Memories of an Émigré

Memories of an Émigré
by Levan Tortladze, May, 2014

The United States plays many roles in an émigré’s life: it is a roof, an umbrella for protection and safety over the heads of people who come from all over the world; it is an opportunity for financial success; for some, including but not limited to activists and people with marginalized social identities, coming to America is the only way to survive. But successfully immigrating into the United States and then maintaining a life here isn’t as easy as most immigrants like to believe. Adriana, a 34-year-old wife, mother, student, immigrant from Brazil, and a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area for thirteen years, with a pending U.S. citizenship, she shares in a two-part interview what living – struggling and eventually succeeding – in America was like after 4-month-long bureaucratic process of applying for a visa and leaving all she knew, her family, and her language, behind. “My perception before coming here was that this country was very developed in the sense that there was no homelessness, no poverty, and, most of all, the streets and environment were very clean. California has carried the myth of easy success and vast opportunity. For centuries, immigrants have followed this myth. However, when I moved here, I was shocked by the poverty. I believed that the American Dream was real and easy.” Minot State University’s Andy Bertsch states in his study “The Melting Pot vs. the Salad Bowl: A Call to Explore Regional Cross-Cultural Differences and Similarities within the U.S.A.,” that “each nation has a distinct prism through which it views the world” (Bertsch 132). Just as Adriana’s narrative illustrates, the belief that all would be immediately well once reaching American soil is common in most countries around the world. Adriana continues to explain in her interview that her time in the United States has been far from easy. Yet, now she considers her plight a success story and pays tribute to the years she struggled as a new immigrant for her current happiness, her community, her family, her education, and general sense of accomplishment. Though Adriana’s personal journey to this place, both physically and emotionally, was full of “challenging times, loneliness and disappointment,” it is the process that made her successful, and it is people like her that make this country a success. Adriana’s story challenges the myth that all who come here are successful and wealthy, and are treated fairly, otherwise known as the American Dream. It can be said that the hardships an émigré experiences in his/her process of achieving citizenship are what actually help us realize that dream and achieve success.

After obtaining a visa, the funds to travel and move, and the courage to leave all that is familiar behind, surviving in America is full of difficulties: anxiety, pressure, depression, fear and stress. It takes a lot of time and effort to land a job that can support one’s basic needs in the host country while also supporting family at home. And as if that weren’t enough, one of the biggest difficulties in assimilating to a new culture is attaining the knowledge of the language so that one can adapt to both professional and casual society. Moreover, not too many people are fortunate enough to come to this country with proper documents and those who are undocumented, the constant fear of deportation haunts them. Even when a person gets sick and needs medical attention, his or only option is to stay indoors and self-diagnose, medicate, and treat via non-traditional methods, because medical care is not consistently awarded to those without papers. Adriana tells of times she was taken advantage of by employers, looked down on by social peers, discriminated against at every turn, frustrated with the language, and paralyzed by the constant fear of authority and deportation. She describes this 8-year period in her life as “really exhausting and lonely, living on survivor mode.” “The culmination of stressors associated with constantly having to adapt to unfamiliar environments, work-related stress, and lack of social and emotional support may take a psychological and physical toll on many transmigrants” (Furman, et. al. 168). It is difficult to move from one’s natural habitat, one’s home, to an environment that is completely different, with a different language, different rules, different social expectations, and even different food. Adriana explains that the sheer differences in her culture and this new American way were almost the most anxiety-producing. “Thanksgiving celebrations or other holidays were hardest for me. During these events, I felt like an outsider, like it was obvious I didn’t belong, like I didn’t belong at the party or at the grocery store near the frozen turkeys. Maybe, because I didn’t quite understand the meaning of the celebration, I just couldn’t get as excited as everybody else around me. I didn’t get it, and I didn’t even know how to begin to get it without announcing that I was that girl who didn’t know what Labor Day is.” But Adriana would soon realize that most people were more than happy to explain the history of the holidays, once she got over feeling nervous about asking. “I realized I’d only get out what I put in. My point is, it’s so important to learn about the new culture one is immigrating to. I just needed to get over myself, to let go of my own culture in order to embrace this new one.”

Furthermore, isolation becomes a major side-effect of the émigré. Lost and alone, one struggles to adapt even beyond job searching and money earning when he or she doesn’t have a community on which to rely. The fact that one’s closest kin is many miles away is often enough to make that person give up, regardless of his or her sacrifices, and go back home. “This lack of social and emotional support may force transmigrants to rely solely on themselves” (Furman, et. al. 168), which is probably the biggest culture shock for many émigrés such as Adriana. She tells of a time in which all these differences converged in a single dinner filled with her good intentions: “Some years ago, I remember, me and my husband moved into a new house in a new neighborhood. Just as is the custom in both our cultures, we wanted to get to know our neighbors and so [we] invited our next-door neighbors over for dinner. I prepared everything. After good food and a lot of wine, both my husband and me were satisfied, even proud of our progress in adapting to this new society. We called it a night, still laughing together and toasting one another. In my husband’s culture [Georgian], after a good feast shared with new friends, the next day is followed by eating more to help get over last night’s fiesta.” Basically, as Adriana would further explain, it is customary in Georgian culture for the partiers to reunite the next morning, hung-over, and eat comfort food while they continue to bond and get to know each other. But what happened next truly solidified for Adriana and her husband, who had felt so proud of their assimilation, just how far from home they were and just how different they were. “When we invited the same people back over, we were alarmed when police officers arrived at our front door, with a statement from our neighbors accusing us of having some kind of agenda, an evil ulterior motive to be inviting them two days in a row,” says Adriana, with disappointment in her voice. Her attempt to share her own culture in this new and foreign place had backfired. She states, “It was then we were convinced that some things are meant to be left alone.” What she felt needed to be left alone, as she would clarify, is her need for community, for belonging. She came to learn that that is not so natural here in the United States, at least not as it is in her hometown of Rio de Janeiro. Not only did she already feel isolated from her family and her culture, but she now had bad blood between her and her new neighbors. But even in this sad situation, Adriana feels something positive came of it when she says, “I became more independent. I trusted people less. But I was better able to weed out the people who would be my greatest friends from everybody else. It was from moments like those that I now have this amazing, strong, solid community that my husband, son and I have now.” As Adriana elaborated about her community, she can now rely on them and speaks of them as if they are more family than friends. Truly, just as Adriana’s isolation and disappointment led to her current support system, an émigré’s hardships do shape the person and, thus, the country.
Furthermore, America is a more individualistic society, meaning that individuals generally focus on his/her own goals and successes before those of his/her community or country. People come from all over the world to achieve their goals and at the end it ties into discovering their sole identity. On the contrary, countries like Brazil, where Adriana is from, are more collectivistic, meaning that people have a sense of common wealth and togetherness. They feel that they are merely small pieces of a bigger picture. Adriana claims she is very family-orientated, whether those family members are immediate and extended. She knows what it means to be a part of a bigger picture in which people have solid support system anywhere there is family. At first she experienced a culture shock. Being raised in such a manner, she recalls working at a restaurant as a waiter, where it is known to have lots of undocumented immigrants working under the table.

“I was always picking up slack for other workers as well and helping them out, but once people started noticing my behavior, they started to take advantage of that situation. Whether it was my job responsibility or not, I was always the first person to be asked to stay longer hours. It started becoming a routine, which sometimes caused me to quit the job because I was overwhelmed with extra responsibilities. Slowly, as time went by and I acquired some experience and knowledge on how to deal with such situations, I became cold and immune to such demands. Once I started to notice that people were slacking due to their personal lack of will in completing the task that they had been hired to do, I was unwilling to pick up their slack. Me, coming from a nurturing environment, where it was not a question whether I was going to step up to the plate, but a mandatory obligation. Which is unusual in my culture, and made me feel guilty and ashamed. This could have been the beginning of my assimilating to this country and its culture.”

It was against Adriana’s nature to think only of herself, but she had to in order to succeed. She had to not feel and be selfish to self-preserve. “A ruthless individualism, expressed primarily through a market mentality, has invaded every sphere of our lives, undermining those institutions, such as the family or the university, that have traditionally functioned as foci of collective purposes, history, and culture. This lack of common purpose and concern for the common good bodes ill for a people claiming to be a democracy. Caught up in our private pursuits, we allow the workings of our major institutions—the economy and government—to go on “over our heads” (Andre Velasquez). Instead of feeling like she was a smaller piece in the larger picture, in America’s individualistic society, Adriana felt like she was more of a pawn in the game of people more important and successful than her. But even this she credits for her current happiness.

“I created a community and family that I really care about and that are closer to me than my own family at this point. After years of challenges and obstacles due to my illegal status, I finally got to work on my education and be a mom, wife and productive member of the society that I once resented. I would say that if I never got to legalize my situation in America, if I never overcame all those obstacles, I would always feel a lack of purpose or accomplishment. I think I would have always felt more disappointed in myself.”

America is filled with immigrants who hold the same mindset. These people, who come from all over, endure their struggles, and can and do end up successful. Sometimes one’s definition of success evolves over time, but America is made up of strong, dedicated immigrants, and that is why the American Dream is still alive in the minds of people everywhere.

It is true that immigrating to the United States is challenging as many émigrés are forced either by oppression, discrimination, financial struggles, or just the difficult search for a much-dreamed-about American identity. A country that is well known for standing up for its people and providing basic human rights tends to be inviting for many immigrants. Adriana tolerated being pushed around at jobs and her life was in the hands of her superiors, who didn’t care a bit for her well-being. After living in conditions that were barely tolerable and constantly being exploited, she still contributed so much to support her family back home. After all her hardships she still claims that those very hardships made her an even stronger person today.

Works Cited

Bertsch, Andy. “The Melting Pot vs. the Salad Bowl: A Call to Explore Regional Cross-Cultural Differences And Similarities Within The U.S.A.” Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict Volume 17 (2013): 131-148. Print.

Furman, Rich. “Social Work Practice with Latinos: Key Issues for Social Workers.” National Association of Social Workers Volume 54 (2009): 167-172. Print.

Andre, Claire and Manuel Valasquez. “American Society and Individualism.” American Society and Individualism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1991. Web.

 Transcript

Levan T: What is your name?

Adriana: Adriana.

Levan T: What year were you born and where?

Adriana: I was born in 1979, in Rio de Janeiro.

Levan T: Could you describe a little about your household?

Adriana: I lived with my mom and grandmother, for a while I had my uncle and his family living with us.

Levan T: Can you tell me a little about your living situation in your country at that time?
Adriana: Growing up in Brazil was fun. Spend a lot of time in the beach and was blessed with lots of sunny days. However in my situation I always felt that there was something else for me to: “I always dreamed what it would be to live in a different country and because of American culture being very popular in Brazil through music”. I thought about America most.

Levan T: Has it ever crossed your mind that one day you would immigrate to U.S?

Adriana: I always dreamed about.

Levan T: How old were you when u came to U.S?Adriana: I was 21 years old

Levan T: Could you describe a little about how did you manage to get a visa or how was the traveling to this country?

Adriana: First I asked my mom, if she would be willing to not paying my college tuition for one semester and instead pay for my travels in California.

Levan T: What was her reaction?

Adriana: As a mother, it was only natural for her to be concerned about my postponement of education, but it was obvious to her that I’ve wanted to do this for a while.

Levan T: have you heard about the immigration in California?

Adriana: California has carried the myth of easy success and vast opportunity since nineteen century, when gold rush took place. For centuries immigrants follow this myth, as gold brought explorers form all over the world. California attracts immigrants looking opportunities to express their ideas more openly. California inspired many movements that iconize the hippies form Height Asbury, gay community of Castro Street and Sexy tan bodies from Los Angeles Beaches. Now Californians continue to witness a wave of immigrants who come to the golden State looking for freedom to express their minds, sexuality and politics views making California an exciting state, motivating ambitious young minds looking for freedom and success.

Levan T: what was your perception about U.S prior to coming here and after being here?

Adriana: My perception before coming here was that this country was very developed in the sense that there was no homelessness. No poverty and most of all street and environment were very clean. However after I moved to San Francisco, I was shocked by the poverty I witnessed among the Market area. But also fell in love with the beauty of this city and cultural diversity I found in the mission district.

Levan T: Have you heard about other immigrants?

Adriana: it is the big issue of conversation, here in California there are the huge amount of Illegal immigrants. The bed economy in Mexico motivates Mexicans to cross dark, cold and dangerous trails to cross the San Diego border. In Mexico it is extremely difficult to obtain an American Visa, and crossing the broad becomes the only chance to arrive in the USA and possibly build something better then what they left behind.

Levan T: what steps did you have to follow to apply for a visa?

Adriana: I had to pay some application fees, schedule an interview at an American embassy and prove financial status and reasons that would not keep you away from home.

Levan T: How long was the process?

Adriana: About 4 months

Levan T: What kind of visa and how long was the permit.

Adriana: I received a 10 year visa tourist visa, but I could only stay for 6 months legally.

Levan T: How long have you been here?

Adriana: Overall I’ve been living in California for 13 years.

Levan T: How has living in California impacted your identity?

Adriana: California reminds a bit of home because of its warm climate and more flexible and open minded community. But after all it is still an American culture and it was difficult to adapt to individualism way that is predominant. Therefore I felt that I was becoming a little bit selfish. On a positive note I learned and started to admire how the system worked if you were privileged to have legal status.
Levan T: what was u hoping for in California? Could you please be more specific?
Adriana: Many immigrants choose to come to the United States for better quality of life and more work opportunities. This was the dream country for lots of emigrants looking for opportunities to express their ideas more openly. When I got here we some help from government side, lot of agencies were working, and lots of people were also trained to help emigrants.

Levan T: Tell me about some moments where u felt isolated? Or when someone made u feel isolated.

Adriana: Thanksgiving celebrations or other holidays. During some of these events I felt being an outsider. Maybe because I didn’t quite understood the meaning of the celebration. Which brings me to the point of how important is to learn about the new culture one is immigrating to.

Levan T: Could you tell me of a time where u felt confusion at work?

Adriana: I was always picking up slack for other workers as well and helping them out, but once people started noticing my behavior, they started to take advantage of that situation. Whether it was my job responsibility or not, I was always the first person to be asked to stay longer hours. It started becoming a routine, which sometimes caused me to quit the job because I was overwhelmed with extra responsibilities.

Levan T: How did your struggles and fears, helped shape you?

Adriana: I think that all the challenges I had during my first years as a new immigrant helped me to appreciate what I have today. It made me an open – minded person to except other culture and their costume (even if I don’t like)

Levan T: What good came of this hardships?

Adriana: A great family, friends, education, quality life and a full life experience.

Levan T: how is your relationship with other Americans?
Adriana: It was quite difficult at first, but after sometimes I realized that in order to understand American’s, I had to assimilate into their culture. However I did have some challenging times due to our differences.

Levan T: Your greatest accomplishment?

Adriana: I became more independent. I trusted people less. But I was better able to weed out the people who would be my greatest friends from everybody else. It was from moments like those that I now have this amazing, strong, solid community that my husband, son and I have now.

Levan T: Did you believe that you would succeed in this country?Adriana: yes. I believed that American dream was real and easy.

Levan T: Did you feel any discrimination from people because of your legal status?

Adriana: yes. In the work environment and even in social scene.

Levan T: Do you think every immigrant who came to US find what they looking for?

Adriana: Not every immigrant will find what they looking for. Loneliness and disappointment take over excitement and high expectations.

Levan T: When moving to California does everyone become rich and successful?

Adriana: California continues to receive immigrants from all over the word in search of the dream to pursue wealth and happiness. Nothing will happen easily and to achieve success an immigrant need to apply hard work and discipline. The myth hides the reality of what California has to offer , which comes from the supple plea rues offered by nature, the progressive community than protects the state and set examples to the rest of the country, always looking for better and healthier ways to enjoy life. When moving to California, not everyone will become rich and succeed, but for sure everyone will experience the beauty and uniqueness of the state.

Levan T: do you consider yourself as a successful immigrant?

Adriana: I think I am. I created a community and family that I really care about and that are closer to me than my own family at this point. After years of challenges and obstacles due to my illegal status, I finally got to work on my education and be a mom, wife and productive member of the society. I would say that if I never got to legalize my situation in America, I would always feel an lack of purpose or accomplishment as my core goals , i.e.: education , family , career were out of site for me due to my status . I have to admit that moving to America and live here for 8 years without legality was one of the hardest thing I have done in my life. Been here alone and without rights, had me living on survivor mode for a while, which was really exhausting and lonely.
Levan T: what advice would you give to another person whose trying to immigrate here?
Adriana: If there anything I could tell another young individual that wish to adventure to America as I did. I would say, learn the language as fast as possible, be open mind to understand and act respectfully to the country’s costumes.

 

 

“Home Is Where My Family Is”

“Home Is Where My Family Is”

by Jazmine Ashley Diaz, December 2013

For my oral history project, I decided to interview my mother.  At first, I thought to interview her mother, my grandmother, thinking that, because she is old, she’d probably have more stories to tell and would have better experiences coming to America than my own mother did.  But after careful thought, and remembering the fact that my grandmother has dementia, I chose to interview my own mother instead.  My mother’s name is Rosalina Capili, Sally for short before she married my father and changed her last name to Diaz.  She was born and raised in Guadalupe, Makati, Philippines, which is located in the northern region of the Philippines, relatively close to Manila.  She is in her mid-fifties but has the spirit and heart of a thirty-year- old.  In between being a full-time business accountant, taking care of her family, and watching her Filipino soap operas, I finally found time in to ask her a few questions about her past. 

            My mother grew up with seven brothers and sister, her being the fifth out of eight children (See also: “The most beautiful one”).  Her parents, Nenita and Ruperto Sr., raised eight children—Reynaldo, Ricardo, Romy, Rosalina, Rosana, Ruperto Jr., Eddie, and Conrado—in a small house in a well to do neighborhood.  Growing up with Catholic parents, Rosalina and her siblings grew up in a strict household.  Especially after her father left the country, and Nenita was forced to raise eight children by herself, Rosalina spent her time either in school or at home with her brothers and sister.  She claims that her mother’s reason for keeping them at home was to make it easier to watch all eight of them.  “Away from fighting, all these kids that are bullying, so my mom kept us at home.  When we were living in the Philippines, the way your Lola [grandma] takes care of us, she always keep us inside the house” (Diaz 3).  Around the age of ten, her father left the Philippines and moved to different countries to find better jobs to better support his wife and kids.  Before coming to America, Ruperto Sr. lived in Vietnam and worked as a firefighter.  After a couple of years there, he migrated to America in 1970.  Not only would he find better job opportunities in America, but also here Ruperto Sr. would be able to bring his family with him and take advantage of the immigration reform law that started in 1965.  “Concomitant to the law was the family reunification law that allowed families from Asia to come to the United States” (Garcia).  Here in the U.S., he worked as a tailor, much like how he had in the Philippines, where he had owned his own shop.  In the span of eight years, he finally petitioned his wife and eight kids to America.  During his time alone in America, he met a woman who later became his mistress and was yet again a father to one more daughter named Jocelyn.  Despite the drama between the women in his life, Ruperto Sr. still managed to support both families, and in the end went home to Nenita and eventually died by her side.  Her parents’ intention to move to America was to find better jobs and create a better living for their family.  “Your Lolo [grandpa] believed that living in America would be a better future for us because the jobs here are much better and easier, you can find a job easily as long as you’re hardworking” (Diaz 2).  It is common knowledge to Rosalina’s parents that staying in the Philippines, regardless of how hard they worked, was not going to be enough to support a family of ten. 

When Rosalina migrated to America, she was only eighteen years old and, when I first asked what her expectations were coming here to America, she immediately answered with, “A better family.”  Then, I proceeded to rephrase my question and asked her the same thing but added, “For you as an individual.”  To this she replied with, “I expect to finish my school and work and have a better life” (2).  After two months of living here, she got her first job at Carl’s Jr., and soon after she was hired, she enrolled in Heald College; after nine months, she graduated with a Business Major in Accounting.  Rosalina only spent three months at Carl’s Jr. and quit because she couldn’t stand the laborious work.  Her next job was at Runaway Tours, a tour company that no longer exists, where she stayed for almost ten years.  If there’s one thing my mother takes pride in, it’s her work ethic.  For as long as I can recall, it has always been my mother who “brings home the bacon”—she pulls the majority of the weight in my family and always flaunts how in every job she’s ever held her bosses always tell her she’s a hard worker.  “I am!  My boss always told me, it’s true!” (3). 

