supposedly worse to belittle them, because those people sometimes earn more than you. You have to take advantage of the things you do and do what you can. I always wanted to prove that I’m Latina and that Latinos are hardworking and I always, always, did that and that’s why things worked out the way they did and that’s why I save what I save.

I like the tranquility that there is here compared to my city, which is not very safe. I like this very small place; I like to meet people. I know a lot of people by their first or last name; I just love it. In my city, on the other hand, I don’t know everyone. I like that and that most people are friendly and like to help; here people love to help; if you have a problem, people help you.

When I first came, I did not meet many Latinos. I just thought that all the Latinos who were here worked at Don Tequila. But no, I did not think that there were many Latinos here because, when you look outside, you don’t see anyone who’s Latino, and if you see one, you’re not sure if they really are. Most of the Latinos I’ve met have been because of my past job and the one I’m currently at. It makes me happy to have the trust of my Latino community and to be able to help them

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because, if they needed anything from me, they knew my name and already asked me for help, sometimes translating or introducing me from one friend to another because I am the only Peruvian here in the community, then they knew me as the Peruvian, so since I am the only one, they knew me and introduced me in restaurants more than anything, sometimes when I volunteer there, I meet people.

The United States is not like the movies. Some family or friends in our countries think that life in the United States is easy and that you make a lot of money, but what you don’t know is that you have to work a lot. You have to know that here, life is very difficult, that everything costs something and that you have to save a lot.

You have to be prepared to know how to work.

I’d like everyone to know that we’re not here to take anyone’s job here. We’re here to work, but not to take anyone’s job. What we want is to support the community.

To get ahead, but also to help. We want to develop, we want to succeed. We come here with many dreams.

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(12min32sec 10/11/2018)

“HOW DO PEOPLE ENGAGE IN POLITICAL PARTICIPATION?” I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There I did my undergraduate studies. Afterwards, I worked for a few years as a research assistant and, when I was 25 years old, I went to Texas to get my doctorate at the University of Texas. It took seven years to get my doctorate. I did a postdoctorate at Colby College in Maine and now I am an assistant professor here at Washington and Lee. I wanted to get my doctorate. I wanted to have the experience of studying in another country. The University of Texas was one university I considered. I applied to several universities, and the University of Texas accepted me. They had a great program, and I decided to go there.

It did not surprise me very much. There are always things that surprise you, but it did not draw my attention. It was not that big of a culture shock.

More resources. Better organized in some respects. It did not surprise me too much. I already knew. I had talked with someone who was my thesis tutor, my advisor. So, none of this caught my attention. I knew there was a heap of work, that it was a challenge and all that, but nothing out of the ordinary.

No, well, very well, but I have been here for two months. For two years, I mean, I went from the University of Texas, where it was very diverse, many people who spoke Spanish, to Colby College in Maine.

It is the state, I believe, one of the states with the fewest Latinos. So,

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I went from a place with a lot of diversity to much less diversity or different forms of diversity. And so that was a change. And here at Washington and Lee and Lexington, even though it is not so diverse and not so strong in Hispanics when compared to Texas, it is more than Maine. Therefore, my wife and I are very happy.

We have been here two months. The months of August and September. So, I do not think I am in a place to say much. In addition, I have a privileged position. I came with work. The university is very prestigious and has many resources. I have met many people.

Therefore, all these kind of things make the experience very different than that which other people have.

My research, most of it takes place in Argentina with all of my family. I have the privilege of being able to travel when I have the resources necessary to travel. Therefore, I do not miss much; my family members are also able to travel and visit here. I miss the family, of course. Plenty of customs, but not too many. There is nothing for which I say, oh my, how much I miss such a thing.

Globalization and how it has increased during the last decades.

International business has become more pronounced. It is cheaper and easier to move internationally. International tourism. But the transport of goods and international people has become cheaper and more efficient. Therefore, it is much, it is easier for people to move, the transport of goods, the communication. Everything makes it much less pronounced. You press a button and you are able to have a video conference with someone in any part of the world.

My mom emigrated from Europe to Argentina when she was very young. Her case was completely different from the experience when

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I moved from my country of origin to another country; forms of communications were totally different.

