4 10 49 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wasima Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from Minnesota. Parents from Somalia. Description An account of the resource Wasima is a Somali student at the University of Minnesota who was born in the U.S. She speaks about identifying as Somali in a predominantly white community. Wasima also speaks about her experience navigating the labyrinth college admission system as the oldest child. She then goes on to explain how she comes up with creative pieces for her illustrations as a graphic design major. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990s Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Minnesota Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_usxy07vu" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_usxy07vu/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Heartland Wasima"></iframe> Community Education Identity https://comingtotheheartland.org/files/original/a9d66ac7343f43a76536b361883498fb.JPG 9840a8b68055a47b4a8d818b69f0d20a https://comingtotheheartland.org/files/original/41c231a848d2ffeddab8d2f18a859a68.JPG 2e5d727d2b00dae8945dd522150bb4d8 https://comingtotheheartland.org/files/original/71d02844791eedd30d1bf2b214aab862.JPG 51e1e6679605b7dc6a13a59926c8d607 https://comingtotheheartland.org/files/original/162d1b37bc58ecc90f9a214ce1c054a6.JPG 01024e82d2cb58265bad3d8febd4c6cd Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Radhia Abdirahman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Yasmin Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Video Current City of Residence Where in Kansas or Missouri the Interviewee currently lives Overland Park, Kansas Intermediate point in journey (1) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Cairo, Egypt Intermediate point in journey (2) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Kansas City, Missouri Intermediate point in journey (3) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Overland Park, Kansas Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Yasmin (Y) Radhia (R) Y: So my name is Yasmin, and my pronouns are she, her, hers. I'm originally from Egypt. I was born in Cairo and I moved to the United States with my parents when I was really young, like a few months old. I have had lots of different times that I have been able to visit Cairo, so I'm very grateful for that. Y: But most of my life I lived in Overland Park. When I first moved, I lived in Kansas City, Missouri, and then moved to Iowa a little bit. And then moved to the Kansas City metro area where Overland Park is. Y: So I've been in Overland Park most of my life and now I am an undergraduate student. I'm in my third year at KU and so I’m [living] between Lawrence and Overland Park now. And I'm studying behavioral neuroscience and Spanish. Yeah. I'm involved with lots of service organizations at KU. It's something I'm really passionate about. That's a little bit about me. Y: I guess the reason why my family and I moved was because of my dad's work. He wanted to do a fellowship in rheumatology and he got matched with the University of Missouri, Kansas City. So that's why we moved to Kansas City, Missouri. R: Okay. So do you want us to talk about your childhood and what it was like being an Egyptian American? And that move from Cairo to Overland Park? Y: Yeah, for sure. So I guess my–in my childhood, like I said, I was in Kansas City. I don’t have much memory of that period of my life because it was just for a few years like right when I was born and then moved to Iowa. Y: So I remember a lot about that and I was like around four at that time. And I remember obviously being the only Egyptian person like that I ever was in my classes. I didn't have any really interaction with other Egyptians except through a couple of family friends that we had. Y: So when I was in preschool at that time, like, I was the only Egyptian student, so that didn't really create many opportunities for me to become closer to my Egyptian culture. Y: But at home, my parents spoke Arabic to me and we had lots of close ties to our culture obviously because we had just moved from the–from Egypt. So we didn't know anyone in The States. So there was–it was hard for us to kind of get used to what the Midwest is like and the weather. Y: Like I said, we didn't know many people, so I was still watching, like, Egyptian TV shows and movies and listening to Arabic music. And so I was very attached to my culture in that way at home, but at school I didn't really get to interact with other kids my age that had similar experiences to me; they are just people who weren't white in general. Like it was very difficult in that sense. Y: Then I would say, when I moved to Overland Park, I went to his school–I went to Indian Valley for elementary school for half– half [of] my time in elementary school and that also like I wasn't in…I got to meet different Muslim students, which I'm Muslim, so that was a very, very cool experience for once. But again, not many other Egyptians students… Y: I’m trying to think what else? Y: I was really– I remember growing up like I was really excited to tell people I was from Egypt. So that's something that I was definitely comfortable sharing. Y: Definitely like my parents and I had our fair share of racial profiling and discrimination because especially when we moved it was like right after 9/11. So there was things like that that were difficult. Having to hide–I’d hide behind my parents–they have thick accents so they didn't want to share where they were from. Y: Just like at the grocery store, people asked you where you're from, all this kinda stuff. That's