Over time, a person’s perspective can change, which is why I asked Rosalina how she felt after having lived in America for a week, a month, a year, and now.  “My first week here was very hard, I was crying… It was [a] culture shock for me” (3).  To Rosalina, the first few weeks were frustrating for her because everyone spoke English and the culture in America alone was completely different than that of the Philippines.  What most people don’t know is that Filipinos are actually very good at speaking English; it could almost be their second language.  Most, if not all, Filipino TV shows are spoken in half Tagalog and half English.  The language barrier between English and Tagalog speakers is almost easy for any Filipino to overcome because there are a lot of words and phrases that are the same in Tagalog as it is in English.  However, because America is such a diverse country, especially during the seventies when Rosalina moved here, compared to the Philippines, which is for the most part a Catholic country, the new ideas about morality and ways of life came as a surprised to my mother.  Having been brought up a certain way and to soon learning that there are more than one different ways of thinking is overwhelming for anybody.  But even having lived in America for over twenty years now, Rosalina still honors her original beliefs.  “When I came over here, I still lived by the Filipino way. I still carry my culture.  I’m not too Westernized; I still keep my moral values as a Filipina” (4).  Although Rosalina still refers to the way she was brought up to raise my sister and I, there are definitely certain aspects and “Americanized” ideas that she has used in her parenting styles that her mother would’ve never even considered.  Rosalina is more lenient in the way she raises her children, but still punishes us with a firm tone. 

Migrating to a new country will always have its difficulties, and there is no getting around the fact that these migrants will face a good amount of discrimination or displacement.  I asked Rosalina about a time in her life when she felt like she didn’t belong in America and almost instantly she began telling me the story that I’ve already heard one too many times.  While the story has a scary and serious conflict, after hearing it over and over about a dozen times, it does get old.  The first time she told me this story, it broke my heart and I really felt scared for my mother, especially because what happened to her has happened to me just a few years before I started high school.  To make a long story short, when she was on her way to work one cold February morning, she decided to take a shortcut and walk through the Powell Bart station to get to work.  Suddenly, a man grabs Rosalina from behind and starts groping her.  Helpless and with no one around to help, she moves into the fetal position and eventually the man runs off.  Still traumatized about what happened, Rosalina picks up her things and continues on her way to work.  She arrives to work in tears and even after she tells her boss what has just happened to her he still tells her to calm down and just clock in.  My mother was baffled that her boss wasn’t sensitive enough to even ask if she wanted to just go home.  “That’s when I feel like, is this America?  Is this the place where I really wanted to live” (6)?  Clearly, Rosalina’s expectations of America don’t match her reality—she couldn’t understand why the country everyone seemed to place on a pedestal wasn’t as positive as everyone made it seem.  Nevertheless, Rosalina is still thankful to be living here.  The fact that she has a better opportunity to excel and make more money in America will always triumph over even the worst forms of discrimination.  To counter this question, I asked Rosalina to share with me a time when she felt like she was really an American.  For Rosalina, there wasn’t any real dramatic life event that made her feel like she was truly American—she felt like a true American the day she became an America citizen.  Coming to America, Rosalina was only a green card holder,  and then, a few years later, she applied for her citizenship and was approved.  “When I got my citizenship, [it was like] my kind of diploma that’s you know, like I’m an American citizen” (4). 

With all these questions about times in her life when she felt American and about how her life was back home in the Philippines, it brought up an idea of self-identity.  I was curious to know whether she considered herself to be Filipino, American or Filipino-American, and to what degree she identifies with each nationality.  For Rosalina, she identifies herself as a Filipino-American.  Her Filipino roots will always be what she identifies with first and foremost because that is her blood that is how she was raised; it is her native language.  Being Filipino is what is most familiar to her.  And of course she also identifies herself as an American, as she has lived here for over twenty years and has adapted the American way of living.  She has a good job, can speak almost perfect English, and is very knowledgeable about the culture.  Whenever I make minor corrections to my mother’s English, she always says to me, “That’s why I send you to school—so you can learn and then teach me,” which slowly I am starting to realize makes a lot of sense.  In Maria Root’s book Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity, she writes about many different themes revolving around Filipino Americans and their identity, and about them migrating to the United States.  In Chapter Seven of her book, she reiterates an idea coined by the Filipino American National Historical Society Conference in 1994 called the “bridge” generation.  “Their children, the ‘bridge’ generation, attempted to bridge the traditional Filipino culture they learned at home with the American culture they learned at school” (Root 97).  I am a part of the “bridge” generation for Rosalina, and because of me she is able to keep her Filipino roots while still being able to learn about the American culture.  This idea has proven to be successful for both Rosalina and I because I am one of the few Filipinos that I know of that is born in America and can understand and speak both English and Tagalog.  Although I was born and raised in America, I was brought up in a traditional Filipino household, and growing up my family spoke to me in Tagalog a majority of the time. 

Many people have different responses to what they envision their homes to be.  Some would say home is where they were born and raised; others might respond with “home is where the heart is.”  Rosalina defines her home simply as wherever her family is, her family being me, my sister, her parents, and her brothers and sister.  If she moved back to the Philippines today, without any one of us there with her, the Philippines would no longer be considered her home.  Whether we live in America, the Philippines, or in some other foreign country to us, as long as we’re together Rosalina’s ideas of home is complete.  Despite the discrimination she’s faced, and will soon face because discrimination is still very much alive today, Rosalina’s reasons for staying in America overshadow any form of discrimination.  There are push and pull factors, especially for migrants who’ve just came to America.  A push facto is one’s reason for leaving one’s home country; situations like unemployment, poverty, and war are perfect examples.  Pull factors are positive reasons for coming to a new country like better job opportunities, a more attractive quality of life, or maybe it’s where most of your friends and family are.  In Rosalina’s case, there were definitely more pull factors than there were push factors.  She and her family knew that, if they continued living in the Philippines, they would always be struggling to make ends meet.  Of course this does not mean that we are not struggling today, but we are more comfortable and at least here in America there is help we can get if we really needed it, and much better opportunities to find a job that’ll better support all of us.

Her “Philippines” home differs from her “American” home in the sense that the Philippines is her natural home: it’s in her blood and it is intimate and well-known to her.  Her “American” home is her current home, where her family and heart resides.  It is also a place where she knows she can prosper and have unlimited opportunities to take care of my sister and I, as well as a place my sister and I can both be successful and have an even better life than she did.  Certain situations and timing are both reasonable factors as to why someone might migrate to another country.  Both were crucial enough factors for Nenita and Ruperto Sr., which is why they made he careful decision to bring their family to America.  Living in a completely new country, especially one like the United States, will change a person’s perspective and ideologies.  For Rosalina, it opened up her mind to new ways of living and a more improved way of bringing up her children.  In the end, Rosalina’s idea of home is wherever her family is and wherever her family goes she will follow.

Works Cited

Diaz, Rosalina. Personal interview. 6 Nov. 2013.

Garcia, Arturo P. “A Brief History: Filipino Immigrants in the United States.” Pslweb.org.             Liberation News, 24 Aug. 2007. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.

Root, Maria. Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity. Thousand Oaks: SAGE             Publications, 1997. EBSCOhost. EBook Collection. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.

            Oral History Project Transcript

Jazmine Ashley Diaz: Where did you grow up?

Rosalina Diaz: Guadalupe Makati, Manila, Philippines.

JAD: When did you immigrate to America?

RD: I came here about December 1984? 

JAD: With whom did you immigrate with?

RD: With my family—my father came here first in 1970 and then he petition us to come over here.

JAD: Who’s “us”?

RD: My siblings—my six brothers and one sister and my mom.  But I was the last one who came over.

JAD: Why were you the last one?  So, you all didn’t come here together?  At the same time?

RD: No, my father could not afford to…

JAD: So, who came here first, after Lolo Papa?

RD: After your Lola Papa immigrated here in the 1970’s, three years later he petitioned my mom and my younger brother, Tito Rupert.  And then a few years later, uhh…  Tita Anna and Tito Boying came and then another year came your Tito Conrado, Tito Eddie Boy, and your Tito Romy came.  And then I was the last one to come over, after six months because my name was lost from the record.

JAD: What records?

RD: From the immigration records, so the lawyer, um, went back and, um, recorded my name.  What happened is because all our name started with an R: Ricardo, Romaldo, Reynaldo…  So I guess when the lawyer was writing it he got confused. So my name was forgotten, so my mom noticed it and the lawyer tried to fix it!  That’s why I came here six months later.

JAD: Why did you migrate to America?  What were your, or at least Lolo and Lola’s, intentions for coming here?

RD: Your Lolo believed that living in America would be a better future for us because the job here are much better and easier, you can find a job easily as long as you’re hard working compared to the Philippines; you keep working, keep working you cannot, you know, earn money, enough money to pay for everything.

JAD: What jobs did Lola Papa have, and Lola Mommy have, in the Philippines?  Did Lola Mommy ever have a job because I know she’s never worked?

RD: Your Lola Mommy never worked.  She was a homemaker, or whatever, a housewife?

JAD: What did Lolo Papa do, wasn’t he a tailor?

RD: He owned a tailor shop until he decided to migrate to a different country, which is America.  He first migrated to Vietnam for a few years and then he came back over, and then that’s when he first started to migrate to America.

JAD: What did Lolo Papa do in Vietnam?

RD: He was a firefighter.

JAD: What were your expectations for moving to the United States?

RD: Uh, a better…  A better family, I guess? 

JAD: For you as an individual, because you knew you were going to grow up here?

RD: Oh, I expect to finish my school and work and have a better life.

JAD: How old were you when you immigrated?

RD: I think I was eighteen when I came over here?  And then eighteen years old I came over here in December, and I was not able to find a job ‘til February and then my very first job was working at Carl’s Jr.

JAD: The one downtown?

RD: Yes.

JAD: Next to the Payless?

RD: Which one next to Payless?

JAD: The one downtown where they play the chessan [to play chess]?

RD: No…  No, there’s a Carl’s Jr. across Four Seasons Hotel before there was a Wells Fargo, now they don’t have that anymore.  I worked there for maybe three months and then I stopped because it’s so hard to work:  I stand, I been like standing for eight hours all day, my feet hurt!  And then I told your Papa, I told my dad, that I want to go back to school.  So I went back to school; went to Heald College, I attended there for like nine months?  And then after I graduated I got my very first job at Runaway Tours, it’s a tours company.  And then I stayed there, I worked there for over, almost ten years?  Yeah, I worked there almost ten years.  I hold my job pretty good because I am a hard worker.

JAD: Okay, mom.

RD: I am!  My boss always told me, it’s true!

JAD: Did you face any Human Rights abuses?

RD: No/

JAD: How did you feel after having lived her for a week?  A month?  A year?  Today?

RD: My first week here was very hard, I was crying.  It was, uh, what do you call that?  It was culture shock for me.

JAD: Why?  How was it a culture shock?

RD: I don’t know, I guess for one, people here speak English.

JAD: Did you know how to speak English?

RD: I do, I do speak English, but not very much.  And I’m very shy person.  You know how when we’re in the Philippines my mom never let us go out to social, to what do you call that?

JAD: Like me?  Like how you treat me?

RD: Yeah.  They never let us, ‘cause there’s like eight of us and only your Lola Mommy that takes care of us while my dad is in other country working right.  I think my mom reasoning, for her keeping us inside the house and not play to other kids is it’s much easier for her to, uh, manage all eight of us.  Away from fighting, all these kids that are bullying, so my mom kept us at home.  When we were living in the Philippines the way your Lola takes care of us, uh, she always keep us inside the house.  We of course sometimes go out and play but most of the time she prefer that most of the time we’re inside the house, since there’s eight of us my mom decided, oh you guys since there’s eight of you, you can play with each other instead of play with other people.  We don’t have friends, well we do have friends in only in school but we don’t so have so much friends outside of school because we’re not allowed to go out all the time.  Uh, after living here for a year… It’s okay.  My mom is very conservation—my parents are still conservative, she thinks that even if we’re like nineteen… Even at the age of nineteen we’re still not allowed to go out.  I work, I go home, and then in the morning I work, I go home.  That’s my life.

JAD: Like me!

RD: Hello, you go out every once in a while.  I can only go out with my brothers, but my brothers don’t like me going with them ‘cause they have their own thing.

JAD: Looking back at when you first moved here, how does how you felt then differ from how you feel about living in America now?

RD: I have a better job and I have my kids, my lovely kids (I roll my eyes).  But I’m still shy (laughs)!  Some younger generation, they’re like more outspoken, they’re like they think they’re more Americanized, but me, when I came over here I still lived by the Filipino way, I still carry my culture.  I’m not too Westernized, I still keep my moral values as a Filipina.

JAD: When and how did you know or feel like you were truly an American?

RD: Uh, I believe after I started my job.  The one at Runaway Tours, yeah…  After maybe, after few years, maybe three years.  ‘Cause I can vote…  Oh no!  I believe ‘cause after we immigrated here we were like green card holder, we’re not a citizen yet.  So I became a citizen after a few years, I applied for my citizenship.  When I got my citizenship, my kinda like a diploma that’s you know, like I’m an American citizen.  I changed my passport to green to purple to blue, I felt like (touches hand to heart) I am an American citizen.  Yes!

JAD: Do you consider yourself to be Filipino-American?  If so, which nationality comes first to you?

RD: Of course the first one that comes to me is my Filipino, it’s my blood.  I came from that, I was born and raised in the Philippines; I can never say that I am an American.  Although I am thankful that I am here—I have a good life to where if I were living in the Philippines.  I am still Filipino and I am proud.

JAD: Why are you looking at me like that?

RD: Why, do you expect me to say I am an American?!

JAD: No, I’m just asking you like which one do you feel more strongly.  Like do you put Filipino first or do you put American first?

RD: I always still put Filipino first, but because I live in America I, you know, have to speak English, learn the language, uh, learn the culture because I live here.  Because I don’t agree living in one country, not learning their language, not learning the culture and then, um, people get upset because they’re not being helped by the government.  That I don’t agree.

JAD: What struggles did you face migrating to/living in America?  Did you face any discrimination?

RD: Yeah.  Discrimination is still exist no matter even if they said that it doesn’t, it does it still exist ‘cause me being Filipino, they consider me minority no matter how good I am at work they won’t promote they still prefer white people.

JAD: Which job was this?

RD: Uh, this is when I worked at Runaway Tours.

JAD: Would you consider the Philippines to still be your home? 

RD: Of course!

JAD: And you told me once that when you retire you want to go back?

RD: Of course!

JAD: And leave me here?

RD: That would be your choice, I’m not gonna ask you to go somewhere else.  But I’m not moving until I see that you’re okay:  That you’re married, you have your own life, you have your, you know, your job, your own house.

JAD: What is your definition or ideas of “home”?

RD: Uh…  Home as in “home”?  Well definition of home for me is being with my family.  You, Caitlyn, my brothers, and my sister—that’s home for me.

JAD: So, would you consider America your home or Philippines your home?

RD: Philippines is still my home.  Philippines is my homeland.  But you know if I lived in the Philippines I’m more comfortable, because um, I’m familiar with everything, I know the culture, I know how it works, I know the government and, um, if I have enough money I can afford to live like, I can afford a maid.  Whereas here, I’m the maid…  For my kids (laughs).  I am the maid for my own family…  How sad.  Especially that (points to my sister)!

JAD: Tell me an incident in your life where you felt like you didn’t belong in America.

RD: Oh my God!  This is when I just came here and I started at the Carl’s Jr. Working, uh, this was about a year later in February and someone grabbed me from behind!

JAD: Oh my God, is this the Bart one?

RD: Yeah!  That’s when I really feel like, that I can never ever forget that in my entire life ‘cause I lived in the Philippines and that never happened to me ever, ever, ever.

JAD: Okay, so tell me again what happened.

RD: Okay, I start at ten o’clock in the morning, work, I left my house at 285 Turk street, so I was walking there from Powell street and then I decided because it’s too cold, this is February because it was freezing cold, I decided to go Bart station underneath Powell to make sure I don’t get cold.  As I was turning from the very end of the Bart, someone grabbed me from behind.  I yelled, I screamed, no one was helping me so I decided to sit down, you know brace myself.  And the guy let go of me and he start running and I was left, on the floor, and I look around and still no one was there to help me.  So I pick up my things and then walk and then next thing you know I saw the guy on the escalator looking at me smiling and I froze.  And then I went up, guess what?

JAD: He was there waiting for you?

RD: No, there was a police car right outside the thing.

JAD: Did you tell them?

RD: There’s no police there, but there’s a police car.  I looked around but no one’s there so I just continued ‘cause what I’m thinking is my work, I’m gonna be late!  I came to work and I was shaking and I was crying and I was telling my boss what happened and he said, “Okay just calm down” and he didn’t even ask me, “Would you like to go home?”  He just says, “Okay, calm down just punch in and start working”.  That’s when I feel like, is this America?  Is this the place where I really wanted to live?  They have no concern for anything that happen to me, I was mad.

JAD: What causes you/are your reasons for staying here?

RD: Good living.  Actually, the reason why I stay here because I have a stable job, I earn money.  I can’t imagine me in the Philippines anymore, honestly.  I can’t imagine what will be my life.  Growing up and marrying someone in the Philippines, I cannot imagine!  I don’t think you’ll have a good life, anak [child].  I mean, not as good as I wanted to, I don’t think you’ll be…  You’ll probably still be a bum. 

JAD: Okay, but you still want to go back though to retire?

RD: Yeah, just to retire.  I’ll be living there comfortably.  The only reason why I want to retire to the Philippines is because when I get old here, when I get old and I’m not able to provide for myself I don’t think the money that the government is providing us, even the money that we’re putting aside that they take from our salary, what do they call that?  Our social security?  Um, they’re saying that by the time I retire there’s no more money for us, for the government to give us.  So, that’s why if I take that money, and go to the Philippines, will multiply times forty—I’ll be rich in the Philippines, I’ll be able to live comfortably.  Here, I’ll be probably lining up some place like Glide Memorial to get my free lunch.

Exile for Yedel

Exile for Yedel

by Ruth Alemu, December 2013

Has it ever boggled your mind why people want to leave their counties and struggle through different cultures just to start a whole new life? Or have you ever wondered why some people don’t just work hard in their own countries and better themselves? Well, people leave their families and countries to find better life, peace, freedom, money or love. A conducted interview with an immigrant named Yedel Sew, who currently resides in the Bay Area, explains why people are exiled to other countries. Yedel Sew is from Ethiopia and grew up in a good neighborhood in the historic city Bahir Dar. He was exiled to the United States to find freedom for himself because he was punished for criticizing the Ethiopian government about forbidding the freedom of speech and the choosing of one’s own political party. For a long time, he had refused to give in to anger or exile; instead, he resisted the government threats.The government accused him of being a terrorist when they found out that he was working with the opposition political parties to bring about a fair democratic government. Despite the fact that no accusation had evidence, many of his friends were imprisoned and killed. Yedel wanted to leave the country when he realized that most of his friends had been thrown in jail or killed. According to Yedel, the torture was extraordinary; for instance, the males were forced to carry and pull heavy weights tied on their genitals until they pointed out one of their political member. For this reason, Yedel left his country and exiled himself to the United States of America (USA), and suffered through lots of misery. He left his good job, family and fiancé behind. His exile to the US was more devastating for his fiancé and his mother, not only because he was their source of income but also they couldn’t flee with him. During his journey, he was hungry, slept in refugee camps, was imprisoned, and almost lost his life while he was traveling on a boat. Although arriving to the US seemed to promise a life with freedom, being an undocumented immigrant made it difficult to find jobs and start a new life all over again. Until he acquired legal papers that allow him to stay in the US, he worked under the table, which was difficult for him because employers often felt free to pay him low wages and ignore dangerous conditions since he had no legal way of complaining. Along with significant language and cultural barriers, exile left him with a lengthy bureaucratic procedure until he established his new legal status. People that are facing political problems in their counties, like Yedel, should exile themselves to other countries in order to gain freedom regardless of encountering multiple setbacks and struggle during the journey because it will help them live better lives.

Being a refugee from third world country was challenging due to the rising of anti-refugee sentiment in many industrialized countries; the journey to the US was not as smooth as Yedel assumed. He started his journey from Ethiopia to Cuba with legal visa (a passport), but from there to the US, his passport was useless not only because he was travelling by car and boat but also because he was coming from a third world country, which didn’t guarantee him a pass or respect. He described how he left his passport in Ecuador: “I threw away my Ethiopian passport since it is no longer helping me to transfer, because I couldn’t get any visa with Ethiopian passport” (Yedel). Having an Ethiopian passport definitely prevented him from getting a visa because most of the people from third world countries are running from their homes scared of war and poverty, like him. His long travel includes the countries Cuba, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and lastly, the United States. Yedel and his two friends started the big journey together without any knowledge of where or how to go. Eventually, they contacted some smugglers to assist them through their journey. Besides the payment paid to the smugglers, they had to bribe the officers every time they got pulled over. He wrapped a stack of pesos with a U.S. dollar and handed to the police officer to make it look like a lot of U.S. dollars because he couldn’t afford to pay them in dollars every single time they pulled him over. Long drives, walking, staying in refugee camps and being thrown in jail without knowing for how long they would be kept, the journey was extremely distressing. There was a time when Yedel almost lost his life; he was trying to cross the border between Colombia and Nicaragua with a small boat made out of wood that carried around fifty people without any access to restrooms. He says, “The smugglers told us we will arrive in two days, but it took us eight days. We were lost in the middle of the journey and the boat run out of gas, so we put bed sheet to move the boat with the help of wind. The phone inside the boat stopped working; they said no battery. Also, we were moving without any compass and we didn’t eat anything else except one apple a day” (Yedel). It was a life and death situation for him to be in that boat because there was lack of basic survival necessities such as food, water and restrooms in addition to getting lost in the middle of nowhere. The boat was overcrowded, making it potentially dangerous, but they continued with the journey. The trip lasted days; the waves were high and they suffered more when the motor stopped and they began moving through the help of the wind. When they finally reached land, it was like liberation. Even though being from a third world country was a setback on his journey, he felt liberated when he reached the freedom land.