I am a political sociologist. I am interested in the study of power and the institutions and the relations of power between institutions and people and groups. Therefore, I study social movements, like the people participating in politics and what are the motivations to participate in social movements and protests in politics, etcetera. And I study distinct cases of movements in both the United States and Argentina. My first area of interest is Argentina because it is there that I wrote my thesis, but it is not the only thing.

My thesis is about the movement of unemployed workers in Argentina. About how the participants of the movement participated not so much for psychological reasons, although that is part of it, but what interests me is how they broke the routines. The practices people have while participating. They lead them to perceive political participation as an end in itself. Something valuable to consider is, how is it that people engage in political participation? And my theory is that it’s not so much about biology, although of course it holds its weight. It’s more about enjoying the practice of politics.

My plan is this, settle academically in my academic home that is this university. The university is very prestigious; it has many resources.

It of course has many challenges but has a community that is committed to improving the university. Make it even more effective, even more inclusive, even more modern. My plan is this short term: to write a book about what my dissertation was on and later to write more books. I would like to write a book about my job out in the field in the Jujuy providence in Northern Argentina. I would also be

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interested in writing about the immigrants’ experience in the United States, but that is more for later; first we go step by step. First is to write a book developing the implications and the contributions of my doctoral thesis.

I have not spent enough time to have conclusive diagnosis on my opinions about the challenges of the community. There is, I say, a need for there to be a recognition that the Latino community is a part of the community. It is part of Lexington, it is part of Washington and Lee. A recognition of the contributions that the Latino community makes to this community and all of the communities throughout this country. And also the acknowledgement of the challenges that the community has and how as a community in general, not only Latinos, but we can all work to improve the conversations of all the people who live in this area. Not only the people of different ethnicities, but differences of ethnicity, of origin or even if they are in the university or not. This I believe we know we have to recognize and now I do believe that students recognize this and the people of the community as well.

In personal terms my family has been a big influence. My parents, my siblings, now my wife, my child, all of my family. In professional terms until now I believe that there are three great influences in my life. These have been my thesis tutor during my undergraduate studies in Argentina, my advisor and my thesis tutor while getting my doctorate in Texas, and the person who contracted me for the postdoctorate at Colby College. This is my past. In the present and the future, my colleagues in this university already have had a big influence; I am totally grateful for their support and of course their influence will only grow.

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(35min44sec 05/01/2018)

“I PREFER TO GET UP IN THE MORNING LOOKING FOR THOSE OTHER 20 THINGS I DO LIKE AND NOT SPEND MY DAY LOOKING FOR THE 20 NEGATIVE THINGS.” I was born in Spain. I was born in Salamanca and I moved to Madrid when I was 12 years old. I lived there until I was 25, which is when I came to this country. My childhood and part of my adolescence is a product of the dictatorship of Fransisco Franco. Whether I wanted it or not, the experience of growing up under a dictatorship and living during the transition and birth of a democracy gives me a very particular way of understanding society. As a girl, I learned about dictatorships, here and there, things that I didn’t always understand: how many family members and friends had spent decades in exile, how many would speak of their experiences in prison as political prisoners, like my maternal grandfather, or whoever was shot dead like my paternal grandfather. When Franco died, being a teenager already, I lived and participated in a marvelous social change: the birth of a democracy in the country after 40 years! It was a transition from dictatorship to democracy without war, something that we, the Spaniards who participated in the process, should be very proud of, since not all countries accomplish that. I lived the fervent desire of a country to change and the social ability to cooperate and collaborate to create a democratic country worthy of all, where there would be a place for all political parties and different ideologies. I participated in many protests, where I suffered many falls and was hit by batons of the mounted police. I was an intensely politically active teenager in the classroom and in the street: strikes, rallies, sit-ins, confrontations, protests… all to stop a dictatorship. All of this made me the person I am today and affected what I did afterwards and what I think now.

Democracy and social change also brought many aspects of capitalism that I did not like very much. I saw how many old bars and cafés disappeared with McDonalds appearing in their place. The quantity of McDonald’s and Burger Kings in Madrid seemed like a commercial attack from the outside that came with the Anglo-Saxon world; as if they had decided ‘now Spain is ours.’ As an anti-establishment and progressive teenager, I refused to study English, dedicating myself to French and other Pluma • 87

languages (Latin and Greek) in college, thinking ‘if those Americans and English, if they want to talk to me, they’ll have to learn Spanish.’ Now my attitude seems very funny to me because, if someone had talked to the 18-year-old girl I was and told her ‘you will live in America and speak English for over 50% of your life and your days,’ I would have cracked up laughing. It’s incredible how life can change and it’s impossible to predict our future.