information that they didn't even feel comfortable sharing. So I definitely remember experiences like that, especially within our first years of living in the States. Y: So I’m trying to think what else.. Y: What was the question again? What else–what else are you asking me to elaborate on? A: Honest like, I mean, I'm just curious to know about like how your Egyptian identity like influence you living in a state like during your childhood and stuff. I'm like, I understand the whole Islamophobia and all that, and I got that too because, you know, it's the hijab and stuff. A: But like, I mean, growing up, how are you able to kind of maneuver that and deal with it as you got older? Y: Yeah. So let me think on [sic] that. I guess as far as like how it shaped my identity is a very big part of my identity for sure. Because like I said, I was, like, the only Egyptian student. So I talked a lot and I would like I remember–I gave presentations in school about Egypt. Y: I did visit Egypt like in the beginning. When I was first in school, we would go in the summers as much as we could. And it helped me. Helped me…What’s a good word? I don't know it–it helped me really understand different perspectives at a young age, which I know a lot of people don't have, especially people in the Midwest. Often they don't get to go to other countries. Y: But it was very interesting to see very contrasting cultures like I was living in Overland Park where it's like majority white, very–lots of privileged people. It was a very developed community compared to when I would visit Cairo and there would be lots of homeless people I would come in contact with. And it was just a very different experience. And it also has to do with a lot with history. Y: I got to learn a lot about history with in relation to other countries like Britain and all of these different–different stories with the other countries. You know, I'm saying like? Y: My dad growing up would always be like, yeah, so this monument is from the war of whatever. And he would tell me these stories and I learned about a lot of different history like at a young age. So that was like–I really enjoyed that growing up because it would be such a shock to me to hear people who said that they didn't have those experiences and that they were only–they were only familiar with like Johnson County. Y: So…I’m trying to think… R: I love that you were raised to celebrate your identity instead of like to hide it. And you were kind of brought up in an environment where you had the opportunity to learn about your cultural history because like Egyptian culture is really rich and interesting culture is like it goes way back. You know, so I'm really glad that your parents did that for you. Y: Yeah. Me too. I'm really grateful that I especially like having them speak to me in Arabic because knowing your book was the way for me to connect to all these different parts of the culture like movies, speaking to my family at home, like in Egypt because they mainly speak Arabic. Y: That whole part of it was a really great way for me to connect to them. And yeah, they always like–I was always very excited to tell people. So I was never scared to talk about being Egyptian. My experiences with that. But there's a few times where people are like weird about it, but also it's like something that I was really excited about. Y: I'm trying to think. What else in specific, more about… how it changed my identity. So I guess it encouraged me to learn about other cultures because they understood the value of doing that at a young age. Y: So like when I'm studying Spanish now in undergrad, like it's very it's something like I take from those other experiences I had because I understood the value of that at a young age. Y: So now that I am learning more about Latin culture and learning the Spanish language, it's something that I really value in life in general. So… R: Now, I'm kind of curious. What was it like going back home to your family in Egypt? The contrast between your culture, your Egyptian American culture, versus their Egyptian–Egyptian culture like what was that like? Y: Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people have a similar experience to mind because it was something where I didn't really feel like I was fully like Egyptian when I would visit; like people would always like I was always like features like the American. Y: It's like weird because I remember when I was young, I always, I felt like I was 100% Egyptian. Like I felt I was, I was different from other people. I've had this whole other experience, but then I would go and I noticed my Arabic wasn't as good and I didn't know, you know, all the different foods I got. I was like, I didn't like all the different foods, like, because I was picky at the time. It was something I wasn't used to. Y: So in that sense, like it was hard because I just felt like I didn't completely belong, but I never–but it wasn't in the case that other people; I know other people experienced that way worse. I'm grateful that I was able to have parents who are very–were almost always talking about the culture at home. So trying to think… Y: Yeah, it was like–it was weird because I remember just like I remember really not wanting to leave [Egypt] when I would go like I felt I would like when I would leave like I'd be sobbing like I really, really didn't want to leave. Because we would go for a while like we would when we would go back and I was like in middle school, elementary school, we would go for like two months. So that was a long time. Y: I guess a big part was like family. I was really connected with my family. I still am, but like way more back