Although Yedel wanted to stay in Ethiopia, the government dictatorship made him run from his country due to the fact that there was no equality between ethnic groups and also political difference was not accepted. While he was in Ethiopia, freedom of speech was like a dream. The dictator leader wouldn’t let him live because he was against the system. He explained his experience in anger: “While I was in Ethiopia I had a very nice job with the field I graduated and I had a good life. But I have been jailed and beaten around three four times only because I was spoken the truth during community meetings. When you say I need freedom, they will look for trouble and beat you up” (Yedel).  The so-called “Democratic Party” controls the country. If a person talks about what is wrong and what is right, that person will end up in jail. That is why an independent and ambitious young man like Yedel could not live in Ethiopia because he believes in speaking out. He fought not only for himself but also for people who can’t fight for themselves as well. In reality, he doesn’t have security or the guarantee of his life because they can throw him in jail any time. Hence, Yedel left his country even though he wanted to stay and do something tangible to improve his country. Before he left, Yedel was becoming wealthy because of his hard work, but the ruling party was not happy with what he was getting and wanted to destroy him. In the 2005 election, Yedel and his friends participated in the opposition political party. The idea was to push the government to have a free and fair democratic election but the government was harassing the opposition parties and was using systematic political control, which made the election difficult. At that time, the majority of the people were supporting the opposition party, so, if the government didn’t want to have a fair election, they wanted them to give up power peacefully but when the government found out about their plan, they put his life in danger. Yedel fought until he couldn’t take it anymore; however, waiting for his death was not possible for him because some of his friends got imprisoned, tortured, were deprived of sleep and food and lastly killed. Given these actions, Yedel left his country in order to flee from extreme and almost humiliating politics.

Knowing his basic rights helped Yedel to gain his freedom, yet many times he was denied it. While crossing a border, there was moment when they put him in jail without letting him know how long he had to stay there. They were caught at the Nicaraguan border by the border police and imprisoned for forty-five days. During those forty-five days staying there caused a lot of suffering; the food was not etable, the hygiene was bad and they were sleeping on the floor. Because of the bad treatment they received, Yedel and his friends planned to do a hunger strike in order to fight for the basic human rights they were denied. The hunger strike went very well as he explained, “We didn’t eat for eight days while we were in the journey and again we did four days food strike, so some of the people got constipated and sick. Normally, they are not allowed to have under age prisoners in the facility but one of the guy that fainted was not even eighteen. They were scared of being sued so they begged us to eat and promised to let us go” (Yedel). This shows that they knew this strike would attract human right fighters’ attention, which in the end helped to free them. Besides, the guy who fainted was not even eighteen years old; thus, he was not supposed to be imprisoned with them. Fighting for their rights allowed them to continue their freedom journey. Then, Yedel and his friends left Nicaragua because the Nicaraguan government asked them to pay for every night they stayed at the camp. As they had planned already, they continued their journey to the United States and left Nicaragua. In the book Underground America, a collection of the narratives of undocumented immigrants compiled by Peter Orner, a storyteller, Abel, was abused by his employer but knowing his rights and fighting for it saved him from abuses. He said, “Some of us are more comfortable speaking up about our rights—we know what we are entitled to. We speak to Americans, people who do have papers, people who work at organizations, people who can do something for us. The bosses of the companies are afraid of these organizations because they support us” (Orner 132). Even though he didn’t have legal papers to stay in the country, knowing his rights helped Abel to fight for himself. Yedel did the same thing too; he stood up for his rights, looked for organizations to fight for his right. Therefore, knowing his basic human rights minimized the suffering during the exile.  

Although Yedel felt ambivalent when he discovered that his expectations about the United States were unrealistic, he was happy because he gained freedom, which was the center of his journey. Life in The United States started out great for him though it was not as he expected. Although the job market and the economy was not as good as he expected, he did not complain since his main reason of moving to the US was to gain freedom. He said, “The main reason I exile from my country is because of freedom so I am okay with any economical or personal disappointment like missing my family. I was not respected in my own country but I am living here freely. Nobody touches you” (Yedel). While he was in his country, he had a good job but in the United States, because of his legal status he wasn’t able to get a better job and he was a little bit disappointed by that; plus, by the time he arrived in the United States, the economy of the country was not in good condition. The other thing that makes him disappointed is missing his family; in fact, he can’t reach his family any time soon. Yedel has missed not only his family but also his longtime fiancé who he was about to get married to within a month before leaving the country, but he was waiting for her to graduate. He was preparing for their wedding but sadly he had to leave right away to avoid putting his life in danger. During his journey, he couldn’t communicate with her because he was not in good condition either. That created a big gap between them and it was too late to fix the problem because she got married and had kids. She couldn’t wait for him since he was not able to go back to the country. Yedel said, “It is hard to get that kind of love right now. I don’t have that kind of satisfaction and happiness right now.” He loved his fiancé too much and can’t bring the old time feeling and satisfaction with anybody else.

Things haven’t gone smoothly with his family either; the family business that he took care of is now out of service, and the cafeteria he owned was sold to cover his expense in the United States. His family is not at the same economic level; his brothers got fired from their jobs because they were working for a government office and, since they are connected with Yedel, the government took revenge on them. After four years, one of his brothers started working some low level jobs even though he is a graduate from the university and had been working for long time. Yedel was full of anger when he talked about the crises in his family. He couldn’t support and provide his family like before because in the United States the working situation is different. He doesn’t have motivation like before when he used to go to school while working long hours and taking care of his own business. He said that he was taking care of all that responsibility just to get rid of the stress he had in his country. More or less, he is happy in United States, though he is not in the position that he supposed to be. Altogether, Yedel lost three major things in his life: his family’s economic status, his job, and his fiancé.  But freedom has balanced all his losses.

Even though it’s hard to predict the future, Yedel believes change will come through time with the help of an endless effort. In the future, Yedel has some expectations for his life and has already planned to do lots of things in the coming New Year. He wants to go to school, work hard, start a family in the United States, and help his country to gain a free media because the ruling party controls most of the media. His passion for his country is still fresh. Surely, he wants to participate more in politics; so far, he writes articles and gives donations every month to private medias organizations because he believes the media plays a big role in politics. The Ethiopian government has banned almost all private media outlets for reporting facts about the government’s hidden actions. “The Anointed Leadership,” an article written by Makau wa Mutua, shows the current image of Ethiopian journalism: “Human rights groups estimated that over 60 journalist have either been imprisoned, detained, or are awaiting trial for being critical of the government” (Mutua 2). Government authorities have imprisoned journalists on a mass scale on terrorism charges only for speaking of the truth. Only government medias can talk about politics; around twenty non-governmental magazines have been closed but four private magazines are still open only because they allow the government to manipulate their messages. They will not report reality; they do not talk about the people who are lost in the dessert while trying to escape from the country. Even though he lives from paycheck to paycheck, he knows that, if he contributes something, it will help a lot. He said, “I support the media because I want to know what is going on in my country and the only means I can get that report is from the private media. I cannot forget about my country. I will not sleep until I see freedom in my own country like other countries” (Yedel). This shows the last ultimate vision of Yedel is to see the free flow of information and freedom of expression without the influence of political units. Ethiopia lives in a world where information is literally fabricated for the people as truth but nowadays bloggers play a big role in spreading information. Yedel helps these bloggers financially. One of the anonymous bloggers said in the article “The Hazards Of Dissent,”“The blog carried reports and analysis of the trial of opposition leaders. In some cases, international human rights group like Amnesty International have followed through the leads in my blog and demanded the government stop its human right abuses. Under pressure, the government released some prisoners and closed torture chambers” (Zagol 62). Not only do the bloggers increase the flow of information but they also help justice to be served. Therefore, because people like Yedel supported the media, for example the blogger mentioned above, the increase of the flow of information has brought the government to reconsider their decision, which fulfills Yedel’s hope for change.

 In conclusion, although people like Yedel go through multiple setbacks and struggle when they flee from their countries due to political problems, finding freedom and living in a country where freedom of speech is respected brings feeling of accomplishment in life. Migrating would also allow others like him to continue helping their countries as he has with the support of media as mentioned in the above paragraphs. On the contrary, others may think that, instead of fleeing from one’s country, one should stay and face the problem in order to solve it. People like Yedel do not choose to flee from their countries to make money or to relax; instead, they are exiled to the US to spare their lives from ending up like his friends—imprisoned or killed.   

 

Work Cited

“The Hazards Of Dissent.” Index On Censorship 36.4 (2007): 59-63. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

Mutua, Makau wa. “The Anointed Leadership.” Africa Report 39.6 (1994): 30. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

Orner, Peter, and Tom Andes. Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives. San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2008. Print.

 

 

Home is Acceptance

Home is Acceptance

by Yagmur Akay, December, 2013

What is Shaema’s idea of home and how has coming to San Francisco changed her? When

it comes to the concept of home, most people state things like the place where they grew

up, the place where their parents live or the place where they feel the most comfortable

with themselves; however, Shaema has a unique and different understanding of home. She

is from France, and when she turned eighteen, moved to San Francisco all by herself.

Shaema states, “I have been living here for two years and there are people that I care about

so deeply that I will carry in my heart forever. And it is like that everywhere and that is so

beautiful; you can travel to India or anywhere else  and find that you have strong

connections with people that don’t speak the same language, have a different a culture and

live across the world from you. So that’s what home is, making this place like…your

world” (Bendeks). Even though Shaema has been living in San Francisco for two years,

she has found people that she truly cares for. In addition, she claims that she is able to find

deep connections with people everywhere she goes. When it comes to Shaema’s concept of

home, it is a place where she feels accepted for who she is and receives love and

understanding from everyone around her. Shaema does not limit the number of her homes.

She can have ten or twenty homes as long as she receives the feeling of acceptance from

everyone around her. In sum, Shaema is at home when her home has the elements of

acceptance and understanding. Shaema does not like to be judged or discriminated against

for who she is. Even though she was born and raised in Paris, she does not consider France

to be her true home. She states that the people are too judgmental. Currently, she feels at

home in San Francisco and explains that, ever since she moved to San Francisco she has

changed for the better.             

     Shaema’s journey to San Francisco began with a 12-hour plane ride from Paris to San

Francisco. She states that during the twelve hours the only thing that she thought about is

how it would feel to arrive to her new destination. She states that she had a different

mixture of feelings such as anxiety and excitement at the same time. After the long

12-hour flight, she arrived in San Francisco to find a Chinese driver waiting to drop her off

to her host family. Shaema states, “So when he dropped me off in the Sunset it was like

this little yellow—no pink little pinky house in the corner and this little Chinese woman

was waiting for me. I just felt so like nothing was holding me back. I was freaked out at

first; I walked into the house and it was not that clean and I am kinda OCD and I was like

can I do this?!” (Bendeks).  Shaema describes her temporary San Franciscan home as

being pink and not very clean and states that her new host, the Chinese lady, was waiting

outside for her arrival, and continues that at first sight she asked herself if she could really

do this. Later, after her arrival, Shaema enters her new room. She gets good vibes and, out

of nowhere, really begins to hear in Bob Marley’s famous song “Every little thing is gonna

be all right” in her head; in addition, she states “the song sounds so simple and cheezy but

if a person is able to project that state of mind everything becomes okay” (Bendeks).

Shaema is able to accept her new temporary living situation and is able to (with the help of

Bob Marley’s song) focus on the positive elements of her situation.

            Coming to America has definitely changed Shaema in a positive way. She

emphasizes that, compared to Paris, she wanted be at a different environment to discover

who she really was. Shaema states, “I just wanted to have an experience. I wanted to have

something that would have an impact in my life. Now that I have been living here for two

years, I can definitely tell that I have changed and evolved so much and learned so much

by me, who I am and what I wanna do in life and how I am going to get there” (Bendeks).

Shaema explains she wanted a new situation that would affect her life. She has been living

in San Francisco for two years and the experience has allowed her to grow and learn more

about who she is as a person. Sheama also explains that she knows more about what she

wants to do in life and how to achieve her goals. By coming to San Francisco, Shaema has

been able to learn more about herself and discover her true passion in life, which is to

pursue music.

             When I asked Shaema if she had received any discrimination from anyone, she

states “it is San Francisco; it’s really hard to be discriminated against in this beautiful city;

there’s so much acceptance,” meaning that, with the great range of human diversity, it is

hard to be discriminated against in San Francisco. On the contrary, Shaema states that the

greatest discrimination or, a better way to put it would be, unsupportive approach she

received, was from her own father in Paris. Shaema explains that, when she first came to

San Francisco, her father told her that she could only stay for one year to experience a

different country and have fun. However, for Shaema it was more than having fun. As the

one-year time limit passed, Shaema came to the realization that she wanted to stay and

finish college at City College of San Francisco and later transfer to a four-year university.

Unfortunately, her father had different ideas for her and did not show support to her

decision. Shaema states:

“He was really just angry. Like, we just were fighting over it. He was like no; it was fun for a year but you belong to Paris. This is your home, this is where you grew up, and this is where you belong. That is where the concept of home came in and how we did not agree. Like our values were different and I told him no. It is not because I was born somewhere that I have to stay my whole life. Thank god it is not like that. I can go wherever I wanna go and right now I feel good right here in San Francisco” (Bendeks).

Shaema’s views are different from those of her father.  According to her father, the place

where Shaema was born and raised was her home and her father wanted her back in Paris.

However, Shaema wanted to stay in San Francisco because she felt accepted. Unlike her

father, Shaema has a universal approach to the concept of home. Shaema cannot imagine

herself staying in one place for the rest of her life, because she feels stuck. However, right

now San Francisco feels right as a home.

            Furthermore, when it comes to Shaema’s realationship with her father, things were

very bitter because with Shaema’s solid decision to stay in San Francisco her father cut

financial support. Shaema states:

“He thought not supporting me financially would be a big enough obstacle to for me to agree with him and come back home and live the life that he wanted me to live. But I did not agree. I fought for it and, umm, you know, it was struggle for a year because it was financially really hard. Because my mom and my grandmother were the only ones supporting me. Because I cannot legally work in this country, it was hard but, umm, you know, I think the fact that I went through such a hard time, ummm…He understood what it meant to me. That it was not just having fun and you know like drinking to bars every night just having the fun life San Francisco in America. I was really here because it meant something important to me. I think that after all the obstacles he put me through he understood that this was really what I wanted and nothing can keep me away from it” (Bendeks).

              Shaema’s father thought that by not caring for her daughter financially would

have caused Shaema to come back to Paris and live the life that he found right for his

daughter. However, Shaema, with the support of her grandmother and mother, was able to

survive the whole year without her father’s money. Shaema states that it was hard for her

to get by with the support of her mom and grandmother but she is proud that she was able

to fight through it.  By showing her father that living in San Francisco is more than “fun”

for her and living without his money, Shaema was able to prove to her father how

important the fact of living in San Francisco meant to her. Furthermore, her father, after

Shaema’s struggles, understood the importance of Shaema’s decision to stay in San

Francisco and finish school. Continuing, Shaema explains that her passion to stay in San

Francisco and to study music was difficult for her family to accept. However, she was able

to prove to her family and,  especially to her father, that this was the only thing that she

could see herself ever doing.

              Shaema states that, whenever she returns to Paris to visit, her parents’ friends give

her a hard time by asking her continuous questions about her life in San Francisco and her

studies in school. One event that Shaema cannot forget is at a dinner party: her parents had

and a friend of her father’s approached her with his wife and asked her questions about

what she studied in San Francisco. Shaema stated to them that she studies music and, when

her father’s friends heard her answer, they asked her, in a mocking way, what she intended

to do with her major. Shaema stated, “I wanna be a fucking painter!” what do you think?! I

want to be a musician. You know, and then they say,” that’s good…”.You always have to

fight to prove yourself. Just to be who you are and it should not be that way. Therefore, it

was hard for a while and I went through this struggle with some of my friends and some of

my family” (Brendeks).  Shaema felt that she always had to prove herself to her friends

and even to part of her family. While in Paris, she was also bothered by her father’s

friends’ restless questions. It is clear that Shaema is studying music to be a musician. In

addition, according to Shaema, musicians, in Paris, are considered as the broke and

starving people. Therefore, that is why her family and family friends couldn’t understand

Shaema’s point of studying music.

           Shaema truly belongs to San Francisco with her unique approach to life and

beautiful different views on the topic of home. She feels accepted in San Francisco and

calls it her current home. The power of acceptance is very significant in Shaema’s life. Not

receiving it from her father for a year and not being accepted in the French society pushed

her to discover a new place where she feels okay in her own skin and feels confident to go

after her dreams. In the academic journal The Exceptional Parent, author Paul J, Callen

writes about the power of acceptance. He states, “acceptance must be based on

unconditional love. Accepting and being accepted should be our starting point, not our last

resort, when faced with new challenges and relationships” (Callen). What Callen is saying

is that acceptance should come from the heart, where pure love exists. When there are

relationships that are challenging in life, acceptance should be the first approach.

Continuing, the power of acceptance can be very significant in a person’s life. When it

comes to Shaema’s journey, her father’s approach to her decision to stay in San Francisco

caused Shaema to struggle for a year; in addition, it damaged her relationship with her

father. However, if her father had accepted her decision to stay in San Francisco, Shaema

would have not struggled. Shaema states, “you know it was struggle for a year because it

was financially really hard. Because my mom and my grandmother were the only ones

supporting me. Because I cannot legally work in this country, it was hard but umm you

know, I think the fact that I went through such a hard time ummm…He understood what it

meant to me” (Bendeks). Shaema explains that only her mother and grandmother

supported her for a year and points out that, because of her legal status she was unable to

work. However, she was able survive in San Francisco without her father’s help and

eventually her father understood how important it was to accept Shaema’s decision to stay

and finish her schooling in San Francisco.

        Shaema feels happy and accepted in San Francisco. She feels that people do not judge

her for who she is like they do in Paris. Another reason Shaema feels so accepted in San

Francisco is that she is a lesbian and, in Paris, this is not so easily accepted. When I asked

Shaema if she felt more discriminated against in Paris than in San Francisco, her answer

was yes. Shaema states:

“Hell yeah. And even sexuality wise…Being out of the closet in France is not easy at all. Especially when you are in high school, believe me. It sucks! It is not necessarily the big things. It is just little things. It’s not like you are gay I hate you and I am going to beat you up. It’s like, owww, you’re gay…okay, how is that working out for you? Just like…You know that they know you are gay. For me, whether you’re gay, straight or whatever it is that you are, it doesn’t change the way I am gonna talk to you and it’s like you never told me. But you can see if that there’s that thing you know or not. It’s weird” (Bendeks).

           Shaema explains that, at a young age, coming out of the closet was hard for her. The

way people spoke to her was discriminative. According to Shaema, it should not matter if

the person likes women or men; it is their personal choice and everyone should respect

that. She significantly points out that person’s choice of being gay or straight does not

affect the way she speaks with that person. But she points out that you can have an

intuitive feeling of the person but even this should not change the way you approach the

person. Furthermore, Shaema is able to find an understanding environment in San

Francisco where people are accepting of each other’s personal choices. Furthermore, her

father is not comfortable with Shaema being a lesbian. When I asked her if he knew that

she was a lesbian, she explained to me that he does not say anything about the topic, but

Shaema has a good feeling that he knows. This is also a barrier between her and her father.

I believe that, to have a healthy relationship, parents should communicate with their

children and approach them with love and acceptance.

          A story that is similar to Shaema’s is the story of Vica, a young, transgender,

undocumented immigrant. Vica’s story is a lot more tragic than Shaema’s but, when it

comes to acceptance and parental relationships, Shaema and Vica have things in common.

When it comes to Shaema, she at least has one supportive parent (her mother).  However,

in Vica’s case, she only had one existing parent and that was Olga, her mother. The

relationship between Olga and Vica was not your typical mother and daughter relationship.