When I finished college in Madrid, my degree (a BA in linguistics and classics), the Spanish democracy was only a few years old. There still hadn’t been an education reform and because of all that it was difficult to get a doctoral degree in Spain without economic means, and so I started to work and taught high school, the institute, for a year. In those years Spain, finally, was open to the rest of the democratic world and there were many foreign students and professors who came to see and study a Spain that still had vestiges of the dictatorship. That way I met many of them and saw even more clearly that I wanted the opposite: I, the person of the dictatorship, wanted to experience that other world from the outside, with democracies and social institutions that had been established for years. I wanted to see how they studied outside of the country, without the restrictions of a dictatorship, just like the ones who came to see us as if the Spaniards were part of a museum. That was one of the reasons why I began to study English (at 24 years old!) and to apply for admission with financial aid to doctoral programs in the U.S. Every day, after teaching at the high school, in the afternoons and evenings I would go to the American Academy of Madrid to learn English. Because I didn’t have the economic means to pay for my doctorate, I decided to apply to 10 of the most expensive universities, thinking that they would be better able to help me with a scholarship. And that was how I happily got into John Hopkins University.

Obviously, language was my biggest obstacle, because I had only been studying English for a year when I came to study for my doctorate. It was very difficult to spend my first two months in the U.S. going from a beginning level of English to an advanced level while taking classes for my doctorate at the same time, but I did it. I knew that I could lose my scholarship and the incredible opportunities I had in front of 88 • Pluma

me in a moment where hardly anyone left Spain to study; that was more than enough of an incentive to push myself as hard as I could.

In general, I knew very little about American society, but I was a critic of their international politics. But I knew that I wanted to study for a doctorate with all the freedoms of a system different from the one in Spain in those times. Socially, in everyday life, what shocked me most was the lack of life on the streets of small cities (not New York, of course!) and it’s still difficult for me. The loneliness of the streets distresses me because I grew up in a country where social life in the streets was very important, no matter how large or small the community: human interaction in the street, friendly relationships, the smiles of people passing by, strangers’ spontaneous conversations… The distance in human relationships here is what’s hardest for me in this country. I miss the natural closeness among people; forced meetings and organizations just aren’t the same. This was what most shocked me when I arrived and still saddens me.

But I still remember more about the good aspects of my first years here. When I arrived at John Hopkins University, there were very few Spaniards as critical of politics as I was during the era of Reagan and Bush. The majority didn’t stay to finish their doctorates and they asked me how I could be so happy in this country. I remember explaining to them ‘I can tell you right now 20 things that I don’t like and they are very clear, but I prefer to get up in the morning looking for those other 20 things I do like and not spend my day looking for the 20 negative things.’ Those were the things that allowed me to continue here. I loved the intellectual and open dialogue in classes that touched on every type of topic without fear, the reason why I came. For example, it seemed impressive to me that my professors would want to know what I, a student, thought; that didn’t happen in Spain. At universities in my day, the professor would sit in a chair, dictating (literally, sometimes) their class, they were the person who talked and the students did not comment, they only took notes. The majority of professors were distant. That distance, which curiously I missed between the people

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on the streets of America, I admired in the relationships between professors and students in the university and outside. I had come here to find intellectual freedom and a different way of learning, without a doubt, I found that. I am a professor for that same reason. An open and equal education for everyone is a basic and fundamental right. Today, to contrast the educational situation of the U.S. with the social strides Europe has made in the area of education, Spain included, it makes me very sad to see the elitism in American universities, the exorbitant and impossible prices that impede many people’s access to universities.