then. I think it's maybe because I didn't–I had friends growing up–but it's like there's nobody that I was like die-hard like wanting to see during the summers. Y: I liked didn't have other plans like that. So that was like my main thing that I really enjoyed. Leaving was really hard. Y: But it was always so fun. It was literally like visiting there [Egypt] was the highlight of my whole year. It was the only thing I was looking forward to. Because again, like, I was just growing closer to something I really loved about myself– just like me. Y: So that kinda explains, I mean, it's like it definitely taught me at a young age to be humble and appreciate what I have because if you–if I just grew up in Johnson County my whole life without ever seen Egypt like, I don't know what kind of person I would be now, because you see just people like… Y: Egypt is very diverse. There's lots of different parts of its parts are very developed and like, you know, are similar to like areas in Johnson County in a way, but there's also places where people are really struggling–and it's very structurally just looks very different. Like it's so weird to be like somewhere where there's like, you know.. Y: It looks so different from Overland Park. In my head would always be like this picture perfect town that I like envisioned and I was like coming there's like, you know, it was broken but, you know, it, it had a lot of culture. I really, I also really like being able to interact with just like other Egyptians in general. Y: Like because they're just like there's something about them. They're like they're all, they're not all the same, but it's like a really good energy that everyone has. And everyone's just very like “go with the flow.” Like they're not, they don't stress out too much. It's a very different culture from here where everyone's like very focused on their work. There, they value family time and they value, you know, having–having a life outside of work. So now it's something that I really enjoyed. R: I love that and that's actually so heartwarming to hear that. You have that sense of community, you have that sense of identity when you went back home and you could relate to yeah, yeah, he found yourself there, so I think yeah, that was really nice to hear. R: I mean, like, how did you like–because, you know, based on what you said, this happened a lot in like your early life.. How did you take that and grow from that and influence what you were feeling back in Egypt? And how did you kind of use that as your into more of like your early adult late teens in your college years? Y: Yeah. Well, I really I like I knew I wasn't gonna be in each of the whole year. I needed to make sure that I was in like, even when I was getting older, like I couldn't go to Egypt as long anymore, like I'd have stuff to do over the summer. So. I knew that in my personal life I wanted to just make sure that I was interacting with more people who like were Egyptian were Arab or Arab in general because we do have similar cultures and other people who are Muslim. Even though it was hard to find people like that at school. Y: But I remember I never had like one type of friend in high school are now. Like I have very diverse group of friends from cultures that are very similar to mine. So that was my way of kind of growing closer and obviously like–and like meeting you [Radhia]. I was like, Hey, experience for me. Because you like, you know how to pronounce my name like simple little things like that. Like really allowed me to step into my identity more. Y: And now that I guess my sophomore year, I was in ESO, which is the Egyptian Student Organization which like I didn't even realize there's other Egyptian students other than the three that I knew from Blue Valley. So that was a really, really, like, transformative experience for me because I was around, like, eight Egyptians all at once. Like I was crazy and still getting to talk to them was really fulfilling for me. Y: So yeah, that's kinda the ways [sic] that I was able to manage that. Again, just kinda like at-home learning more Arabic, watching more movies that are Egyptian movies or Arabic movies. It was my way of kind of growing closer, if that makes sense. R: No, that doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah, That actually makes a lot of sense because I feel the same way with, like, my Somali– my Somali-ness, like whenever I find people who either like they're Muslim Somali or they just share that little bit of identity that is at the forefront of who I am, then it forms a bond. R: And I feel like yeah, that is what happened with us. That's what happened. If like me, you may arise like people who I like trust because fundamentally you know–we’re the same, but I don't know. So you're saying that you can see my camera is off, but I was smiling the whole time. Yeah, I get that. R: So okay. So I mean, like obviously you can't speak on your parents’ experiences because you have not lived them but like growing up, like, you know, being around them and their Egyptian-ness, like they're American is like, I mean, like how is your, from your point of view, watching them interact? Like the Johnson County Community…How is it to see your parents kind of maneuver the systems in North America? Y: Yeah. I was very impressed with my parents because it's just like they–they of course had an advantage. They knew English when we came in. They yeah–I guess I was just always was definitely impressed with them because…they…It's hard to navigate things here. Y: I'm trying to think like early, early on because that's probably one of the most change was happening. I felt I definitely