Olga was a single parent and had busy work hours; however, she paid attention to her

children as best as she could. Olga truly cared about her children and moving from Mexico

to LA for her children shows how much she loves them. Nevertheless, caring is one thing

and accepting your child for who he or she is takes more courage and understanding. Olga

was eventually able to accept Vica for who she was but because Olga grew up with

conservative parents it took some time for her to accept Vica as a transvestite. Olga

explains, “It took me a long time to accept things. I come from a family that is very

reserved. My parents were born in Zacatecas. After they were married they moved to

Guadalajara. But they were always from the ranch, the kind of people who were always

worried about what people might think, what people might say” (Orner). Olga states that it

took her some time to accept her daughter and one reason is that her own parents were

from a small town in Mexico. In addition, Olga’s parents valued what other people thought

about them and were very conservative. Olga, raised with a conservative mindset, explains

that it was hard to accept Vica’s transgender identity. However, after a period she was able

to accept daughter for who she is.  When Vica receives the acceptance and love from her

mother, she is able to find trust and comfort at home. Even though her story does not end

well, because of the human right abuses she faces, she is able to find happiness and

acceptance at home. Furthermore, when it comes to Shaema, maybe this is what she needs

from her father. I cannot be certain if this will solve the whole problem of her not feeling

at home in Paris but it might help the relationship with her father.

            When I asked Shaema if she has changed since she moved to San Francisco, she

looked at me with a smile and asked me how much time I had. She explained to me that

she has changed a lot. Shaema states, “When I was back in France, I was a lot more

stressed out, nervous, nervous, and even violent sometimes” (Bendeks). Shaema explains

while she was in France she filled with stress, nervousness and anger. Furthermore, her

father caused her nervousness and anger. Shaema states:

“Well, the thing is, when I was in France, my dad has like anger management issues. He’s like, he can like…Some situations can blow out of proportion. Like I grew up in this like to me even though it’s crazy it sounds normal. You know, it sounds normal and I am like okay. But I realized that now that I have moved away. I am like do you realize? I am not even saying that for me but I am saying that for you. Do you realize that you put yourself in that state? I don’t even know; it’s like beyond my understanding. You know, growing up in that energy-filled thing made me angry.”

While growing up, Shaema was deeply affected by her father’s anger management issues.

She explains that his anger would be out of control sometimes. Living with a father who

was unbalanced caused Shaema to be nervous and stressed all the time. However, after

coming to San Francisco, she was able to connect with her true self, which is the way she

is now; relaxed and happy. Shaema explains that, moving away from her father helped her

to find inner peace. In sum, Shaema has changed for the better since living in San

Francisco.

           In conclusion, Shaema’s idea of home is anywhere she feels accepted and

understood. This is different from the dictionary term home but it works for Shaema.

According to Clara Cooper Marcus, the author of House As a Mirror of Self: Exploring the

Deeper Meaning of Home, “A home fulfills many needs: a place of self-expression, a

vessel of memories, a refuge from the outside world, a cocoon where we can feel nurtured

and let down our guard.” Home is a place where the person can express his or her

personality and feelings; it is a place where a person can recall previous experiences and

feel safe to be let his or her guard down. When it comes to Shaema, she is able to find

these elements at places where she feels accepted and understood. Currently, she calls San

Francisco her home because she feels that she can let her guard down and be accepted for

her identity. The feeling of being accepted is an important element; however, it is not the

only factor that makes a person feel at home. For some people, the one is born is one’s

home but, when it comes to Shaema, the feeling of being accepted is her key answer to the

question of what her idea of home is. Furthermore, the right home has the power to

“protect, heal and restore us, express who we are now, and overtime help us become who

we meant to be” (Marcus). Person’s true home can give safety, can give the person

freedom of expression, which will eventually help the person to reach his or her goals.  A

true home can give a feeling of being accepted to most people. Ever since Shaema moved

to San Francisco, she has been able to heal her wounds from her relationship with her

father, feel more confident in her skin and has been able to go after her dreams, which is to

study music. In sum, Shaema’s idea home is in places where she receives the feeling of

acceptance for who she is and ever since she moved to San Francisco she has become a

happier person. Currently, Shaema feels right at home.

 

Works Cited:

Callen, Paul J. “The power of acceptance.” The Exceptional Parent. 39.4 (2009): 78. Print.

Marcus, Clare C. House As a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home. Berkeley:           Conari Press, 1995. Print

Orner, Peter. Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives. San Francisco: McSweeny’s, 2008. Print.

 

Interview with Shaema Bendeks:

YA: Where are you from?

SB: I am from France.

YA: How did you come here?

SB: I swam across the ocean… I took the plane (Laughter)

YA: What is your concept of home?

SB: hmm… My concept of home is place where I feel..amm.. where I can be myself and feel confortable with it.And be around people that I love.

YA: Describe your native country?

SB: My native country?

YA: Yeah, descbribe..

SB: I grew up in Paris which is a little bit different than the rest of France. So ummm… It’s a a beautiful, very beautiful place. Like an outside museum. Everything is just full of history and art and it’s amazing. The people are little bit too narrow minded and judgmental for me to actually be comfortable over there. Umm. It is like everything like has a norm and you have to fit in a box. And I do not fit in a box ahahhaha.. so.. umm, it’s just now moving away from France I feel like-I see it completely differently than used to so..umm. I think France like everything else you just have  to find something that you like about it and forget the rest and live in your that’s home. Home is what you make of it so whether you are in France or anywhere else umm it’s what you decide to make of it and what you decide to see umm.  And to take with you and your experience

YA: Okay.. So for you home can be anywhere as long as.

SB: Yeah. Yeah.

YA: So what elements like that are important in that.. What the are the factors that has be there? People you love, etc.

SB: Well, you find people you love along the way too umm I moved here by myself not knowing anyone and now I been living here for two years and there is people that I care about so deeply that I will carry in my heart forever. And it is like that everywhere and that is why so beautiful you can travel to (being from France) India or anywhere else and find that you have strong connection with people that don’t speak the same language, have a different culture and live across the world from you. So that’s what home is, making this place our like.. your world.

YA: So right now where would you consider home? Here of France?

SB: That’s a tricky question. It’s a really tricky question… In some way both you know. I say I am going to go back home for Christmas so to Paris. Than when I am in Paris for too long whenever I come back to SF, it is like coming back home. So you know.. it’s ..Actually friend of mine..

YA: Could you say that you have two homes?

SB: How many countries is there in the world? I have that many homes I think you know. So. There is that place where I grew up in which for people would be defined as home but it’s not to me. It is still part of my history, that’s where I was raised so it is one of the homes that I have. Umm but I don’t consider it like my ground my go to.

YA: Okay, what made you want to live in the US?

SB: I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to just see something else, something different you know. I was really close to my parents like you know. I felt like I was in a close, I lived in close circle like in a closed box. I would always be with the same friends, I was in the same high school for about 8 years.. Like we would hang out with same people and go to the same bars, same neighborhoods and seeing family,  the same people,  the same surroundings all the time. I was just sick of that. I wanted to see how it would be to be somewhere else and I wanted to know myself and about the world that I live in.

YA: Nice! So what did you expect to find and what did you find in the US? Did you have any expectations or did you just get on the plane with totally open heart with whatever, whatever.

SB: Pretty much… Pretty much that is what I find exciting about travelling is that you don’t know what’s gonna happen and its scarce most people not to know. People are scared of the unknown of what they don’t know and that’s what excites me. I don’t know what’s gonna happen so I can make it anything that I want to be and that’s what a new experience is like.

YA: What did you want it to be? Did you have anything in mind?

SB: I just wanted to have an experience. I wanted to have something that would have an impact in my life. Now that I have been living here for two years, I can definitely tell that I have changed and evolved so much and learned so much by me, who I am and what I wanna do in life and how I am going to get there. And it is not necessarily about America, it could have been Australia. It could have been any country and it would have been the same sort of experience because  it’s about me. 

YA: Would you say that you had to move away from home to find home?

SB: Pretty much,  I needed to go away from home to figure out  who I was. Ummm not depending on this circle of friends or this like family. It’s like you kind of have that print on you. Your friends, your family, your social status, your school aaa so.. I wanted to see what it was like if I was in a completely new setting without knowing anything, anyone and to see who I really was. Without anyone influencing me. So and aaa that worked out pretty well. But I didn’t really have any expectations you know, I just wanted to go. Not knowing what was gonna happen. I think that was the biggest excitement for me. So..

YA: What was the feeling when you first got off the plan in the US?

SB: I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in the in the plane for 12 hours so I had time to think about it for 12 hours. Ummm you feel a little bit anxious because you don’t know what you are going to find out there but that anxiety was really exciting to me so like thrilled and I got there and there was this Chinese guy who was supposed to drive us to our respective homes/ houses where we would stay. And I stayed at this host family in the sunset. Never met them before. Umm so he dropped me off in the sunset and I didn’t think that SF looked like that at all. It was like, the sunset was the first place I ever got to. I was like okay… I didn’t realize by than that SF was so diverse. Depending on where you go in the city it looks completely different. There is different vibe, there is different architecture, everything is different you know… So when he dropped me off in the sunset it was like this little yellow no pink- little pinky house in the corner and this little Chinese woman was waiting for me. Umm and it just I just felt so like nothing was holding me back. I was freaked out at first, I walked in the house and it was not that clean and I am kinda OCD so I was like can I do this?! Ohh no! Three months with people I don’t even know and umm I walked in the room and I got good vibes and I felt like everything was gonna be okay. It was like you know, whenever you hear that Bob Marley song “Every little thing is gonna be alright” you realize that it sounds so simple and so cheesy and that’s what like everything is gonna be alright. IF you project yourself into that state of mind, that everything is  be alright eventually. It always does. It just that I felt so free and I walked around the block everywhere not even knowing where I was and took random pictures and I was listening to the “Hooks” that one song and singing my heart out and I could see the ocean two blocks away that was so much so free and ready to start the journey.

YA: Wow! Okay so , have ever experienced any negative approaches from other people for being an international student ?

SB: American people or French People?

YA: Anyone around you.

SB: Yeah, it has been a struggle. Yes, well in America not so much everybody thinks it is great that I am from France and that it is amazing that I am from Paris. Umm.. people from Paris though… My dad especially. I was just supposed to be here for one year like as a gap year to explore, have fun. At least that is what he (my dad) thought.  Like that it was a great opportunity for me to have fun and he wished that he had done that when he was young. He did not realize that it was more important for me than just having fun. Aaaa… and after that one year I liked it so much that decided to stay. And it was always and option but like he always hoped that I would go back and have this awesome experience. Because for him ummm so yeah, anyways I decided to stay  and he did not agree with it. He was really just angry. Like we just were fighting over it. He was like no, it was fun for a year but you belong to Paris. This is your home, this is where you grew up, this is where you belong. That is where the concept of home came in and how we did not agree. Like our values were different and I told him no. It is not because I was born somewhere that I have to stay my whole life. Thank god it is not like that. I can go wherever I wanna go and right now I feel good right here in San Francisco. That’s where I feel comfortable, that’s where I wanna live my life for now. Ummm so we did not talk for like a year at all. He refused to support me financially umm because he did not agree with my choice of staying here in San Francisco and my choice of studying music. So ummm he thought not supporting me financially would be a big enough obstacle to for me to agree with him  and come back home and live the life that he wanted me to live.But I did not agree. I fought for it and umm you know it was struggle for a year because it was financially really hard. Because my mom and my grandmother were the only ones supporting me. Because I cannot legally work in this country, it was hard but umm you know, I think the fact that I went through such a hard time ummm…He understood what it meant to me. That it was not just having fun and you know like drinking to bars every night just having the fun life San Francisco in America. I was really here because it meant something important to me. I think that after all the obstacles he put me through he understood that this was really what I wanted and nothing can keep me away from it.

YA: WOW!!

SB: Am I not the best choice for an interview?!

YA: [LAUGHTER]

YA: So umm…you are saying that your dad was the only one that had a negative approach.

SB: Well you know even my grandma who supports me financially is awesome. She was so sad that I left because we are so close and ummm  I realized that afterwards. Whenever I would go back to visit my family it would not be the same between us.I was like why she felt angry with me, we used to laugh all the time like talk for hours and one day I was like I feel like you are angry you are still angry with me and one day she was like yes. I am angry at you for leaving and she never told me so before. She was like I am angry at you for leaving me and leaving me behind. And umm and we went through this emotionally intense talk and I was like I love you but I can not stay here for you even though I love you so much! I have to be little selfish and think about myself. Because this is my life right now and I feel like I have to do this now. And aaa but she still supports me financially and is awesome with it. Even though she doesn’t think that music is the necessarily the most stable thing. So I have to, you know it’s kinda like you have to prove yourself everyday that what you are doing is worth it and that what you are doing is important for you. It’s not like a little selfish kid, you know this is what I breathe. This is, I have to do this. It is not just [with a higher voice] Yeahh music is fun! San Francisco is fun! I am just here…No!! This is something that like, that is so important to me. This is the only option. This is the only thing I could do and I see myself doing right now and ummm back home whenever I say I am a music major to adults or umm even people my age. The question that everybody asks me all the time, that is why I hate meeting my parents friend’s. “Ohh you live in San Francisco what do you do over there?” and I say that I study music and the question that always comes up is that “ What do you want to do with that?” [sarcastically] SB says that “I wanna be a fucking painter!” what do you think?! I want to be a musician. You know, and then they say,” that’s good…”.You always have to fight to prove yourself. Just to be who you are and is shouldn’t be that way. So it was hard for a while and I went through this struggle with some of my friends and some of my family. And umm you might wanna do this by yourself.

YA: So can you say that coming here was freedom for you?

SB: It was a way to I guess umm do the big jump and take responsibilities for myself and make my own choices.

YA: Would you have stayed if France had opportunities like this?

SB: No, I just you know, I just wanna see things and I am not done travelling. Whenever people ask me “do you see yourself living in SF or Paris?” and “What are you gonna do next year?” I am like “I don’t even know what I am going to do tomorrow”. I do not even know, I might be in San Francisco transferring next year or I might be in Spain doing stuff. I do not know I might be anywhere. And I don’t see myself living in SF forever and I don’t see myself living in Paris forever. I just see myself moving around. Culture and people are so fulfilling.

YA: Okay, that is great.

SB: I wanna find home everywhere in the world.

YA: Would you say that like, finding home everywhere in the world that means that finding a piece of yourself everywhere? Do you think that there is a place that where you gonna feel whole without like feeling that you’re…

SB: What I think is that… Okay so my dad used to talk to me. Whenever we talked about religion, I do not subscribe to any religion, my dad would. Cause I grew up- I was raised Jewish. But my dad was really into it but not like super super crazy religious. He would always say that, he would only do the things and believe in the things that ummm spoke like touched him. That made sensed to him which might not make sense to someone else but it would make sense to him. I think that’s what it is with traveling, with cultures is that in every culture, in everybody, every country, every city and every single person you are going to meet there is gonna be someone that you appropriate and learn you know. Umm so I think that I am not looking for that one place where I am gonna feel whole. I think all these places and experiences and all the people that I meet along the way are gonna make me feel whole. You know.

YA: So you think that there has to be a certain amount of time until you feel whole?

SB: Not necessarily. It’s not that I am lacking and that I am looking for something to like fill complete that I am not right now. It’s just that there’s always something more. Even in life there’s always something more to learn you know. When you are fifty years old, you still have something to learn. Maybe from a 10 year old and maybe from a 80 year old there’s something to add. So it’s a never ending process.

YA: You are saying that as you meet people and discover the world the place that you call home  doesn’t feel home anymore because you are growing out of it?

SB: No! It’s that every experience is a part of me, is a part of home, it’s another block to the house.

YA: So for you where ever you go is home for you because you are home?

SB:Yeah.

YA: Did you experience discrimination?

SB: In America? It is San Francisco! Therefore, it is hard. [Hahahah. ]

YA: Yeah I know, [hahaha]

SB: Ummm not as much as I did in Paris. Even though it’s not as bad, you know there’s always…Ummm the funny thing is that in America- San Francisco, everyone is really open and really diverse. Umm I feel like, there’s still some. .. It’s the way they view the world because of the things they have been taught and the way they perceived certain historical events. You know there’s like that whole stereotypical view on things umm especially like different races, different religions and stuff like that so ummm it’s like you know, people realize that my full name is not Shem but Shaema which is actually Arabic, they obviously assume that I am Muslim and like you know a lot of different things like that.  And umm it’s like they stigmatize a lot the way umm and it’s hard to tell because it’s San Francisco it’s not really that way at all but I feel that with some people they assume too fast.

YA: So you felt discriminated before by some people?

SB: No, I just feel like not in San Francisco. I just realized the way the academic system and the way they would just –it’s like communism is the worst word to ever use.In France communism is the worst word to use. When in France, you know, whenever we are in class umm we talk about communism. Its just like you know, it’s history and there’s still communist parties in France and stuff like that , here it’s like the biggest insult –they have really radical point of view on things. So you are a communist, your this and this…And they don’t even know what it really is. You know..So I feel like there’s a few things like that the whole Jewish thing, the whole Arabic family but yet French umm you know. When I am here I am French right because I am in America and my nationality is French. Though when I am in France and they ask me like who I am. I say that my ethnicity is actually Algerian because my grandparents were from Algeria. Like, Jewish Algerians. Umm so it’s just really weird because like people don’t see you differently as you say you know, when I sound French like people have this image of me. Ummm but they don’t necessarily know that I have this Arabic cultural background. Because I don’t really look like it. When I do they have a different view on things which is interesting. Not necessarily negative.

YA: Yeah exactly but they just assume things.

SB: Yeah!

YA: So you are saying that you have felt more discriminated in France than you have felt discriminated here (San Francisco)?

SB: Hell yeah. And even sexuality wise…Being out of the closet in France is not easy at all. Especially when you are in high school believe me. It sucks! It’s not necessarily the big things it’s just little things.It’s not like you are gay I hate you and I am going to beat you up. It’s like owww you gay okay, how is that working out for you? Just like… You know that they know you are gay. For me whether you’re gay, straight or whatever it is that you are it doesn’t change the way I am gonna talk to you and it’s like you never told me. But you can see if that there’s that thing you know or not. It’s weird.

YA: Where do you think you belong?

SB: I don’t know. Everywhere. I really don’t know. I feel like, I feel like there’s definitely a part of me that belongs here in SF. It’s definitely. I am probably going to spend, not necessarily now but near future. But some day I am going to be here for a while. I have travelled on vacation a lot actually, when I was younger. So I travelled I lot but there’s a lot to know and to discover. So..I don’t think I belong to one specific place. Cause there’s gonna be, you know more you travel the more you that’s like there’s a part of your soul everywhere. So..

YA: How have you changed since you moved here (to SF)?

SB: OHH MY GOD! How long do you have!?

YA: We still have time.

SB: Ohh my god. How have I changed? Ummm ummm, okay. I will just make it simple because otherwise it’s just going to take up a lot of time.

YA: No we have time so you can go head.

SB: Okay, ummm well… I will start with the most certain thing that comes to my mind first. When I was back in France, whenever I say that to people, they would be like really. I was a lot more stressed out, nervous and nervous and even violent sometimes. What really, you are like this bubbly and happy person all the time. Well the thing is when I was in France, my dad has like anger management issues. He’s like, he can like…Some situations can blow out of proportion. Like I grew up in this like to me even though it’s crazy it sounds normal. You know, it sounds normal and I am like okay. But I realized that now that I have moved away. I am like do you realize? I am not even saying that for me but I am saying that for you. Do you realize that you put yourself in that state? I don’t even know, it’s like beyond my understanding. You know, growing up in that energy filled thing made me really, cause I am really similar to my dad and in a way that I hate. Ummm and I think it’s also the influence he had on me. So when I moved away, I am a lot more relaxed and patient and you know not as angry all the time.

YA: Because you are away from him?

SB: Yeah. It’s hard to say but in some way yeah. Because you know what it’s always been what I really am. I am just that chill, peaceful and relaxed person. But because I was living around him I couldn’t find my inner self.

From Nicaragua to San Francisco: Mercedes’ Exile and Home

How Did The Civil War in Nicaragua Exile My Mother Mercedes From Her Own Country, and How Did This Force Her To Find A New Home?

By Judith Mendoza, May 10^th, 2013

It is hard to live in a country that is at war, and even harder to live in a country that is at war with itself.  There were many civil wars in Central America during the 1980’s, which left many people in those countries with no choice but to flee their countries for fear of their lives.  The second Civil War in Nicaragua was no exception; in fact, it was the second war that served as a starting point for the surrounding countries in Central America to have civil wars.  I mention Nicaragua, because that is where my mother is from, and I specify that it is the second civil war, because there were two wars that were very close to each other in time.  The first was the Liberales (Liberals) against the Conservadores (Conservatives), and this war ended on January 22^nd 1966, when the Liberales killed thousands of innocent people by shooting out of helicopters.  The second one was when the Guerillas, which are now called Sandinistas, rose up against the Somosistas, which were with the dictator Somoza, and which were also called the Guardia (the Guards).  This is the war that caused many people to flee from their homes and families in Nicaragua for their safety, including my mother and my six older brothers and sisters, because from both sides of the fight, my mother and her family’s lives were in danger.  I conducted an interview with my mother, Mercedes Mendoza, and during the interview, she told me about her struggles and the fears she went through and experienced on the last days leading up to her leaving Nicaragua.  When there is a civil war, both sides suffer and cause suffering, because they are not fighting against other countries, but amongst themselves.  In Nicaragua’s case, both sides were causing harm to the people, which caused my mother to be exiled from her country in a way, and forced her to find some other country and home to  “hang her hat.”