When I arrived here, almost 29 years ago, there were no Spaniards and very few people who spoke Spanish, maybe 3 or 4. . . I have always been so surrounded by Spanish-speakers who were not or are not Spaniards, that sometimes I feel not only Hispanic, but Latina as well from being so close with a community that’s a part of who I am now. I have loved looking at how our community has grown. I loved going to Frank’s Pizza because (apart from the pizza) that was where people worked with whom I and my children could speak in my language. I adored how, when I entered the establishment I heard ‘Hola, Fernanda!’ and it made me feel at home. The owners, Italian immigrants, were not bothered that the workers came to chat with me, just the opposite! They themselves tried to speak in Spanish as well. Romeo and Tomas are two good bosses. My children would go into the kitchens of Frank’s Pizza, and the chefs, the majority of whom were Mexicans from Oaxaca, would receive them with pleasure and a smile. I don’t know, it was like an extended family. My sense of loneliness was very big because, if there were already few people on the streets in Baltimore, one could imagine the contrast of being in Lexington. It was my first time living in a real American community, without students, outside of the university, without apartments, and a life and rhythm of the south: everything was a shock. I didn’t

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understand how the streets could have those gardens alongside them, but no one used them. When I would pass through the streets with my baby in the stroller, I almost never saw anyone. I remember asking my husband “where are the people from the houses?” and that was when I learned the idea, the functionality, and the importance of the backyard in American life, something that seemed to me the best system of distancing people from each other. Here people were in their backyards, in Spain, like the desire to talk with your neighbors, the front yard, the balcony, or the door of the house were also important and a link to connect people.

I would like it if many of the non-Latino members of the university, along with the American community of our city in general, understood the many Latinos that are around us, working in fundamental services for all of us in all areas. Many people had no idea of the numbers and of our dependency on their work. It is necessary that they understand that they are normal people, that they understand their lives as being parallel to theirs, working and taking the children to school or to the doctor, going shopping… I would like it if all of these people respected the normalcy of the Latino and, at the same time, really admired the strength of the Latino community, which has additional problems and a lack of social support but continues to fight for normalcy and happiness every day. It is necessary to understand, admire, and respect everything which they have had to leave behind to be here for their families.

This project can help people understand and educate themselves about the different countries and the different situations of the people who surround us.

The people who have most impacted me are those same Latinos. A person like Maria or like Erika or like any one of the many people I’ve known for years, who continue to work and do so with joy everyday, educating their children in the best way possible, educating themselves, still happy although

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many have not seen their children, parents, or other relatives in a long time.

I feel very Spanish. I feel more Spanish than American despite the fact that I’ve spent more time in the United States than in my country. I go to Spain frequently, I do whatever I can to go to Spain twice a year. Basically, an important or added aspect of the necessity to work for me is the ability to go to Spain and help my mother and brother who need me there. It’s very expensive, and sometimes, for medical reasons, my family has needed me there up to 4 times a year, which costs a lot of money. When I go to my country I try to see everyone because I need to. When I am here, there are Hispanic people like Maria or Erika, who are like family, and I know that they cannot do what I do, visit their children or parents, those they have left behind, who in some cases can’t even raise their own children, leaving them with their grandparents. I don’t know if I could do that, but necessity requires it, and I admire them. I believe that the people who haven’t permanently left their country, who haven’t left people behind, can’t ever truly understand it. I know that I only can humbly understand a little, as I am not in the same situation. The stories and the strength of so many people, so close to us (whether we know them or not), cooking our food, building our university buildings, cleaning houses, they are the ones who most impress me, those for whom I have the most respect. I hope that everyone can try to understand them better.

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MORE THAN AN IMMIGRANT – CONCLUSION “Thank God I came to a place where there was snow.” Like Alma, each person finds something that leads them to stay in Rockbridge County. For some it’s the climate, for others it’s the economy, but for the majority of people, the tranquility in a small county is what is most appealing. Many immigrants see movies and hear of the cities like New York or Chicago and end up living there because it’s the American dream. On the contrary, the inhabitants of Rockbridge County like the idea of staying in a city where there is peace in knowing that there isn’t much crime or concerns and where they know many people in the community, no matter where they are.

Over time, more Spanish-speaking immigrants have arrived in the county as a result of the connection that exists between and among them. Each person who came to live in one of the cities of the county arrived because they knew someone who offered them a job, home, or help in moving to a new location. Some people arrive in the county right after they migrate to the United States, and others don’t, but each person has been told of the tranquility, opportunities to work, and resources that exist here. As a result, many of those who live in Rockbridge County come from the same towns and cities in Latin America. Knowing other people is one of the fundamental elements in learning to navigate Rockbridge County and crossing the barriers that exist in the United States for an immigrant.