felt sad for them for sure because the main issue with coming here and navigating everything is like not having your family and back then we didn't have time or anything. Y: It was very sad to see, like, my mom who was just spending time with me only because my dad would work a lot. So I was I felt that very deeply because like, I knew that they were very close because when I would go visit [Egypt], I would see the bond that my grandparents have with my mom and vice versa. Same thing with my dad. Y: So I think that definitely sticks out to me…Hmmmm…I’m trying to think..I mean, let's see. I don't know… Y: My dad…let me try to think about him…because he went to work. He interacted with a lot of people here and like users navigate everything. So I definitely know that his coworkers and everyone was like very–they valued him a lot, especially because from Egypt and practicing medicine, Egypt gave them a lot of valuable experiences that people always were wanting to know about. So he's very valued person where he, where he still works now. So that's something that I always proud of him for. Y: Like even when, you know, like like I always like, notice that he had a hard time like letting his guard down here because he really likes Egypt–like he like both my parents like he was the one who like, you know, when we would have things here like he's, he's very hard to get into like American TV shows, like American Idol, very attached to Egypt in that way. So it was, like, hard seeing him kind of try and it was hard seeing him not to let his guard down if that makes sense. Y: Because he–there was [sic] times where people like Midwestern culture, people, like, talk to each other about, like, the weather or something like that. Like he wasn't for it like you literally this is not something he's like comfortable with, especially back then. Y: So yeah. If that answered your question. I can talk about it more if you just let me know what else you're wanting. R: No. I mean, like that makes sense. I was just curious like that intergenerational pieces. Like you and your parents, like… Oh, what about your siblings? Like how–how is it for your little sister? Y: Yeah. So she like–she is a different experience for me because she was born when we lived in Iowa and then we moved to Overland Park. So she never was—she wasn't born in Egypt, but she still got to go to Egypt. And I think she–she's like attached to the culture and different ways for me. Like she really likes, like, Arabic music and different music artists. But it’s not like I don’t but, I don't, but I just not in the way I'm don't like in the way that she does. Y: So it's interesting to see that because her Arabic, although she can understand very well like she does struggle speaking and she does have a very thick American accent when she says words. So in that way it was kinda hard for her to connect to the people in our family who would just talk to her about stuff in the culture and stuff. So I think it was hard for her in that sense, definitely. Y: But she's still she–she still had a very similar experience to me because she was able to visit Egypt and although I was born there, I still didn't get to live there for an extended period of time. I think. I think we're similar in that sense, but again, it's a little different. R: No, I get that. Yeah. Like I feel like when you're older and you keep going back-and-forth, back-and-forth in your the–because you're the eldest daughter, right? Y: Yeah. R: Yeah. And it's like, you know, you kind of are that person you know when your grandma calls you on the phone first-person, we'll talk to you as you like. I didn't ask you: “How's your sister ? How's your family?” and then it's like because person like me to like, I'm the one who knows more Somali than my siblings and like my cousin because I was the one who had to talk on the phone. I was the one who is like going back-and-forth and family like a lot more when I was younger in life and I grew up with it a little more than likely siblings does. And it's just like I don't know, like I wouldn't wash them all even though they go. R: But yeah, I think it's really interesting how many similarities we have, even though, you know, we're rich from two different cultures, you know, our stories are so kind of similar. R: I don't know, like, do you think your identity, whether it'd be like your immigrant identity or you're watching muslim identity, female identity, whatever it is, has influenced what you wanna do in the future and what you see yourself doing down the line? Y: Yeah, I think it has because I always knew I wanted to go into a career where I can help people in some way and make change. So whether that is getting an MPA [Masters of Public Administration] and navigating that, I feel like you're just from my experience is now being in service oriented organization like that definitely has influence, has been influenced by my Egyptian identity and my immigrant identity as well. Y: Because like I've gotten to interact with a lot of people who are in disadvantaged situations. And like, I do want to help people like that, help marginalized identities. I'm fine there, their path and create change in that way. So I think it's definitely influenced it. I like yeah.. Y: I definitely–I pay attention more to issues surrounding people of color like immigrants, a lot, like especially undocumented immigrants. Like that's something that I also want to kind of work towards, like amending their situations when I'm older because it's a very sensitive topic for me because I understand like how on its own, how stressful immigrating to [the United] States can be. And on top of that, their