My mother, Mercedes Mendoza (which is not her full name, as she wishes that her full name remain anonymous), was born in Managua, Nicaragua in the year 1951.  From the time she was young, she knew only war, because in Nicaragua she survived two wars, and an earthquake that according to my mom “leveled” Nicaragua, which means that most if not all buildings fell.  She fled Nicaragua with her oldest six children in June of the year 1982.  She fled after the FSLN (the Sandinista front) entered the city in 1979, because it was rumored that things would get worse, and they did after the Sandinista movement took over.  She fled to United States, because this is the closest country that she could travel to where she had friends that were willing to help her and her six children escape the wars in Nicaragua.

The Guerillas, which were the guerillas that fought against the Guardia, the National Guard (Guards), where a group that called themselves Sandinistas, and their political group is called FSLN,  “Frente Sandinista Liberacion Nacional,” which translates to Sandinista National Liberation Front.  They got their name  “Sandinistas” from a hero of theirs named Augusto Cesar Sandino.  Sandino was a hero, because in the 1920’s he rose up against the U.S. Marines that were occupying Nicaragua, and believed in power for the people.  In a book called  Democracy and Socialism in Sandinista Nicaragua, Harry E. Vanden and Gary Prevost bring in a quote from Humberto Ortega Saavedra, in which he states:

“We could say that we did not invent the fundamental elements of our liberation ourselves.  The vanguard gathered the ideas from Sandino, from our own people, and this is what enabled us to lead the people toward their liberty.  We found political, military, ideological, and moral elements in our own people, in our own history” (23).

The Sandinista movement was not really established until 1961, 30 years after Augusto Sandino’s time, but the people of Nicaragua found a name to follow, a hero, a man who had had the same ideals that they had, and just like it states in the quote above, they found those same moral elements in their own history.  Although the now called Sandinistas were fighting for the people against the dictator Somoza, they, along with the Somosistas, made a lot of choices that affected the people.   They would force children to fight; they would take full classrooms at times, and take them to the jungles to fight.  These actions in a way made them no different than the dictators who were also killing innocent people.

The Somoza dictatorship was established in 1936, by Anastasio Somoza García, who had betrayed and assassinated Augusto Cesar Sandino two years before, and who was then preceded by his two sons, first Luís Somoza Debayle, and then his other son Anastasio Somoza Debayle.  The guard, which was under the rule of the Somozas, killed many innocent people, and bombed the neighborhoods where people lived as well.  The Somosistas would kill their own people, just like Anastasio Somoza, the founder of the 42-year-old dictatorship vowed, “I’ll give this country peace if I have to kill every other man in Nicaragua” (Lernoux).  Although he did not kill every other man, about 25,000 Nicaraguans were massacred during the reign of the Somozas, during the time of “peace,” which is during non civil war time.  There were many things that triggered people to rise up against the dictatorship, one of which is stated in an article named “Nicaraguan Americans,” by Stefan Smagula, in which he writes:

“After a severe earthquake leveled Managua in 1972, Anastasio Somoza’s detractors claimed that Somoza had embezzled many millions of dollars of earthquake-relief money. Popular dissatisfaction with the perceived widespread corruption and brutality of the Somoza regime, coupled with anger over what many believed was the Somoza-directed murder of opposition leader Pedro Joaquin Chamorro in 1978, prompted nationwide uprisings that led to civil war.”

Just like the quote states, this was one of the events that enraged people, and got them to want a change.  This was, like the saying, the one of the events that caused the cup to overflow, because the people of Nicaragua had had enough.

My mother was forced to leave her own country for her children’s safety, because there were many people, including youths, who were dying around her.  She was afraid for her life of course but also for those of her kids.  She states:

“They would take lots of youth.  Actually, many kids that I carried, that I held in my arms, died.  Many youth died because of the war.  So more than one of my kids would have died.  That is one of the reasons why I chose to leave … with my six kids, alone with them, my oldest was thirteen years old and my youngest was three.”

Kids that she had carried and had babysat were dying, so what was to say that her kids where not next?  Both sides of the war they were killing innocent lives one way or another, and no matter what party she looked at, whether it was the Sandinistas or the Guardia, they were killing people directly or indirectly.

The Sandinistas, for example, would force people to join the cause or to work for the cause in many ways.  My mother explains that they would be forced to cooperate with them or there would be consequences.  In one case she states:

“It was a hard time, because I was demanded to do surveillance, which consisted of me monitoring outside (the streets), spending the night out with a whistle, and if I saw something suspicious outside then I had to blow it.  But I was a woman who lived alone with my six kids, and they were still very young.”

She also later told me that she was not interested in joining either party because she just wanted to live her life and raise her kids in peace, but as she soon saw, that was not going to happen.  The Sandinistas were pushing her away, because they were forcing her to do something for the cause that should not be forced but she should want to do if they where really working for the people.

The Guardia would have more brutal tactics; they would threaten people and tell them they where going to kill them, or just show up at the door of a suspected Sandinista rebel and kill everyone that was there and everyone that lived there.  My mother said that one time they came, and this is what my mother recalls of what happened that day:

“With all my family, the Guard told us that they would burn the whole neighborhood because it was full of Sandinistas, and because of that many people left desperately and crazy, and went out… only a few of us were left.  Because people were leaving we would tell them that the time of the curfew was coming which was 6pm.”

The guard had placed the curfew at 6pm, and anyone seen outside after 6 would be killed.  According to my mother, the Guardia would not threaten in vain, so these people must have been desperate enough to risk being killed on site for violating curfew, than to be burned to death.

The Sandinistas were not as brutal, but they were smart with what they were doing, because, unlike the Guardia, they would try to gain more support on their side, instead of killing everyone that got in their way.  My mom stated:

“Like many youths, their brains were washed in many forms… I heard say that in some schools they would tell the kids to pray to God for candy and nothing would happen…   Then they asked the kids to close their eyes again and to pray again, but this time to ask the Sandinista leader for candy, then they would place candy in front of them while their eyes where still closed.  Then they would tell them to open their eyes, and they would ask ‘did God give you candy, or did your president?’ then they would answer that the president did.  That is when the guerilla would say ‘okay then you have to be loyal to your president.”

Here we can see that they started with kids by brainwashing them like my mother states, into following the Sandinista movement.  My mom also recalls a time when my oldest brother came from school and asked her sign a permission slip for him to join a group of Niños Sandinistas, which translates to Sandinista Children.  She said that she would not sign, and that’s when my oldest brother said that if she didn’t sign, then his teacher would.  My mom was obviously outraged, and saw then the route that the Sandinistas were moving in, and saw them in a way similar to the Somoza dictatorship.

The Guardia, like I stated before, had brutal tactics; instead of trying to win people to their cause, they where just killing anyone that was opposing them.  They would kill their own people, and not in the jungles, where the war was being fought, but in the neighborhoods, where their were only innocent women and children.  My mom states:

“Well, the bombs, they would drop them in the streets and in the corners.  Mountains of dirt would fall it was horrible…during the war many bombs would fall.  I remember when I would go visit my dad I would have to carry a white flag everyone had to carry a white flag…I saw many people that looked to the skies, and would also watch as other neighborhoods were being bombed.  That was horrible, because they would bomb their own people.”

These women had to carry white flags just to walk around their own neighborhoods, and were afraid that at any moment another air raid would come.  There was no sense of peace, and they had to live under that constant stress that war brings.  This was no place or environment to raise kids in.

Both the Contras and the Guardia were threatening to burn my mom’s house down, and both for similar reasons.  The Contras (Sandinistas) came to her house demanding to go in, because they had heard that in the house they were hiding something, so they searched the house and found nothing, and they left.  She also stated:

Ten days before the war was over four guards where guarding our house…because in previous days guerilla fighters had entered our home during combat, so they where saying that they where going to find that house… and kill everyone.  Like it was their fault.  Without them knowing they where in the right place, because it was our house that the guerillas had entered in during combat.

My mom saw danger on both sides of the war, and had no place to turn to.  Both the Sandinistas and the Guardia where threatening, forcing, and killing people, and she saw herself and her family as a target on both sides.  There was no one else to turn to because those were the only two parties that had power, and they both had that mentality that “you are either for us or against us.”  The Guardia was bombing neighborhoods and killing innocent families, along with kids that had no fault in the war, and the Sandinistas were kidnapping and forcing kids to fight in their war.  They would in some occasions take whole classrooms give the kids guns and tell them to go fight.

On top of both sides causing destruction to their own country and killing their own brothers, after the war there was a food scarce, and the country had sunk into a deeper recession.  Also my mom states:

“There was a rumor that there was going to be another war, the counter war, like the counter-revolution.  This is because there where many people that did not agree because they were betraying their ideas; that is what they said at least.”

That is my mom decided that she had to do something, because her oldest son was around the age, even a little older that some of the kids that had been taken by force to fight, and if the counter-revolution was on its way then she had to get all of her kids out of the country right away.

Wars are brutal, and they cause many people to lose the people and the things that they love in many ways, but a mother will give everything up for the sake of her children.  My mom gave everything up in Nicaragua to save the lives and the future of her kids.  She states:

That’s why I decided to come to this country, because if not, I tell you, more than one of my kids would have died, or would have been mutilated, because I know of people that were mutilated…that was the reason why I decide to come… to save my kids.  Practically, it was because of the war, because I would say no, I have my house over there I have my things and my family…it was hard to technically start over again.

Here we could see that only drastic measures would have caused her to uproot and move to another place.  She had a home, with all of her belongings, and her family in Nicaragua a country that no matter what she loved and continues to love, but her kids where in danger and she had to act quickly if she wanted to save her kids, because she was running out of time.  Running out of time, because her oldest kids where already at age to fight in the war, there was no food to eat, and the next war was about to begin if it hadn’t already.

Some people say that to escape from a war in their country, there is no need to go all the way to the United States that they could easily could go to a neighboring country and seek asylum.  This of course is very true, but what people don’t see, is that during the 1980’s, when my mom left Nicaragua, the other neighboring countries where also having civil wars of their own.  To add on to that, many people say that Nicaraguenses hate the United States for what they have done to their country, and this of course is also true to some extent.  Not all Nicaraguenses hate the United States.  My mom, for example, does not blame the United States for the war and everything that has happened to Nicaragua; she blames the people, and she states that a person should not point fingers at someone else and blame someone else for their own mistakes.  Yes the United States did have some major parts in the war, but at the end the people that committed the atrocities where the Nicaraguenses themselves, because all the U.S. really did, was supply.

The civil war gave my mom no choice but to flee from her country and find a new home because her life and the life of her kids was being threatened from both sides of the civil war.  The Sandinistas were forcing her and her family to participate in their activities or else there would be consequences if she did not, and the Guardia with their brutal tactics, were threatening to kill them indirectly, because every time that there was a bombing her and her kids lives would be in danger.  When her home was no longer safe to live in, she was forced to leave and find a home that was safer to live in, and a good place to raise her kids free from the dangers of war.  She chose the United States because it was the closest country that was safe enough, and where she had friends that where willing to help her get their and start a new life.

Works Cited

• Aguiar Mejia-Mendoza, Luisa Amanda de las Mercedes.  Interview in Spanish.  March 29^th, 2013.  Interviewer and Translator, Mendoza, Judith.
• Vandem, Harry E. and Prevost Gary.  Democracy and Socialism in Sandinista Nicaragua.  Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996.  Quote by, Humberto Ortega Saavedra.
• Smagula, Stefan.  Nicaraguan Americans.  Countries and their Cultures.  Website: Everyculture.
• Lernoux, Penny.  “Nicaragua’s Civil War.  Showdown With The Somozas.”  The Nation.  September 16^th, 1978.  Copyright Nation Company Inc.

Interview with my mom

• Porque dejo Nicaragua y se vino a los Estados Unidos?

Bueno, más que todo fue una decisión bastante dura bastante difícil, porque yo amo mucho a mi familia y mi familia esta allá pero me vine por, más que todo por la Guerra. He vivido varias guerras halla, y la ultima fue bastante cruel bastante sanguinaria, sufrí bastante.  Esta Guerra fue entre la guardia que son con los somosas y los guerrilleros que ahora son los actuales sandinistas.

• Que clase de cosas sucedieron durante la Guerra que hizo que se disidiera venir?

Bueno, sucedieron muchísimas, porque yo recuerdo que cuando tomaron los barrios un nueve de septiembre, un ano antes yo estaba embarazada.  Tenia siete meses de embarazo y fue duro fue terrible porque sin aviso ni nada bueno aquella balacera que hubo y tuve que dormir tuvimos que dormir todos en el piso y de eso me causo bastante, bastante daño porque no me podía ni sentar ni parar ni nada porque me sentía bien mal.  Y apenas bueno estaba bien bastante joven tenia 27 anos tenia.  También bueno después de ya la Guerra, aquellos enfrentamientos que sin previo aviso sin nada comenzaban, y le silbaban a uno las balas tenia que inmediatamente tirarse al piso habían noches que eran horribles, no había luz, no teníamos agua, bueno fue algo espantoso y después que cuando ellos ganaron,  ganaron los sandinistas, ahora los sandinistas ellos racionaron la comida ósea el racionado quiere decir que teníamos apenas una libra para cada uno.  Fue un momento difícil porque también me exigían que hiciera vigilancia, la vigilancia consistía en que tenia que estar afuera, pasar toda la noche con un silbato y si miraba alguna cosa que tocara ese silbato pero yo soy mujer y pasar toda la noche mis muchachitos estaban pequeños fue algo tremendo también verdad, cuando recuerdo, recuerdo es bastante doloroso porque no dejo de sentirme nerviosa cuando recuerdo todo lo que pase que me pareciera una pesadilla, una pesadilla.  Cuando mi muchachito mayor tenia como, como 11 anos el llego un día de la escuela y me dice “mami firma este papel”, entonces le digo pero “espérate que lo debo leer”.  Y lo voy leyendo y decía dice que lo tengo que firmar, porque mi hijo iba a pertenecer a la asociación de niños sandinistas, entonces yo le dije a él, “no eso si no lo voy a firmar” “si no lo firmas tu” me dice el, “va firmar el maestro”. Entonces era una situación  bastante ya estaban como dicen lavando le el cerebro a mi hijo, como a muchos jóvenes les lavaron el cerebro de muchas formas.  De muchas formas porque se cuenta se dice eso no lo vi verdad, pero si lo oí decir que en algunas escuelas a los niños les decían que oraran o rezaran y pidiéndole a dios caramelos. Entonces le pedían a dios caramelos, y no pasaba nada.  Pero después le decían los piricuacos, esos que son del ejército, los sandinistas, bueno les decían a los niños.  Dios les dio caramelos, no contestaban los niños.  Bueno vuelvan a cerrar los ojos les decían a los niños, ahora pídanle a su presidente ósea al sandinismo, y entonces ellos les ponían dulces.  Cuando abrían sus ojitos los niños miraban los dulces, y les decían bueno quien les dio caramelos?  Dios o su presidente?  Entices decían los niños que el presidente.   Entonces ustedes tienen que ser leales le decían a los niños, a los sandinistas, a su presidente.  Ósea fue como un lavado de cerebro a las pobres creaturas.  Y por so me miraba en problemas porque yo no estaba de acuerdo.  No estaba de acuerdo ni con uno con el otro, pero sin embargo todavía fue peor ahorita el sandinismo.  También verdad, una de las cosas que me hizo venir para acá, fue de que se rumoraba que venia otra Guerra, que era la contra.  Ósea la contra revolución.  Porque muchos no estaban de acuerdo porque ellos habían traicionado las ideas que supuestamente ellos decían.  Y a muchos muchachos se los llevaban.  Es más yo a muchos muchachos que yo chineé, ósea que tuve en mis brazos, murieron.  Allá murieron muchos jóvenes a causa de eso.  Ósea que mas de alguno de mis hijos hubiera perecido.  Por so fue una de las razones fueron tantas las razones de tantos problemas de que yo me decidí venirme con 6 de mis hijos.  Solita con ellos.  Uno de 13 anos, y el menor de 3.

• Y el terremoto que sucedió en Nicaragua, sucedió antes de la guerra durante o después?

No, fue antes porque fue en el 1972 en diciembre.

• Y como fue que eso afectó la Guerra o la estancia, en Managua que fue mas afectado, y como se sintió durante el terremoto?

Bueno durante el terremoto eso fue horrible porque fueron prácticamente dos.  Uno y el siguiente fue a los 20 minutos que fue el que termino con todo Managua.  O prácticamente con casi todo Managua.  El terremoto afecto bastante mas que todo, como yo estaba bien joven todavía yo no salía.  Estaban  pequeñitos mis muchachitos, estaban mas chiquitos, pero si afecto bastante, pero sin embargo, si llegaron muchas ayudas de aquí de EEUU y las repartieron.  Pero no le puedo decir mas de lo que paso con la guerra tal ves bueno lo tomaron tal ves como una ventaja no se.

• Y en las razones quien tenia la culpa o a quien culpaban?

Bueno es mas ahorita que me estas diciendo eso me acuerdo que el primer diciembre que pase con los sandinistas fue algo espantoso porque ellos ganaron supuestamente en Julio y en diciembre no había ni siquiera sal.  Tuve que andar en muchas pulperías y no encontré sal.  Porque decían ellos, algo tan absurdo, de que los EEUU tenían la culpa.  Como que los EEUU se había llevado el mar.  Para mi bueno no se, era algo tan absurdo completamente.

• Se acuerda de otra cosa que paso durante la guerra?

Si porque en plena Guerra llegaron unos guerrilleros y estaban como nerviosos, como diciéndonos que nosotros escondíamos algo.  Entonces les hicimos pasar.  Y ellos escultaron todo absolutamente todo.  Y se quedaron tranquilos.  Pero durante la guerra también, como a los diez días antes de terminar la Guerra, muchos guardias, cuatro guardias estaban custodiando la casa, y no porque nos estaban custodiando a nosotros, si no porque en días anteriores se habían metido unos guerrilleros en pleno combate.  Entonces ellos decían que ellos iban a encontrar esa casa.  Encontrar esa casa para matarlos a todos.  Como que tenían la culpa.  Y ellos sin saber estaban en el lugar correcto, porque éramos nosotros los que, a quien se les habían metido los guerrilleros a pleno combate.  Eso fue espantoso, ósea nos miramos en problemas casi de muerte, por decir así.  Tanto los guerrilleros, que son ahorita los sandinistas, como la guardia, que son los somocistas.

• Y cuando caían las bombas, o la balacera usted sentía como temblaba la tierra, o que sentía en ese momento?

Bueno las bombas,  las botaban en las calles y en las esquinas.  Y caían montones de arena, y eso era espantoso como se oía el sin.  Era una lluvia horrible se oía.  También recuerdo que en la Guerra habían, tiraban muchas bombas, una ves que me acuerdo que yo iba a ver a mi papa, tenia que andar con una banderita blanca, todos teníamos que andar, allí no se miraban hombres. Solo las mujeres salíamos con una banderita blanca, y miro mucha gente que esta viendo al cielo, y que están viendo como estas bombardeando los demás barrios.  Y eso fue espantoso, fue horrible por que bombardeaban a su propia gente.  Eso fue espantoso, fue horrible.  Muchos murieron con, o quedaban tal ves no muertos pero si con charnel ósea pedazos de hiero cosas así, de lo que tiraban las bombas.  También en la guerra, en los 45 días de guerra que hubo, no había una pulpería donde se encontraba absolutamente nada, nada, nada.  Porque si uno abría una pulpería, inmediatamente le prendían fuego.  Y recuerdo que también a partir de que se metieron esos guerrilleros en mi casa, aunque no tenia que decir porque yo porque si no me moría también.  Con todo y mi familia, dijeron la guardia que iban a quemar esa barrio porque estaba lleno de sandinistas, entonces a raíz de eso, mucha gente salió desesperada, como loca, y salió.  Fue algo horrible porque quedamos unos cuantos nada más.  Porque salía la gente y les decíamos ya viene la hora, ya viene la hora, la hora este de queda.  Ósea, la hora 6 de la tarde, que nadie podía andar fuera.  Ósea la hora que le llaman “toque de queda”.

Y quien puso esa hora?

La guardia pues porque para evitar esos ataques.  Y aun así habían ataques.  Porque en la noche recuerdo que por lo menos recuerdo que fueron dos o tres noches que pensé que nos íbamos a morir.  Como nos silbaba, i como temblaba la tierra.  Y yo tener que dormir en el piso con mis niños.  Tenia en ese entonces, mi niño del que estaba embarazada cuando tomaron los barrios, tenia como seis meses de nacido nada más.