The jobs that many obtain are in places that don’t require extensive use of English, nor in many cases, legal documents of the United States. In the first couple of days, each person comes to realize, that’s if they don’t know it before coming, how important English is. The language becomes the key to everything. Although many encounter other Spanish speakers in the community, English is the most practiced language in the county, and not all can communicate in Spanish. Those

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who are younger can learn English in school and adapt in a better way than adults, who don’t have much time nor opportunity to study and practice the language.

The process of feeling part of a new community like Rockbridge County can be really easy as well as long and difficult. Many of the immigrants haven’t seen their families since they arrived in the United States and feel a solitude very difficult to overcome. Thanks to those who have gone through similar situations and members of the community who are ready to help support Spanish-speaking immigrants, each person can feel welcomed and included in a family and community. Events like the Hispanic Heritage Festival show the efforts of the community to enhance the inclusion of each community member and give hope for what Rockbridge County and the United States can be. Each person who shared their story in this project deserves to find a family, community, and, more than anything, a home, just like every other community member, no matter their race.

Thanks for reading Time of Change and for joining us on this journey.

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COMMUNITY RESOURCES SCHOOLS Head Start/Early Head Start (540) 463-3763 100 Pendelton Place, Lexington, VA childcarecenter.us/provider_detail/ waddell_head_start_child_ development_center_lexington_va Lexington City Schools 540) 463-7146 300 Diamond St., Lexington, VA lexingtonva.gov/community/schools/ Lylburn Downing Middle School (540) 463-3532 302 Diamond St., Lexington VA lexingtonva.gov/community/ schools/ldms/default.htm Rockbridge Regional Adult Education (540) 462-7536 2893 Collierstown Rd., Lexington, VA shineadulted.org/rockbridgeregion

Woods Creek Montessori (540) 463-6461 2 Dold Place, Lexington, VA woodscreekmontessori.org Yellow Brick Road Early Learning Center (540) 463-7344 410 Yellow Brick Road, Lexington, VA yellowbrickroadelc.weebly.com

LEGAL SERVICES Blue Ridge Legal Services (540) 463-7119 15 E Nelson, Lexington, VA brls.org/lexington-office/ Rockbridge Area Department of Social Services (540) 463-7143 20 E Preston St, Lexington, VA co.rockbridge.va.us/Directory.aspx?did=22

Parry McCluer Middle School (540) 261-7340 2329 Chestnut Ave., Buena Vista, VA ms.bvcps.net

W&L Tax Clinic (540) 458-8918 Washington and Lee University law.wlu.edu/clinics/tax-clinic

Waddell Elementary School (540) 463-5353 100 Pendleton Pl, Lexington, VA lexingtonva.gov/community/schools/hwes/

W&L Immigrant Rights (540) 458-8334 Washington and Lee University law.wlu.edu/clinics/immigrant-rights-clinic

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W&L Community Legal Practice Center (540) 458-8560 Washington and Lee University law.wlu.edu/clinics/communitylegal-practice-center

HEALTH Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital (540) 458-3488 1 Health Circle, Lexington, VA carilionclinic.org/locations/carilionstonewall-jackson-hospital Rockbridge Area Health Center (540) 464-8700 25 Northridge Ln, Lexington, VA rockahc.org

COMMUNITY Campus Kitchen (540) 458-4669 106 Lee Ave, Lexington, VA wlu.edu/shepherd-program/communityengagement/campus-kitchenat-washington-and-lee Maury River Friends Meeting (540) 464-3511 34 Waterloo Drive, Lexington, VA fgcquaker.org/cloud/mauryriver-friends-meeting

Project Horizon (540) 463-7861 120 Varner Ln., Lexington, VA projecthorizon.org Rockbridge Area Recreation Organization (540) 463-9525 300A White Street, Lexington, VA rarorec.org Rockbridge Regional Library (540) 463-4324 138 S Main St., Lexington, VA rrlib.net YMCA (540) 464-9622 790 N Lee Hwy, Lexington, VA ymcavbr.org/locations/rockbridge/ rockbridge-area-ymca/ ESOL W&L esol@wlu.edu esol.academic.wlu.edu

MANY MORE RESOURCES CAN ALSO BE FOUND AT law.wlu.edu/clinics/community-legalpractice-center/community-resources Pluma • 97

TIME OF CHANGE

PUBLISHED IN SPANISH IN WINTER, 2019.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION PUBLISHED IN SPRING, 2020