experiences are like really, really traumatizing, like scary for most of their lives. Y: That's, like, definitely an example of one way that my immigrant identity has shaped what I want to do in the future. Like I do really want to find a profession, profession where I can help them. R: You know, I think that's really inspiring. It's extremely inspiring. R: Is there anything else that you wanted to share, any specific life event? Or anything you want to share about whatever you feel comfortable sharing about? Y: Let's think… Let's see…I think no. R: Do you have like [unknown] or something? I don't because I definitely want to help out as much as I can with this. R: No, actually answer all the questions I had. I know we talked about your parents a little bit. What did your mom be down to also be interviewed? Y: Yeah. I've–I've interviewed her before for things like this and I think she would be down because he has a lot of stories like she has a lot of other experiences that I don't remember. I think she would be good for them. R: Okay. Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your participation in this project. R: So we also are going to be documenting the stories and preserving your family's history and putting this all in an archive. So if you had any pictures, or like letters, are important, like cultural objects that you also wanted to share. Feel free to let me know and we can find ways to get that no document and archive for you. Y: Yeah. R: Like your story is really important and you're like your Egyptian identity. I think that's so cool because as time progresses and as we get older, there's gonna be things that changed and shifted between like our generation versus their parents' generation rights, things like archiving is really, really cool and really interesting. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yasmin Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from Cairo, Egypt to Overland Park, Kansas Description An account of the resource Yasmin is from Cairo, Egypt. When she was interviewed in 2021, she was a third-year student at the University of Kansas studying behavorial neuroscience and Spanish. She speaks about her experience as the only Egyptian in school classes, her connection to her Egyptian culture via family and trips, and how her identity influenced her future career goals. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000s Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Overland Park, Kansas City Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_u6606ins" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_u6606ins/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Heartland Yasmin"></iframe> Culture Differences Education Egypt Identity Lawrence Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Radhia Abdirahman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Yomna Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Audio City (Region, State) and Country of Origin for 2nd and 3rd generation, this is the place of family's origin Egypt Current City of Residence Where in Kansas or Missouri the Interviewee currently lives Kansas City, Kansas Intermediate point in journey (1) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Nebraska Intermediate point in journey (2) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yomna Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from Egypt to Kansas City, Kansas Description An account of the resource Yomna is a graduate student studying social welfare at the University of Kansas. She was born in Egypt and moved to the U.S. when she was 5 years old. Yomna speaks about how her relationships and mental health suffered due to frequently moving around as a child. She also shares her experience with racism, mental health stigma and community. She concludes the interview by saying that it is difficult to meet other individuals of Muslim faith and KU. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010s Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Kansas City, Kansas Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_kh5mtsxx" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_kh5mtsxx/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Heartland Yomna"></iframe> Community Discrimination Education Egypt Identity Kansas City Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marta Caminero-Santangelo Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Gibette Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Video City (Region, State) and Country of Origin for 2nd and 3rd generation, this is the place of family's origin Dominican Republic Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Gibette (G) G: It's a little strange or a little complicated. My family is Dominican from the Dominican Republic. That is my mom and my dad and their mom and their dad and my uncles and everybody is from the Dominican Republic. G: But my mom's sister married a Puerto Rican man at some point in her life. So she used her connections with this Puerto Rican man to get residency for all of her siblings. This was back when it was relatively easy to do that. In the 70s or something or 80s. G: And so my mom had a green card, US Green Card while they were still living in the Dominican Republic. So my parents decided to move to Puerto Rico. And they still hadn't moved to Puerto Rico when I was born. But because they knew they were going to move to Puerto Rico, my mom had to…while she was pregnant, she had to go to Puerto Rico to stay with my sister who lived there for the last month of her pregnancy. And that's where I was born. I was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. I