Y por eso se decidió venir para acá?

Por eso decidí venir me a este país, por que si no como les digo, mas de uno de mis hijos hubiera muerto, o hubiera sido mutilado.  Porque conozco a unos que están completamente mutilados, ósea que les falta un brazo, o están desfigurados.  Esa fue la decisión que me hizo venir para acá.  Fue una decisión bastante difícil, bastante dura, porque tenía que salvar a mis hijos, pero dejaba allá a toda mi familia, a mi demás familia.  A mis hermanos y a mi papa.

Y cuando y como es que usted se vino a EE.UU.?

Bueno yo me vine, nunca se me va a olvidar esa fecha, yo me vine en Junio del ano 1982.  Me vine por Méjico, llegue hasta Méjico, porque ya había intentado sacar visa, a mi me la dieron pero a mis hijos no.  Así que me vine hasta Méjico.  De Méjico agarre un autobús para Tijuana, de Tijuana para San Diego.  Una persona que nos pasara, nos paso por la loma.  Se le llaman a esas personas Coyotes.  De allí bueno, pasamos por San Diego antes de San Diego habían muchos retenes.  Esa tarde fuego espantoso, pero gracias a dios, paso algo, un milagro, y nosotros pudimos pasar.  De allí nos llevaron asta santana.  En Santana nos entregaron allí, y nos fuimos hasta los Ángeles, y allí estuvimos por uno semana, y bien pasamos.  Tuvimos que, no teníamos nada de ropa.  Teníamos solamente lo que andábamos puesto.  Pero gracias a dios estamos a salvo, de esa tiranía, de esa guerra, de esos problemas.  De esa ansia de poder que tienen los Sandinistas allá en Nicaragua.  Fue algo horrible porque allá tengo a mi familia también.

Y como fue su travesía de Tijuana a EE.UU.?

Vino por tierra o de Nicaragua como fue por tierra o por avión?

De Managua a Méjico fue en avión, en avión.  Pero de Méjico a Tijuana en bus.  De allí también de Tijuana para san Diego fue en bus también, en carro.  De allí también a santana de carro.  De allí a los Ángeles en carro.  Y de allí de los Ángeles estuvimos como una semana y nos venimos para San Francisco en avión.

Y nunca hubo problema de que no podían sus hijos, de que no podían llegar todos?  Siempre estuvieron juntos?  O tuvo que dejar a uno de sus hijos atrás?

Bueno cuando nosotros llegamos a Tijuana, fue un cuatro de Junio, llegaron por nosotros al día siguiente, y llevaron a tres de mis hijos.  Y me quede solamente con tres, pero al siguiente, a la siguiente semana, entre semana, llego la misma señora por nosotros, pero había un pequeño problema, y ya ella no quiso volver.  Y nos quedamos allí.  Por eso es que se tuvo que pagar una persona que nos tuvo que pasar, un coyote.  Porque ya se acobardo completamente ella.  Pero yo pase solamente con tres de mis hijos, pero yo pase tan desesperada por que pasamos por la loma, corriendo mientras el helicóptero que guarda la frontera asía un recorrido por otro lada.  Pero eso fue por segundos, entonces nosotros teníamos que correr, para pasar esa loma.  Y nosotros tuvimos que tirar prácticamente como deslizándonos, dándonos vueltas.  Eso fue horrible porque mi niño, el mas chiquito, el gritaba y gritaba toda la noche, paso gritando diciendo de que se quería ir a su casita desesperado.  Fueron momentos bastante difíciles.  Bastante difíciles porque aun cuando me acuerdo siento, aun que ya casi tengo 31 anos y medio de estar aquí, pero me siento como que lo vuelvo a revivir.  Tanto como lo que viví allá en Nicaragua como cuando vine hasta acá.

Y como se sintió cuando por fin llego hasta San Francisco, y que es lo hizo que se decidiera venir hasta la ciudad de San Francisco?

Bueno yo me sentí muy feliz al haber ya estado con mis hijos aquí.  Dije yo ya salve a mis hijos dije yo.  Y la razón porque fui hasta San Francisco, fue porque me estaba esperando un familiar, y entonces por eso es que fuimos a San Francisco.

Y se sintió aliviada al haber llegado aquí, un alivio, o como se sintió?

Completamente que ya estaba libertada, ya esta presión de la guerra esa presión a pesar de que yo no tenia ni un papel, ni pequeño ni grande ni nada.  Pero si me sentía que ya había salvado a mis hijos.

Y como se siente en los EE.UU?  Siente que su hogar esta aquí en los EE.UU. o en Nicaragua?

Bueno es una pregunta que en realidad yo me siento repartida mi corazón esta bien agradecida con este país, primera mente con dios, pero también con este país, pero tengo a mi familia allá, gran parte de mi familia allá en Nicaragua.  Ósea que me siento, que tengo dos hogares, tanto como aquí como allá en Nicaragua.

Siente que en parte la guerra tuvo que ver con ese sentimiento del hogar?  En el aspecto de que fue arrebatada de su hogar, en una forma u otra?

Claro que si porque prácticamente aunque yo me siento tan feliz aquí me siento muy feliz muy agradecida, pero sin embargo me dolió mucho haber dejado a mi familia allá, mas que todo fue por la guerra.  Por la situación tan horrible.  Por salvar a mis hijo.  Entonces prácticamente fue por la guerra, porque yo decía no, allá tenia mi casita, tenia mis cosas, tengo a mi familia.  Así es que por eso y fue bien duro volver, prácticamente es como volver a comenzar.  Fue bastante difícil.  Porque ahora gracias a dios, ya tengo dos hijos nacidos aquí, nacieron aquí, yo ya soy ciudadana y por eso le doy gracias a dios.  Pero no fue fácil toda esa trayectoria.  Se dice fácil en unos minutos haber venido hasta aquí, pasar lo que pase pero me siento muy feliz porque aquí ya salve a mis hijos.  No me caso de decir a mis hijos porque salve a mis hijos, a mis primero seis hijos que nacieron allá.

Cuando ivamos a llegar a un motel en San Diego porque ya habia oscuresido y dijeron los que nos iban a pasar “no ya esta muy noche aqui nos vamos a quedar, ya no vamos a viajar.  Entonces yo traia a una de mis hijas, mi hija tenia 11 Amos apenas, entonces yo lo que hice, la hiba aciendo para atras, y para atras, quitandola a ella, por is acaso, yo grito digo yo.  Porque no voy a permitir que les que le agan algo a ella.  No me hubiera importado que me hubiera agarrado la policia, le hiban a aser dano, porque earn tres jovenes que nos traian.  Y entonces digo yo cualquier cosa digo yo, no me le van a ser dano a ella.  Is me lo hacen, que me lo hagan a mi.  Para proteger a mis hijos, sobre todo a ella.  Esto sucedió en San Diego, cuando ya íbamos para acá.  Bueno algo se me olvido decir, que aun a mi me bajaron del bus, cuando venia de Méjico para Tijuana, me bajaron del bus, y la inmigración de Méjico  Fue algo tan tremendo tan horrible por que venían mis seis hijos en el autobús y yo me baje, y me dijeron a mi “piensas pasarte a el otro lado verdad”, me dice.  Entonces yo sin mentirle le dije “si eso intento”.  Entonces me dijeron ellos, “ahh tu no sabes que nosotros estamos aquí para impedírtelo?”  Si lo se le dije yo, pero en mi país le dije esta terrible, y comencé a decirle todo. Total que le comencé a decir a esta persona que me dejara ir, y que me dejara ir.  Hasta le ofrecí dinero y si me dejo ir.  Fue algo tan espantoso porque yo andaba siempre con solo seis pasaportes, porque mi hijo menor no tenía porque solo tenía tres anos y estaba conmigo en mi pasaporte.  Y aquí estoy toda yo, aquí ya vendí mi casa vendí todo para poder venirme aquí porque allá no se puede vivir.  Usted escucha, si acaso usted escucha las noticias allá como esta la situación le digo yo en Nicaragua.  Y si me dejo venir pero desde ese momento al darse cuenta de que lo que yo trataba de hacer, todos en el autobús

 

From Eritrea to Sudan to Iraq to Egypt to America: Samira’s Perspective on War

From Eritrea to Sudan to Iraq to Egypt to America: Samira’s Perspective on War

by Thomas B., May, 2013

I interviewed an Eritrean woman named Samira. Samira had to flee Eritrea because of war. The experience of being forced to leave Eritrea and subsequent experiences affect Samira’s perspective on war. After exile from Eritrea, being a refugee in Sudan, and briefly living in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, Samira was “sick and tired of war.” Samira is skeptical of armed struggles and the insistence of authorities that they are necessary. Eritrea was plunged into thirty years of strife, and in fact it is still facing the threat of conflict. She is disappointed in the government that her country got when it gained independence. From her statements in our conversation, I believe Samira sees violence, even violence done in the name of a cause that appears just, as a never-ending cycle.

Eritrea is a country of six point two million people on the Eastern coast of Africa (Eritrea). To the East lies the Red Sea. Across the sea one will find Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Southern half of Eritrea is a relatively thin region of land that hugs the coast. In the West the country fans out to cover more inland areas. Eritrea has been subject to continuous strife as a victim of imperialism, regional rivals and an oppressive government. It is a poor country, where one million people face starvation (Masci) and the per capita income is just $680.

The roots of Eritrea’s Independence War go back almost 125 years, to 1890, when Eritrea became an Italian colony. Eritrea remained under Italian domination until Italy ended up on the losing side of the Second World War. In 1949 Eritrea became a United Nations trust territory administered by Britain. In the early 50s, the United Nations made the deadly mistake of turning control of Eritrea over to its larger neighbor to the South West, Ethiopia. This mistake led to decades of strife for Eritrea and Ethiopia.

That the roots of the conflict go back into history many generations is connected to Samira’s perspective that violence is a cycle that feeds on itself, not a confrontation between good and evil that resolves itself. She said of the current problems in Eritrea that “the cycle, the violence just continues.” The cycle of violence that began with Italy colonizing Africa has continued to the present day.

Eritreans waged a long struggle against Ethiopia for independence with Ethiopian forces who fought to hold on to the territory. From 1974 to 1987, Ethiopia was ruled by a Marxist-Leninist government called the Derg. The Soviet Union and Cuba became involved in the fighting, in support of the Derg. Eritrean guerillas persisted in the face of superior military technology and numbers, and for thirty years the Independence War brought strife to the region. The war took a heavy toll on Eritrea, Ethiopia, and neighbors. A famine in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1984-85 killed approximately one million people (Masci). Many fled to find safety elsewhere. In 1991 Eritrean independence fighters won a military victory against Ethiopia that led to a 1993 referendum in which the Eritrean people voted for independence from Ethiopia.

Samira and other Eritreans hoped that the Independence War would lead to a democratic, accountable government for Eritrea. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. In Samira’s words, “…right now, the people who were fighting to liberate [Eritrea], supposedly, are the one’s who are torturing the people. Right now, my story might be like nothing compared to the thousands and thousands fleeing the country.” As so often happens in the wake of a revolution, Eritrea has come to be ruled by a single man. Isaias Afewerki, who led a leftist guerrilla force called the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front during the Independence War, has held the presidency since independence was established. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front has been reincarnated as a political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice. Afewerki expressed support for a multi-party government before independence, but Afwerki’s People’s Front is the only political party allowed in Eritrea. The Country has no media sources independent of the People’s Front, so Afewerki wields total control of news coverage. Off the record, Samira and I joked how Afewerki was “maybe a president, maybe not a president.”

Plans to move Eritrea towards democracy have been indefinitely deferred. An election planned for 1998 and the implementation of a constitution approved by the voters in 1997 have been delayed indefinitely. In a 2009 interview with Reuters, Afewerki said, “I have never said that this a successful democracy.” Afewerki’s government denies that it has no desire to implement a constitutional multi-party government in Eritrea, maintaining that wars with countries like Yemen and the old rival Ethiopia make the country too unstable to risk a political reconfiguration. However, in Afewerki’s own words that he spoke before coming into power, “a one-party system will neither enhance national security or stability nor accelerate economic development. In fact a one party system could be a major threat to the very existence of our country” (President Isaias Afwerki’s Biography).

Samira’s father became involved in the independence movement as an intellectual when she was a small child. He had been a teacher before the conflict began. Samira told me, “my Dad didn’t go to fight, however he was helping recruit people to help with money or to recruit people to help with political things.” He was a member of a group in which each person was restricted to knowing just seven other members, so if a member was captured he or she would not be able to divulge the names of too many comrades.

The Ethiopian government, which of course controlled Eritrea at that time, caused Samira’s family great trouble to punish them for her father’s actions in support of the independence movement. Samira told me “He was imprisoned here and there. For example they would tell him “24 hours to get out of the city” so he’d just have to move, sometimes he’d just have to leave us somewhere and then later on we’d join him.” The government ordered Samira’s father to move around a lot. Their idea was to restrict Samira’s father to being in cities where he wouldn’t be effective for the rebels. He was imprisoned many times by the government and unfortunately he was tortured in prison several times: “they put them in cold water they put them upside down” said Samira.

I think that her father’s politics and the failure of the armed struggle to create an equitable Eritrean government influence Samira’s perspective on war. Maybe if her father had not been so involved in politics, Samira would not see her own experiences in terms of the larger events. But surely having a close family member who was so passionate that he would go in being involved after being tortured would guarantee that Samira would be political herself. The fact that armed struggle with Ethiopia led to a long, bloody war and a despotic government colors Samira’s skeptical perception of war.

Eventually, the fighting made living in Eritrea impossible. One day Samira was at school in the capital Asmara when planes began bombing the city intensely. Samira fled the capital with her brother as thousands of people fled the city. The two followed the flow right out of the city. She described that day: “people [were] fleeing anywhere they could. So we just followed the crowd… All the way out of town…because we didn’t know what we were doing.” Samira said that she doesn’t remember how many days she traveled, because they were moving day and night and it was difficult to think straight. They had no time to get their things or tell anyone they were leaving. It was total chaos.

Samira went to a neighboring city where they believed they would be safe, but soon that city was bombed as well, so they continued to flee. Samira said she would “never forget” how everywhere she went people told her to take off her red sweater, but she didn’t understand why until an older woman told her “[the plane] spots you in bright colors, it spots you right away.” Samira and her brother made their way North to Sudan. They walked half the way, then they got a ride from some Eritrean fighters on a truck they had to ride “like goods.” Samira not gone back to Eritrea since.

In Sudan, Samira had to contend with the threat of being kidnapped in the night by the Sudanese government, which sought to relocate the many Eritreans who fled to refugee camps in Sudan. The camps were located in harsh, remote locations where heat and thirst took many lives. Samira told me that her “neighbors, who were also cousins” suffered being brought to one of the refugee camps by the Sudanese government: “They would come early in the morning when you are asleep. You’re not even awake. You are sleeping. They took them. Two of the children died. It’s just sad. They couldn’t tolerate [conditions at the camp]. I was lucky, we were lucky.” In recent years, the Sudanese government, attempting to suppress a rebellion, committed an act of genocide against their own people in the Darfur region (Genocide in Darfur).

I can only imagine that being separated from most of her family and hiding from the maniacal Sudanese government must have been a difficult adolescence for Samira. She had already known a great deal of strife at that relatively young age. This is the age where most people start to think about politics and things like that, so her adult perspective on war must have been forming during this time. Clearly, Samira and her country were not benefiting from the conflict and the immediate view of it would not have yielded the kind of distance a person needs to have to romanticize a conflict. She must have been truly “sick of war” by this time.

Samira continued her education during this time with help from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She completed high school on time, then went on to Cairo to study at a technical institute for secretarial work. She had wanted to study medicine, but that was not really possible because of her status as a refugee. She said “it would have been different” if the conflict had not happened. This is one more reason for Samira to be “sick of war.”

Eritreans weren’t allowed to work in Egypt, so she went on to Baghdad, but left because of the Iran-Iraq war and general dissatisfaction with being there. Even though that war did not directly affect people in Baghdad, she had had enough of being in war zones by that time. Samira came to the United States when she was 19. She lived in South Dakota for a while, then moved to San Francisco.

Samira was reunited with her family in the United States, as family members have left Eritrea over the years. Samira still has extended family in Eritrea, but no immediate family members remain in that country. It reminds me of how Edward Said said that his home Palestine became “a series of Israeli locales” (Said X) and how all of Said’s family and acquaintances were gone from Palestine. Samira was reunited with her father after being separated for about ten years: “I can’t even put a word on it. I’m so blessed.” Samira must have some trauma from the events of her childhood, but she has lived most of life in the United States in reasonable comfort and does not seem like an unhappy person.

In conclusion, Samira’s flight from Eritrea, her difficult time in Sudan and the despotic nature of Eritrea’s independent government made her dislike war as a political tool. Those who only experience war in movies and video games sometimes have romanticized notions of what war is like. They don’t imagine what a bombing raid does to an ordinary little girl and her brother. When people call for a bad government to be driven out by some freedom fighters, they don’t necessarily think about what happens when those freedom fighters become the next government. Now, as a reservation, I don’t believe that Samira feels that Eritrea should be a part of Ethiopia! What I am saying is that Samira stopped believing in the armed struggle. We talked a little after the recording stopped, and she said something that stuck with me: “peace for all the people is my mission.”  When we were talking about the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea is asked her if parts of Eritrea “are still occupied by Ethiopia.” Samira said, “I think it’s an excuse for just…an ego of the government. It’s not to do anything with the people. They could live safely and peacefully, actually.” Samira doesn’t believe in fighting or in those so-called “freedom fighters,” who are now dictators.

Works Cited

“Eritrea.” Cia.gov. Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, 3 May 2007. Web

“Eritrea: Selected Social Indicators.” Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations. Ed.               Gall, Timothy L. and Gall, Susan Bevan. Online ed. Detroit: Gale. Global Issues In Context. Web. 22 May 2013.

 

“Genocide in Darfur.” United Human Rights Council, 2013. Web.

Masci, David. “Famine in Africa: Are Affluent Nations Doing Enough to Avert Disaster?” CQ Researcher 12.39 (2002). Web.

 

“President Isaias Afwerki’s Biography.” Madote. 13 Nov. 2010. Web.

Said, Edward W. Out of Place: A Memoir. New York: Knopf, 1999. Print.

Transcripts

Samira warns me that she speaks softly, then the recording starts. I am surprised by the sound of my voice. My additions to the conversation are written inside of [—] marks like [this]. My comments on what is happening in the conversation are written on the right side of two forward slashes like //this. Be aware that this is not intended as a word-for-word copy of the mp3 file. The goal is to capture the meaning of what was said rather than the exact words. What appears here should be considered my translation of the conversation from the language of conversation to the language of text.

Me: I’ll just put it [the recording device] closer to you.

Samira: [laughs] ah, ok.

Me: Ok Samira, I’m Thomas. So, tell me about where were you were born.

Samira: I was born in Eritrea; it’s a town called Abudat [SP?].

Me: Is that a small town?

Samira: It’s a city.

Me: In a valley?

Samira: No, actually it’s a low land. But I didn’t grow up there, I was just three months old when I left so I don’t know [the city].

Me: Why did you family leave?

Samira: Well, my dad was a teacher and also politically involved, so they [the government] were putting him from city to city [to impede his political activities].

Me: So, did you grow up in a particular town or did you move around with your dad?

Samira: I actually moved around. I didn’t grow up in a particular place.

Me: And you were going to school?

Samira: Yes.

Me: So, can you tell me about your father’s political involvement?

Samira: My father’s political involvement is a long story. You know about partition of Africa, right? So what happened was Europeans took all of Africa. Eritrea was taken by the Italians and was ruled by the Italians for about 50-60 years. And then in the second world war, Italy became allies with Germany the British kicked out [the Italians]. I’m making the story shorter!

Me: That’s fair.

Samira:.. kicked out..

Me: …the Italians…

Samira: … and they took over…

Me: …Eritrea…

Samira: They took over Eritrea for 17 years. And then what happened was, when all the other countries got independence, Eritrea did not. What happened was the British, or the Eritreans, couldn’t make up their minds.

Me: They couldn’t make up their mind if they wanted…?

Samira: There was a political thing; the US was also involved with that. They wanted to be part of Europea [Europe] and there were some Eritreans who wanted to be with Ethiopia. But when [Eritrea] was federated with Ethiopia without the people’s will, the Eritreans started movements. The teachers and students participated in demonstrations and stuff. My dad was a part of the movement.

Me: For independence?

Samira: First for the demonstrations and stuff. But then what happened was, when the brutality started [I don’t understand this part. It’s around 3:38.], Ethiopians took over, and people didn’t like that. They started grassroots movements called [the seven people?], everybody would know seven people so that way when someone got in trouble they…

Me: Oh, I see //this part isn’t clear to the listener: someone in the movement would know seven other people in the movement so that when somebody got caught by the government, they wouldn’t be able to divulge the names of more than seven comrades.

Samira: He was one of the people that started the movement, in 1961. He started to get watched; he was in prison, all these things. That’s how the trouble started. And after that, when more and more brutality more imprisonment and killing started, Eritreans stated an armed struggle in 1961. At that time what happened was that people went to fight. My Dad didn’t go to fight; however, he was helping recruit people to help with money or to recruit people to help with political things, so he was imprisoned here and there. For example, they would tell him “24 hours to get out of the city,” so he’d just have to move; sometimes, he’d just have to leave us somewhere and then later on we’d join him.

Me: Can you tell me a story about that happening?

Samira: Ok, so one story is this: [PORT] is part of Eritrea. However, it’s very far; it’s very hot. So they put him in 24 hours to go from the city to go to that place [the port]. So he left us there in the city because he could not get us to another city. He left by himself. There were others going there too.

Me: They were telling him to go to this port town?

Samira: To port town. For example, he cannot move from there. He cannot go anywhere. [Father’s birthplace] is his birthplace; they told him he cannot get there; he cannot go to that city. He can go to work, but he cannot move from that city.

Me: He was being kept in the port? He was arrested in the city? And you were with separated from him with your mother?

Samira: Yes, with my mother and two siblings; others were not born. So, after a year and a half or so we joined him in that port.

Me: how old were you when this was happening?

Samira: Hm, when this was happening, I was eight years old. So, we went to there; however, it’s like the climate is harsh so my mother was sick. So we, my mother and me and siblings, not my father, we moved to Ethiopia. It’s not far away [from the port]. Later on he could go to [Ethiopia] but that’s the only town he could go to.

Me: Yeah. So, you were right across the border, and you dad was in this port, and the government didn’t want him to leave this port.

Samira: Yeah, however, they allowed him to that city in Ethiopia because it was Ethiopia it was not Eritrea. Any Eritrean city he could not go in. So, when we would go to Eritrea, we were kind of smuggled. We would go see my grandparents.

Me: How exactly did they smuggle you?

Samira: Well, we would go from Ethiopia; nobody would know. However, when we got to [Asmara?] everybody knows everybody, so they would not say, “they are the kids of so and so,” because that’s how you were known, as “the kids of so and so.” There was curfew there. At six, we would go just right before the curfew and stay in my grandparent’s house and if we had to see another family we would go just before the curfew and not tell anyone that we were coming to stay there for a week or so.

Me: Where were you going?

Samira: To Eritrea. To see my grandparents and uncles and cousins. We would go there, go, go, go, and come back to the city where my parents were born.

Thomas: So then, uh, you must have grown up moving from place to place as your father was getting told where to go, I guess they wanted to restrict his political movements so they were telling him where to go?

Samira: Exactly.

Thomas: What about when you were a teenager?

Samira: Ok, so now…a teenager…I’m like 12, 13? So, when I’m 13…what happened was…when I was 13, the Ethiopian government was overthrown. It was the <<can’t make out, sounds like name of leader who took over>>… It was a communist country, Ethiopia. So, kind of like my dad’s restriction going to Eritrea, was kind of lightened; like he could go Eritrea! But not to his birthplace, but to Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. So we went there, like he want[ed] to move, so we went there and there was war and stuff. It’s like one day me and my brother, we were like at school…my younger brother…and we couldn’t go back to our house.

T: Why?

S: So…what happened was like…there was bombing and stuff…so we just moved with the crowd, we just went with the crowd. We didn’t know where we were going; we didn’t know what we were doing; we just like…because we…in Ethiopia, when we were there, when the revolution was there, there was also war and stuff, but not bombing. So, we really didn’t know the exact what was going on. So, anyways, what happened was we went to a city by foot…I don’t know how many days we traveled. At first daytime, and then at night.

T: You were fleeing the capital because of the fighting there?

S: Because of the fighting…because of the bombing. The bombing was not only in the city, but the city that we were going to, it was bombed also. We didn’t know that. Nobody knew that, but it’s like the planes and stuff, you know, and people, I think were accustomed <<?>> There was this older woman.

One thing I’ll never forget: I had a red sweater on and like everybody shout[ed], “take the sweater off, take the sweater off,” and I didn’t know what was going on. So this woman came in and took out the sweater, because it’s bright color; it spot you right away…the plane.

Anyways, we got to another city called Keren and that happened to be my parents’ birthplace…

T: When you fled the city, was that immediately when you left school that day or was this more…

S: It was bombing, so it’s not like school was let out, but we have to go; we have to leave. So the thing is our house…and it’s like people are fleeing anywhere they could. So, we just followed the crowd.

T: So you just ran out of school and followed the crowd all the way out of town?

S: All the way out of town…because we didn’t know what we were doing. So, anyway, when we got to the city, it is like everybody is ok [with] what you guys [are] doing. It’s like people are so kind and stuff and they’ll ask you and we say we don’t know where our parent are; we were just at school. Kind of everybody ask[s] you whose daughter or whose son, it’s a small community. Everybody knows everybody. If you don’t know me, then somebody else will know me. So they asked someone and they knew; they came and they took us to their place. Still, they are scared because still the bombing is going on.

So anyways, so it kind of start[ed] in the morning and there was a lot of people who died in the bombing. Actually, somebody I know lost three daughters.

Then, after 15 days staying [in] that city, we decided we couldn’t go back to Asmara, to the capital, so what happened was…

T: So you left all your things in Asmara

S: Oh, yeah, nobody can get anything. So, we decided, somebody, that it’s not going to be safe, so they contacted our family; like, they contacted my mom, my mom.

T: They must have been worried about where you were?

S: Oh, yeah. They didn’t even know where we were, and there’s so many people died. At the same time that my dad was also in prison. That’s why they contacted my mom. So, my mom was like, whatever you could do, you could help them. We went to Sudan by foot…halfway. And then halfway the freedom fighters, they had this lorry that they take like so many…it…we were good

T: People had questions if you were good?

S: No, no, no. We were up, we were on this van, this lorry.

T: Oh, you were riding…a truck?

S: A truck, yes, like we were goods…everybody’s on like everybody there are so many of us.

T: Were you riding on top?

S: There were other people outside the truck. Some people were just holding outside on the truck. If you were lucky, if, you were inside the truck.

T: So, when you were walking from Asmara…and then you walked toward Sudan.

S: We stayed in that city, Keren, for 15 days first. And then we walked halfway to Sudan, and then halfway on that truck.

T: And were you still with other students?

S: We didn’t know. I don’t know if they were students but there were young people. Because we were new at the <<??>> we don’t know. Because we knew…when the bombing started everybody just fled in all directions.

T: So it was just you and your brother looking out for yourselves? The adults were nice?

S: They were nice, but we don’t know them actually. We really didn’t know them.

T: They gave you food and water?

S: Yeah. When we were from the other city, we didn’t have any food. When I say we didn’t have food it’s like, we had just like minimal things like you would get from the villagers. Everybody give you but you don’t even feel like eating. And most of the time, we are trying just to go. But in the city we had food and everything, and after that…so we couldn’t go back to Asmara, because the thing got worse; there was no bombing. But the chaos and the killing continued.

Now, the people who took us from that city, so people who we know…we didn’t know them but our family knew. So we’re going toward to Sudan. Halfway we walk, and then halfway we got the truck. We went to a refugee camp in Sudan.

We stayed in the refugee camp about…how long? Not quite a month. Then UN came…

T: Was there enough food?

S: Not to start. Not the ideal food. There was food. But not the type as here. You just don’t…we were not poor. We had food…

T: At home, but not in the refugee camp?

S: It was not enough; it was not appetizing.

T: So, I’m wondering, when you fled the city and were heading to Sudan, when you came to a village…what would happen when you came to a village…would everyone be fleeing and go on the road with you?

S: No…people in the village stayed there because the villages at the time were liberated and were not under Ethiopia, but under the rebels, the freedom fighters. They were always afraid of the bombing and stuff because everybody else would be hiding. Some of them might, but some of them not.

T: Why did you decide to go to Sudan and not stay in one of the villages?

S: Because, as I said, it’s not stable. You never know. The other thing also, is like…I don’t know. Everybody else was doing it. You’ll end up fighting too.

T: It was safer to go to another country?

S: It was safer.

T: So, you stayed in the United Nations refugee camp in Sudan for about a month, and then did you go back to your parents or did you go some place else?

S: No, our parents were still in Eritrea. What happened was the UN was opening a high school in Sudan, in Kassala, so they took us to Kassala…it’s a city in Sudan that borders Eritrea. There are many Eritreans there; they have been refugees for a long time…probably since the ‘60’s, since the war started, or the conflict started.

So, we came there and my brother went to middle school. I went to high school. They were giving us, usually they called it Unesco…it was not ruled by Unesco; it was run by the UNHCR.

T: When you were in Sudan, did you feel alienated from the native people in Sudan?

S: There were so many Eritreans refugees there; it’s bordering Eritrea. There’s always inter-marriage, you know, family here and there in both places. On the border you know how it is, many are relatives. Especially in that areas there are so many refugees for a long time, so, it’s like so many Eritreans were there already.

But, but, what was happening in the Sudanese government was always threatening the refugees. You cannot be in the city; you have to go to the refugee camp. It’s like always you’re on the run, always you’re in the hide. Even though we have papers for the UNHCR, still we are afraid that somebody will take us to a really, really bad places, very, very hot places, that has nothing, not even stable refugee camps.

T: The government tried to put the refugees in the most inhospitable places in Sudan, in the middle of the desert. No water.

S: Exactly. Yes. That is exactly what has happened to many unlucky people. I remember at one point, one year that we did that so many people died, especially…there was really high…

T: High temperatures, not enough food, not enough water?

S: Nothing, nothing at all. Very remote area.

T: It was not violence but the conditions.

S: Yeah, it was the conditions. We were lucky.

T: Did you experience this yourself?

S: No, I did not experience myself, but I knew about it. My neighbors who also happened to be my family…my second cousins…they took them to Abroham <??> a very remote area. They would come early in the morning when you are asleep. You’re not even awake. You are sleeping. They took them.

T: Kind of kidnapped.

S: Exactly, kidnapped. Two of the children died. It’s just sad. They couldn’t tolerate. I was lucky; we were lucky, didn’t get to that.

T: Did you complete high school there?

S: Yes.

T: When did you learn English?

S: In Eritrea or Ethiopia, you start taking English as a subject in 2nd grade. When you are in middle school all the subjects are in English. That’s how I started learning. In the UNHCR schools all subjects are in English. We had to sit for GEC, compatible to English school if you passed.

T: Were you working? And did you reconnect with your parents when you were in high school?

S: Yes, my last year in high school, my mom and my three siblings came to Sudan. They had to flee. My dad was in prison so they had to leave the country. They couldn’t go to school and my mom was tortured…they would come to the house and take stuff. She didn’t know where my dad was in prison so she had to leave the city. I saw her briefly there and then I had to go to another city to take the exam for the GEC, the General Education.

While I was there after we finished the exam, I just stayed in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. I stayed there about three months and UNHCR was also giving scholarships for Egypt and Kenya. They told they want us to apply to get scholarships. So we applied…they just give you a general English exam that you can pass. So I passed both for Kenya and Egypt but then Egypt was business secretary school and the one in Kenya was for nursing school. But then my friends were going to Egypt so I just go…I don’t have nobody to go with me to Kenya even though I want to do something medical field. I just went them to Egypt, to Cairo.

T: You went to Cairo and started university there?

S: It’s not university. It’s an institute for studying secretarial business.

T: It would have been tough to focus on school while you’re running from all the violence…yeah?

S: That’s very true. It’s been hard but the thing is doable. You also want to try because our father and mother wanted education so bad. They educated themselves, not universities and stuff, but still education was so valued…they value education. They instilled that in us. Even in the refugee camp, you just read. In Sudan, I’ll tell you, in Kassala, we have electricity, but you pay for electricity…but we have to say hi to my teacher.

<<interrupted by teacher in 33:40 — 32:30>>

T: Seems like you have a really good relationship with all your former teachers.

S: They are amazing. I mean, I love my teachers. Even from my childhood. My dad was a teacher.

T: He would have had to stop teaching with the political thing started, when he got involved in politics.

S: I mean, when he got out…he’s here now…yeah, I saw my dad after 11 years, 12 years…

T: I asked you, it must have been difficult to study because of the violence and then you started to talk about the electricity.

S: You pay for the electricity, no matter what. The problem is this: no electricity most of the time, we don’t get electricity…and it goes dark all of a sudden. We have to put kerosene and we have to study hard. Let me give you an example, for history: Compare the American Revolution to the French Revolution. It’s an essay, it’s not like ABC and whatever like you can give.

T: I’m not sure if I would pass that question.

S: (Laughs) I don’t know. No American will pass history. I’ll give you that. That’s what I tell my daughter. I’m being judgmental.

T: It’s sort of true. Even though I’m American, I’ve lived here my whole life, there’s just so many basic things that I don’t know about my own country. It’s embarrassing a little.

S: That’s OK. You know they give you a citizenship exam and I don’t know if any American would pass it. That’s what I tell my daughter. When I say American, I mean anyone who was born here and my daughter was born here.

T: I saw some studies where they asked Americans from the exam and it was abysmal scores.

S: So yeah, we have to study, like oil, it’s lights…we still pay for electricity.

T: So you went to Cairo and study at the institute for secretarial business…

S: It’s a language school, and international language institute but it’s a comprehensive school…it has language, secretarial, business college. Ours was a combined business, secretarial.

T: So you were not able to study medicine.

S: I was not able to do that over there.

T: Do you think it might have been different it you didn’t have to flee from Eritrea?

S: Yes. It would have been different.

T: You managed to avoid getting kidnapped.

S: Yes. It was sheer lucky. We were sleeping here next, and the next door people got taken out, they would go. It was always fear.

T: We had this book about illegal immigrants that has this quote about how the people are afraid of being picked up by the INS and ICE. You must be deal with all the time in your work with asylum seekers.

S: Yes, that’s true.

T: Did you finish the secretarial school?

S: Yes…some of my subjects were transferable here to City College.

T: Was your father still in prison when this was going on?

S: When I was in Egypt? Yes…

T: He had been in prison continuously?

S: Yes.

T: I don’t want to make you talk about things that are too painful, but you said your mother was abused and your father must have been abused in prison.

S: Oh, yes…torture. Torture…he talks about it now. They put them in cold water; they put them upside down.

T: And your mother, did she follow you to Egypt or stay in Sudan?

S: She stayed in Sudan.

T: And were any of your siblings with you in Egypt?

S: Yes, actually one of my brothers was there. He went there on his own from Sudan.

T: He was an older brother who had had already been there for a while…

S: No, not the one that went with me, but another brother. We’re six siblings…I have 1 sister and 4 brothers. One of my brothers went to Egypt on his own. This one was on his own, he flew there from Ethiopia. And then my sister came when I was there…I went to Sudan and brought her to Egypt.

T: When you finished at the institute you must have started looking for work.

S: Yes, but in Egypt you cannot work because you have to be an Egyptian citizen. They are very strict. However, because the UNHCR school had some kind of connection with like they were training us with different companies. The companies didn’t employ us; they take us as trainees they give us some pocket money. The UNHCR was giving us some money too for the education and to survive.

So, after we finish, we have to go somewhere, we cannot stay in Egypt because our student visa expires. Even though we were refugees still we couldn’t live there.

T: How old were you at this time?

S: I was 18, 19.

T: You had to leave Egypt because of the rules. Where did you go? Were you thinking about going back to Eritrea at this time? Was the fighting stopping?

S: No the fighting was still going on. The US and Canada were giving resettlement if you apply. I didn’t want to go far away. So, I went Baghdad to go to university. Stayed there a month or so. But it was not for me. So many things.

T: Everything was different. Language was probably different?

S: No, I knew Arabic. I speak Arabic. It’s not the language, but the political thing. Iraq at that time was good, many Eritreans there…I don’t know…

T: The weather?

S: No, Iraq is beautiful; the weather is beautiful. Baghdad is very beautiful…

T: Something about the culture…

S: I can’t pinpoint exactly…

T: Because you didn’t have family there?

S: Probably. But the other thing there was the Iraq-Iran war. Baghdad was not affected that much but still you could feel the…I was sick and tired of war. So I came back to Egypt again…so, it’s like, where to go? Like nowhere. Did have a choice, so I applied for US resettlement. Got accepted and came here, and went to South Dakota.

(laughs)

The funniest thing is at the UNHCR office in Cairo, Americans like, “Where are you going?” “I’m going to South Dakota.” And the Americans…not anybody else…”South Dakota!?” As if I’m going to the moon or some place. This was 1985.

It’s different there now. At least you can see diversity there now, but when I went there…

T: You must have been the only African in town.

S: Yeah, well, I was not even in town. I was on the outskirts of Sioux Falls. I was not the only African; I was the only colored person there.

T: Was it kind of awkward? Were people really racist there? Or just confused?

S: There were some of the nicest people there. They would go out of their way to do stuff, but they were not racist. They were confused. That’s how I would put it. I would speak English and they would ask, “How do you learn American?”

T: How did you learn our obscure unknown language? (laughs)

S: Exactly! (laughs)

My favorite thing is this…I would be eating…and I’m a Muslim…I would say “Insha’Allah,” the name of god. That’s what you say when you start something. And they’d say, “Pardon” and I would say I’m just calling my god. Oh…she’s not even Christian and she knows about god.

T: So, it’s probably like everyone goes to the same church in this town.

S: Yes.

T: The people were nice but you decided to leave South Dakota pretty quick?

S: I decided to leave South Dakota pretty quick not because of the cultural but because of the weather.

T: It was freezing

S: It starts at the end of October, the first of November, the thing just changed, like over night like freezing. So by the 10th of November, I have to…I came here actually to visit a friend.

T: You came to SF to visit a friend?

S: Actually to LA, to Orange County. My cousin joined me [in] South Dakota. I stayed there about three months. She was there about 10 days. We came here to visit a friend but the weather was so good. I had a friend in SF and I told my cousin, “I’m going to visit.” We just made up our mind; we’re staying here; we’re coming back here. We went back (to South Dakota) and we came back here. When we came back here, I told my cousin, “I’m not crazy about Orange County for me. SF is the perfect place.” I found a place. My place is here.

T: Yeah, this is a great place. A lot of immigrants end up here. I’m one of the only people I know that’s born in San Francisco.

S: You were born in SF? I have a couple of people who were born in SF.

T: I probably have one of the most boring life stories.

S: No, San Francisco…you have a story. Trust me. Believe me.

T: You haven’t told me about any jobs. You were maybe 20 by now and looking for work.

S: I applied to this place and accepted in South Dakota. But I have to leave. So I came here in San Francisco; I got a job at childcare.

T: Did you have work in South Dakota?

S: Yes, childcare…but I was accepted at nursing school. But I moved here because of the weather. So I came here, worked in childcare. They told me to get PPD testing (TB)…a skin test for TB. I went to refugee clinic to get the PPD test and as I was talking to this lady. She’s a nurse, and she said, “your English is good, and we are looking for an interpreter and someone for our pre-natal program, the doctor wants an assistant.” I said, “I have no medical training but, yeah.” She said they train me. So I applied there and I worked there almost 10 years.

What I was doing at the refugee clinic…I was working at the pre-natal program doing vital signs. Refugees from different countries come, but I was responsible for Eritreans and people who spoke Arabic.

T: So you speak Arabic, but I don’t know what language you speak in Eritrea.

S: I speak Arabic, Tigre…in Eritrea we have 9 different languages. So I speak Tigrinya. I was taught Amharic in school. I speak Tigre, Harari, Arabic and English.

T: You speak five languages fluently?

S: Yes…well, if you think I’m fluent in English, then, yes.

T: I noticed you’re wearing a jacket. Do you find it cold here?

S: No, it’s not cold. I’ve been here 30 years, so I don’t when it’s hot. But my body is always cold. Not because…it was windy outside. I’m always cold.

After that I found a job at UCSF Aids project. I was doing HIV triage and counseling.

T: Was it people who just contracted the disease?

S: No.

T: Why was it triage?

S: We will get calls and prioritize this person, this needs. If somebody calls me and says “I’m HIV positive,” I tell them where to go. If somebody calls and says, “I want to get tested,” I tell them to go. I was coordinating. We have nine different sites, so coordinating that. I worked there about 10 years also. Then I got sick and surgery on my hand. I had nerve thing. It was painful, so they had to surgery. After that I had some health issues, so I didn’t go back to work. So I was laid off, also because of funding stuff. I had priority hiring but I couldn’t go back to work for a while.

T: That brings up to the present? You have family in the US?

S: Yes, I live with my daughter and my husband. My family were living in different places, some in Sudan. First, I brought my two brothers, and then my mom, and then my other two brothers. And my sister in Cairo. And the last person I brought to the US was my dad.