never lived there; not once. G: I spent maybe the first month of my life there. And then I went to visit my friends for my cousin's wedding for like three days. G: So technically, I am from my Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, but I have never been there for very long. So it's kind of weirdly identity confusing. G: Anyways. So then my mom had me and she went back to the Dominican Republic because that's where they lived still. And I lived there for the first six or seven months of my life. G: When I was a really tiny baby in the Dominican Republic, my mom says that somebody held me who was infected with an amoeba or something happened. Anyway, point is that I got so sick with an amoeba that I almost died as an infant. And then my mom had to go. She says she had to sneak into her neighbor's yard to steal milk from his goat so that she could feed me goat milk. And somehow that saved my life. G: So that's pretty much my first and only experience in the Dominican Republic before I got better and then survived and we all moved to Puerto Rico. G: So..Then, now we're in Puerto Rico. My family lived in Arecibo, which is in the northwest of the country, like right up at the coast. And I lived there until I was nine. G: I guess I'm Puerto Rican, but in the Puerto Rico, we were known as the Dominican family. So we were already outsiders from the very beginning. They’re the Dominicans in Puerto Rico. G: But then when we went to visit the Dominican Republic, we were like the little Puerto Rican cousins and we had weird accents and we didn't belong there either. G: So yeah, I've never really not from the very beginning of my life, have I been in a place where I'm allowed to belong? So, yeah, that was Puerto Rico. G: As you may be aware, Puerto Ricans are proportionally lighter skinned than Dominicans. There is a little bit of racism directed at Dominicans there. So it was kind of tough growing up there and having all that directed at you. G: So I don't have hugely amazing memories of Puerto Rico in that sense, because I didn't really feel very welcomed there. But it is part of my identity in a lot of ways. G: For instance, one time I was–Recently Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a song for the Hurricane Maria relief. And the song was everybody–He got a bunch of artists together and they were singing place names, like city names, from Puerto Rico. G: And that was the story–the song. And it's very beautiful. G: And I downloaded it because when you paid for it, you got to give money to Puerto Rico. And it was weird like hearing all the place names. It really brought something out at me like, Oh yes, this is, this is familiar, this is part of my story. G: And also he put a sound in the song, which is this tiny little frog called a coquí, which only lives in Puerto Rico. It's the only place in the world where it lives. And it makes this little sound like “doo-doop, doo-doop” [high-pitched, two beats]: it's kind of a cute little whistle sound. And it only happens in Puerto Rico. So he put the sound in the song. G: When I heard the song, I was like, “Oh my gosh, is the sound of my childhood. I know the sound. It's so familiar.” G: For all of my life. I've thought of myself as a Puerto Rican person, but I'm sorry, as a Dominican person and then people tell me, Oh, but you're born in Puerto Rico? You’re Puerto Rican. And then I get mad. But now in my old age, I think to myself like, Oh, there is a part of me that is Puerto Rican in some way. So yeah, that was growing up when I was very little. G: And then when I was nine, my parents were doing pretty well financially. My dad was the general manager of Encyclopedia Britannica in Puerto Rico. And this was in 1997. And already the Encyclopedia is, we're starting to get, what's the word threatened by the Internet? G: Because like one, not the internet. Like they started making encyclopedias available on CD ROM, which were a lot less profitable. So already like things were starting to take a downturn. So my dad saw the writing on the wall and he was like, Oh, we can't stay here, even though we were doing really well there. It wasn't gonna be sustainable for a much longer. G: So he decided to move us all to the US. As general manager–he was overseeing all of the Puerto Rican branches–so he had to travel a lot throughout Europe and throughout the United States. So he saw a lot of different places as he traveled. And the place he liked the most was Colorado for some reason. G: I think part of it is he didn't want to be among too many Dominicans. I guess. You want it to be like immersed in whiteness perhaps. Because he emphatically did not want to move to Florida, which is where other Caribbean people go, or to New York, where it's where all the Dominicans go. G: So we ended up in Colorado, which was super random. There are no Dominicans and in Colorado, maybe like five, and most of that is my family. G: Yeah. It was really strange because I don't know if other Latin American parents are like this with their kids. But at least with my parents, they never really brought us into their decision-making as children. We just went along for the ride. G: So one morning my sister told me we're moving to the United States in two weeks. And I was like, You lie, like that can't be happening. Surely there will be some sort of warning or some kind of preparation. G: But it turned out that, yeah, we were moving to the US and two which was insane. It was the most horrible thing ever. I had all my friends and everything [in the Dominican Republic]. Yeah. G: I remember that morning when she told me she was like How old was she? She was 12. She was at