T: You told me your dad finally got out of prison after about 10 years. Were you about 30 then?

S: I don’t know…I’m not not good at the timing now. I don’t know if it was the whole ten years. In the time we lost contact. We heard about him from other people. He contacted us.

T: He was free for a little while and then managed to contact you again. And did he come to the US?

S: Yes, after a while. It was a process. They have a family reunification.

T: What was it like seeing your dad after so long a time?

S: I can’t even put a word on it. I’m so blessed.

T: And there’s been continued fighting in Eritrea and Sudan. Has that impacted you since you left Africa?

S: Yes. I don’t have immediate family there but I have cousins and uncles. I have friends. The things is this, Eritrea got independence in 1991 and was recognized as an independent state in 1993. However, right now, the people who were fighting to liberate it, supposedly, are the one’s who are torturing the people. Right now, my story might be like nothing compared now to the thousands and thousands fleeing the country. They were kidnapped from the refugee camps. They’re being sold to the Bedouin in Egypt. And they’re being sold to organ traffickers, their organs being sold. They are being asked to pay $50,000 to get out from the capturers. It just continues. The cycle, the violence just continues.

T: There are still some parts of Eritrea that are occupied by Ethiopia?

S: There’s a border in conflict about it. Whose is this town; whose is that town. I think it’s an excuse for just…an ego of the government. It’s not to do anything with the people. They could live safely and peacefully, actually.

T: Do you think Ethiopia wants to control Eritrea because of the Red Sea?

S: Ethiopia doesn’t have a port, and Eritrea has two ports. Yes, some Ethiopians really want the port of Assab. There are some who say openly that in the government right now. They say they don’t [need] Assab because they are using Djibouti. But it’s easier for them to use Assab. But right now, Assab is a ghost city, not even used by Eritrea. It’s so sad because that port was very alive and very…

T: That’s the place where you separated from father for a while…

T: Do you feel like an exile from Eritrea? Did you have to leave?

S: Of course. There was no choice. I was not given choice.

T: There was day the bombing…

The mp3 Ends here. We continued talking for a couple minutes. I remember she said “my mission is peace for all peoples.”

Tan’s Oral History: Perspective

Tan’s Oral History: Perspective

by Ziyang Yu, May 20^th, 2013

                                  

History is important to us because people learn from history, and can avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Everyone has a unique personal history, which makes every person possess an interesting and special life. Personal oral history can let people know one deeply, which creates better relationships between people. After people share their personal narratives, they may feel happier because someone listens to them, and cares about them. My Interviewee, Jing’e Tan, who is my grandmother, is a Chinese immigrant. She came from Taishan City, Canton province, China, and has been in the United States since 1996. She was born in 1944 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which meant she was born into chaos. Her oldest son appealed for her to come here because they wanted a family reunion and a better life in America. After her arrival in the U.S., she has taken care of her grandchildren, and worked as a housekeeper. She did a great interview with me at my home. Before I interviewed her, I didn’t know a lot of her stories. When I was about six years old, my grandmother immigrated to the U.S., and I was living in China. Therefore, my grandmother didn’t exist in my childhood, and I felt strange about losing her. However, after I interviewed her, I have come to know her life much better. I started to interview her out of curiosity, and the interview ended up fostering a very deep feeling of understanding about her life.

Tan’s family felt depressed and worried about the Japanese all the time during the Second Sino-Japanese War. China was very weak from the end of the Qing dynasty through establishment of the People’s Republic of China, and China was labeled “The Sick Man of East Asia.” Therefore, a lot of countries invaded China, and wanted to segment China’s lands, antiques, and riches. Japan was the biggest enemy for China to fight at that time. Qinna Shen, who is a professor at Miami University, wrote a piece entitled “Revisiting the Wound of a Nation: The ‘Good Nazi’ John Rabe and the Nanking Massacre,” which is about how the “good Nazi” and the Japanese hurt China from 1931 to 1945, and how are people trying to heal this awful wound today. The author states, “over 300,000 Chinese were murdered by the Imperial Japanese Army…more than 200,000 Chinese were massacred and approximately 20,000 cases of rape occurred in Nanking during the six weeks after the city fell.” This is a shocking number of the Chinese people who died from the ruthless Japanese murders. All Chinese civilians felt afraid of the Japanese and worried about their safety because of their cold-blooded actions. Tan says:

“My mom told me that she was so scared of the Japanese because someone told her           that a  villager killed a Japanese soldier and then the Japanese destroyed a town, which was near Taishan City. She heard that the Japanese killed everyone they saw, raped women, and burned down the houses. My mom felt depressed all the time during the war because she didn’t know when the Japanese would attack Taishan City.”

The whole country was in an unstable situation, and Tan’s family had anxiety during that period. Every day the family lived under this depression, and every moment the whole family needed to get ready to escape from the Japanese. Also, Tan felt sorry about what her mother had done to her brother; she says:

“When the Japanese arrived in Taishan, my mom was so afraid because my mom had four   kids and pregnancy at that time. My older brother was only a few months old, and he cried all the time. Therefore, my mom was worried that the whole family would be caught due to his load noise crying. She decided to discard of him to safe our family during the exile. She put down him on a thick growth of grass, and ran away. She cried as her ran, but after a few minutes, she ran back to pick up him.”

This event tells me that her family was very frightened about getting caught by the Japanese. All mothers want to stay with her children, and take care of them. However, Tan’s mother lived in this chaotic situation, so she had to save the whole family, which meant she had to abandon her newborn child. Her family seemed to live in the abyss of misery, which created her family’s hopeless perspective and search for safety.

Tan’s family experienced conflict and desired a stable source of food during the war. Most of the young people in China haven’t experienced a war, and cannot imagine how horrible a war is. People want a good life, in which they have good jobs, healthy bodies, and happy families. When people live through a war, they never experience what a pleasant life looks like, and the only thing concerning them is survival. The indispensable factor for survival is food. Food is very valuable, and even money can’t always buy a piece of food. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Tan’s family had some experience with the lack of food. Tan says:

“At that time, all people were starvelings in China because the country didn’t have  enough food for anyone. If you wanted food, you had to cultivate or you went to a mountain to forage for it. My family couldn’t go out ploughing and sowing because we were afraid of the Japanese. We just kept hiding in a mountain. There was no market selling food as today. Especially, my family has five siblings, so we had very hard time to find enough food for all people in the family. My mother told me that we couldn’t eat rice every day; sometime we ate potato; sometime we ate wild fruit during the war.”

Food seems like luxury in a war. Even though people find some food, they punish themselves for eating the food because they want to store it for the future. Her family needed food for the children, but were afraid go out to do cultivation because they worried about getting caught by the Japanese, which made her family have a conflicted perspective. If they wanted safety, they needed to hide in the mountains, where they didn’t have the chance finding or cultivating food. On the other hand, if they went out cultivating, they might get killed by the Japanese. In their minds, they had conflicted perspectives between food and safety. Moreover, Nuha Al-Radi was an Iraqi diarist, ceramist and painter. She experienced the Gulf War in her homeland, which is Baghdad, Iraq. She wrote a book called Baghdad Diaries, which in basically about what she saw and what Iraqis did during the war. In the section, “Funduq al-Saada or Hotel Paradiso,” Al-Radi describes herself and Iraqi civilians looking for food and safer places to live. She says, “Only we would escape from a war carrying freezers full of goodies. Iraqis have been hoarders for centuries. It’s a national habit. Since one never knows when anything will be available on the market, one buys when one sees, and in great quantities” (14). Al-Radi is a lucky person during the war for she has food to eat. Iraqis usually store a lot food at home because they live in a precarious situation. She notes that storing food is “a national habit.” This habit accompanies her during her exile during the war, and she must store food all the time and carry it from one place to other place. Tan’s family and Al-Radi both lacked of food during the wars. Unlike Al-Radi, Tan’s family was first experiencing war, so they hadn’t store any food before the war. When the Japanese attacked in their city, they just ate what they had, and picked wild fruit to eat in the mountain. Tan’s family had more desperate perspective on food than Al-Radi.

Tan’s has had a disconnected perspective in the U.S., and her expectations haven’t come true. Most American immigrants have their expectations about what they will get in the U.S. People have a lot of reasons for migration. Some people want a higher education, so they become international students and study abroad. Some people pursue a better living; therefore, they immigrate to the developed countries. Tan wanted reunion, to stay with her family members, which was the significant reason for a woman in her sixties to come to America. She felt very happy that she could live with her oldest son’s family and took care of the grandchildren. During her first year living in the U.S., she felt bored, homesick, and disconnected from this country. She states:

“I felt homesick during the first two living in the U.S. At that time, I really wanted to go back to China. In the U.S., I just like a disabled person. I have legs, but I could not go to place I like because this country was brand new for me, also I have gotten lose for a few times. I have ears, but I could not understand what my grandchildren were talking to each other. I have eyes and month, but I could not communicate with Americans, and read my grandchildren’s homework. I felt very bad about this.”

Tan considered herself the disabled of the family, and her expectation didn’t come true. Her expectation was to have a better life with her family. She wanted to get into the U.S. She wanted to know what the grandchildren were talking about, and make a good connection with them. Also, she feels disconnected from the American community, which makes her create disconnected perspective in the U.S. Moreover, Out of Place is a memoir written by Edward W. Said, who was a Palestinian-American literary theorist. The memoir is about how Said was exiled from his own country, Palestine. After he left his country, he considered himself out of place at schools among his classmates and teachers, out of place in the culture, and out of place in terms of language. Therefore, he felt out of place all the time. Said says, “Because of Rule I we spoke more, rather than less, Arabic, as an act of defiance against what seemed then, and seems even more so now, an arbitrary, ludicrously gratuitous symbol of their power” (184). Said was bound by schools’ rules, but didn’t obey the language rules. He became a rebel by opposing these rules, and spoke more Arabic at the college. According to his exiled from the school’s language rules, he felt out of place in his native language. Tan’s felt a lost connection with her grandchildren and the American community, and Siad felt out of place in his native language at the school. They both have disconnected perspectives on their new places, which makes them feel lost all the time.

Tan’s perspective started changing from her comparisons between the U.S. and China. In the first few years of living in the U.S., she felt unhappy because what she expected didn’t match the reality here. However, after getting used to living here, she started changing her perspective. She compares the U.S. and China, and considers herself is a lucky person. She says:

“I receive better welfare in here than China, which can protect my health. American government offers different kinds of welfare to help low-income family. Even though my husband is not an American citizen, he still receives some benefit. I am receiving SSI and my husband is receiving food stamp. America is great in some ways because here no one die of hunger. If I had had stay in China, I wouldn’t have good live like today.”

She realized that, actually, she is living a great country, which provides her better health care than China, and the U.S. government offers her SSI. If she hadn’t move to the U.S., she believes that her quality of life would much worse than living in the U.S. Her comparison shows that her perspective has changed from “being the disabled” to having a good quality of life.

Tan considers that where her family is where her home is. “Home” is a very sensitive and emotional word. Everyone has different ideas and definitions about his or her home. Some people think the place where one comes from is a home, while some people think the place where one is living is considered a home. In Tan’s mind, wherever her family is where her home is. She says:

“Ten years ago, my home was China, but now I only consider United States is my home. To me, home must has family members, which include children, parents, and spouses, etc. My home in China is only an apartment for me, and it doesn’t worth anything. On the other hands, my five children, my seven grandchildren, and my husband all live in the United States, so my American home is much valuable for me.”

Ten years ago, her whole family was living in China, so China was her home. During her first few years living in the U.S, she felt homesick, and still considered China was her home. However, after all her family members moved to the U.S., she started to change her perspective of home. Family is very important for her, and Tan’s definition of home means being together with family members. Moreover, Isabelle Allende, who is a Chilean American, was forced to leave her country in 1973, and writes about it in a memoir called My Invented Country. The book is about her memories of Chile, written after she was exiled from her homeland because she was in a horrible situation under the Pinochet dictatorship. After she left Chile, she felt nostalgic about her homeland. Allende left Chile in 1975; her first time going back was in 1988. She thought Chile had undergone a big change and didn’t recognize her hometown, which was Santiago. After she visited Chile, on the return flight, when she saw the San Francisco Bay from air, she said, “Back home at last. It was the first time since I’d left Chile in 1975 that I felt I was ‘home’” (192). She considered, for the first time, San Francisco as her home. She is not clear about “home”; she always thinks the only home she has is Chile, but, after she revisited Chile, she developed a new idea about her home of Chile. She felt Chile had changed, and the buildings and the people there were all brand new for her. At first, Tan and Allende both thought that where they were born would always be their homes. However, after they got used to living in the U.S., their perspectives changed, and they started to consider the United States is their home. The places that they were born were not their homes anymore, and only exist in their memories. The United States is the only home in the real world of Tan and Allende’s lives.

In conclusion, the Second Sino-Japanese War gave Tan’s family the depressed perspective of survival, and Tan’s migration changed her perspective on home from being a homesick person to considering America her home. A lot of people consider where they are born their home. However, Tan thinks the place where she and her family are living together is her home. The home in China exists only in her memories of the past, and the home in the United States is her true home now, in which she can stay with her whole family. Everyone has a different perspective about his or her personal history, and everyone has a different perspective about home. Also, a person’s perspective may change someday, but personal history is unique and valuable.

Works Cited

Allende, Isabel, and Margaret Sayers. Peden. My Invented Country: A Memoir. New York: Perennial, 2004. Print.

Radi, Nuha. Baghdad Diaries: A Woman’s Chronicle of War and Exile. New York: Vintage, 2003. Print.

Said, Edward W. Out of Place: A Memoir. New York: Vintage, 2000. Print.

Shen, Qinna. “Revisiting The Wound Of A Nation: The ‘Good Nazi’ John Rabe And The Nanking Massacre.” Seminar – A Journal Of Germanic Studies 47.5 (2011): 661-680. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 May 2013.

Transcript

30 April 2013

Interviewer: Ziyang Yu

Interviewee: Jin’e Tan (my grandmother)

1) Where are you from? I am from Taishan city, Canton province, China. How long have you been here? More than ten years. I haven’t counted exact years yet.  Did you migrate to different places in China before come to the U.S? No. I only stayed in Taishan, and I haven’t moved to other place beside Taishan. When were you born? I was born in 1944 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. I knew the Nanking Massacre, which the Japanese killed three hundred thousand Chinese in Nanking, but I haven’t known the Japanese attacked in Taishan. Did you remember anything during the war? Not really, the war was ended in 1945, and that year I only was one year old. However, my mom told me that she was so scared of the Japanese because someone told her that a villager killed a Japanese soldier and then the Japanese destroy a town where was near Taishan city. She heard that the Japanese killed everyone they see, raped women, and burn down the houses. My mom felt depressed all the time during the war because she didn’t know when the Japanese would attack in Taishan city. At that time, I just lived inside my mom’s abdomen. I hadn’t born yet. Did your mother tell you any terrible event that your family face during the war. Let’s me think. Yeah, my mom told me that when the Japanese arrived in Taishan, my mom was so afraid because my mom had four kids and pregnancy at that time. My older brother was only a few months old, and he cried all the time. Therefore, my mom was worried that the whole family would be caught due to his load noise crying. She decided to discard of him to safe our family during the exile. She put down him on a thick growth of grass, and ran away. She cried as her ran, but after a few minutes, she ran back to pick up him. We all escaped from the Japanese together, and no one left. She said we ran to the countryside of Taishan. We hid in a mountain until the Japanese left Taishan. We were so luck because we all survived, even though there was not enough food for us. And then we went back home. That’s what my mom told me about the Anti-Japanese War

2) How did you come here? By ship or airplane? Both. At first, my husband and I went to a pier by car, and it took about two hours. then we took a ship to go to Hong Kong pier. That took me so long. I still remember on that day has rough sea, and the ship couldn’t berth easily. The arrival time was three hours delay, and we spent about seven hours on the ship. I was worried about I might miss the airplane.  At that time, the public transportation was not as convenient as today. Also, I have seasickness, and I felt very bad on the ship. I felt embarrassing about the delay because my relatives were waiting in the pier for more than 4 hours. Finally, the ship was park, and they taught us to take a taxi from Hong Kong pier to Hong Kong International airport. Luckily, We got on the airplane on time, and I didn’t have airsickness. My oldest son and his wife picked us up from San Francisco International airport to his house.

3) Have you even moved to different parts in the U.S.? I have lived with my oldest son’s family in Chinatown Since I arrived in the U.S. What kind of job did you work in the U.S? I didn’t have time to work because needed to take care of my two young grandsons. One was eight months old, and another was two years old. I was very busy at that time. I needed sending and picking them up to school. At home, I did all kind of housework, such as cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes. However, after the grandsons graduated from the elementary school, I had a little time to work. I worked part-time job to take care elder people, and did some house work for them. Have you experienced a special event in your work? I had an unforgettable event in the fist day of my work. At the first of working, my son drove my to work, but I needed to take a bus to go back home by myself. I got lost, and I couldn’t find the bus stop. I walked and walked for a half hour. I started felt nervous, and I was still seeking for the bus stop. I asked for help, and I said, “bus Chinatown” and “Chinatown bus.” I only knew these two words in English, which would help me back home. They replied me in English, and wave their hands. I guessed that they didn’t know what direction to take a bus to go to Chinatown either. It was getting dark and dark, and I felt more and more afraid. I kept walking, and I didn’t know my direction was correct or not. Suddenly, there were two huge dogs barked on me, my tear came out and I ran away. At that time, I felt very sad and helplessness. In my mind: “Is this what America look like?” So, how did you get home? Thank god. Finally, I found a Chinese high school student, and I asked him in Chinese. He said, “If you trust me, walk fallow me”. At that time I had to trust him because I didn’t have another choice.  We walked for a while, and we found the bus stop. He said to me that you waited for the number 1 bus right here to go to Chinatown, and he left. I appreciate this young guy helping my. Luckily, I got home about 9:30 p.m. My family was standing on a street waiting for me back home. They asked me, “You got off at 5 p.m. why do you come home so late?  Where did you go?” They asked me a lot of questions. I felt gaily and I said it softly “I got lost.” Did you continue working there after this experience? My family wanted me to quite working, but I found another job where is near my house. What was your second job? It is very near my house, and I only walked fifteen minutes to work. My family didn’t need to worry about I got lost again. My second job lasted for two years. After my second job, I haven’t worked any more. I have been taking care of my youngest daughter’s daughter.

4) Do you like to live in China or the United States? I think they both are same to me. I felt homesick during the first two living in the U.S. At that time, I really wanted to go back to China, but my oldest son’s wife said that your sons and daughters would come to America later. After years by years, all my five children arrived here, I got used to living in the U.S.  How do you feel living in the U.S. now? I receive better welfare in here than China, which can protect my health. American government offers different kinds of welfare to help low-income family. Even though my husband is not an American citizen, he still receives some benefit. I am receiving SSI and my husband is receiving food stamp. America is great in someway because here no one die of hunger. If I had had stay in China, I wouldn’t have good live like today.  Have you ever visit back to China? I didn’t have time and enough money. I needed to take care my grandchildren, and I work part-time job. So, you haven’t gone back to China? Only once, but I came back for my mother’s funeral. I stayed in Taishan for a month, but I was on the sorrowful mood during that time. I didn’t travel around Taishan, and mostly I just stayed at home to think back my mother. However, I met brother and some relatives, and I felt relieved that all my relatives were doing well in China. I never consider this retune was a vacation because of my mother. Which country do you consider as home for you? Ten years ago, my home was China, but now I only consider United States is my home. To me, Home must has family members, which include children, parents, and spouses, etc. My home in China is only an apartment for me, and it doesn’t worth any thing. On the other hands, my five children, my seven grandchildren, and my husband all live in the United States, so my American home is much valuable for me. Are you planning visit back to Taishan in someday? No, I only have one younger brother in China, and rests of my Family members are living in the U.S. Also, I am getting old, and I can’t take a thirteen hours fly to China, which can make me so sick. I will stay in the United States rest of my live with my family together.

Follow up questions:

1.Did you have enough food to eat during the war? At that time, all people were starvelings in China because the country didn’t have enough food for anyone. If you wanted food, you had to cultivate or you went to a mountain to forage for it. My family couldn’t go out ploughing and sowing because we were afraid of the Japanese. We just kept hiding in a mountain. There was no market selling food as today. Especially, my family has five siblings, so we had very hard time to find enough food for all people in the family. My mother told me that we couldn’t eat rice every day; sometime we ate potato; sometime we ate wild fruit during the war.

2. How do you feel living in U.S. and are you feel happy living with your grandchildren? I felt homesick during the first two living in the U.S. At that time, I really wanted to go back to China. In the U.S., I just like a disabled person. I have legs, but I could not go to place I like because this country was brand new for me, also I have gotten lose for a few times. I have ears, but I could not understand what my grandchildren were talking to each other. I have eyes and month, but I could not communicate with Americans, and read my grandchildren’s homework. I felt very bad about this.