that age where everything is really melodramatic. So she's looking out at the sunset and she's like, “This is one of our few last sunsets in Puerto Rico”. She said something like that and I thought she was a goddess because she was my older sister. And I was like, yeah, Our last sunset. It was a very sort of pseudo philosophical moment. G: But yeah, so, yeah, with very little warning, we move to the United States. To Denver, Colorado. We arrived at the beginning of October in 1997. And back in those days before global warming, October was a really cold month in Colorado. G: So yeah, when we arrived it was pretty cold. I don't know if it was like cold-cold, but it was definitely cold. The coldest I had ever been in my entire life because Puerto Rico is tropical, Dominican Republic is tropical. I had never ever been cold. And also, we came in with little windbreakers because you can't find jackets in Puerto Rico. G: So we arrive by the time we get our bags and everything, it's like two in the morning. So he stepped out of DIA; it's two in the morning. It's freezing cold. We are not prepared for the cold. I literally thought this was death. It had to be death. There's no way in a living person could exist like this. So yeah. G: It was the craziest experience. G: Yeah, We got our little rental car and we did not know anyone in Colorado, I think in retrospect. Well, I am certain My father is insane because why why would you move to a place? You didn't know a single person. G: But yeah, we got our little rental car and we set out into the world. And for me and my sisters, we were kids. It was exciting. It was kinda fun like doing this whole new thing with no–with no plan and no safety net. But now in retrospect, I just–I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for my parents. G: Like I have immigrated to a new country now as an adult. And this is me with no kids and a whole lot of preparation. And even then it's terrifying, so I can't imagine what it must have felt like for them. G: So yeah, that evening we set out. We were exhausted because the flight had taken ages. Then we–we [laughing softly] needed to find a place to sleep. So we're driving along. We don't know anything about where Anywhere is. G: We end up at a strip of motels along a street called Coalfax. And one of them is called Family Motel. So we're like, yeah, that's the place for us. We are a family and we need a motel. So my dad got us a room and it was a huge king bed. And we all sort of laid down on the bed without even taking your clothes off because we were so exhausted and we slept there for the night. G: Many years now, many years later, quite soon after we came to find out that that strip of motels is quite predictably a very seedy street with motels. That street, Colfax is where the “ladies of the evening” go to do their business. G: So yeah, it was a bad choice in retrospect. But at the time it seemed like a good idea. G: I don't know why it was called Family Motel–maybe to make it seem a little more respectable what they were doing. But yeah, so we ended up–I think that's a testament to how ill-prepared my parents were to live life in the United States. G: Yeah. But when my dad had come here, he knew that there was a certain school district called the Cherry Creek School District, which was the best school district in Denver. He wanted to get us an apartment in that area. So the next day we set out and looked around at apartments and found an apartment. G: And obviously we didn't have any like, food or things to cook with. Yet. On that first day, my dad was like, oh, after we get the apartment and after we figure everything out, we're gonna go to a restaurant and we're so excited. They were like, Oh, we're gonna pick a restaurant. And we found this restaurant called Souper Salad, which was a buffet. And we're like, Oh buffet, this should be delicious. G: Now we step in and it's actually a buffet of like cold American salads, like macaroni salad and potato salad and spaghetti salad. Everything was cold. Then there was soup. And it was just the most disgusting thing ever. G: We had never had salads like that. We were just traumatized at how growth everything was, and it was a buffet. So it was like, oh, yeah, you can have as much as you want except we didn't want any of it. G: It was so traumatizing to be thrown into Midwestern cooking at the deep end. G: So yeah, it was a very weird day. G: But then we ended up with a–with a apartment and then we…The school was down the street from our apartment, so it was well-chosen. G: My dad spoke a fair amount of English because he had studied it in school and he was a real smarty pants, so he was pretty good at it. But my mom spoke no English and we girls spoke the amount of English that you learn in school. So they sort of muddled through getting us enrolled in school and everything. G: Then…Let's see. Oh, yeah. I remember our apartment was on the corner of Iliff and Peoria and they made us memorize that “I Iliff and Peoria. Iliff and Peoria.” Just in case we ever got lost. We were–we were supposed to tell people, “Oh, I live on Iliff and Peoria.” Yeah. G: We were right down the street from the school and the school had this really big sign with–it had the temperature on it every day. So my dad did this thing where he would step outside and he'd like feel the air for a second and then he thought “ummmm it's 65 degrees today” and we didn't know how he knew. And then much later we found out that he could see the sign that had the temperature on it. So yeah, he tricked us. Any who… G: Yeah, my dad would teach us English in the evenings when we came home from school, he would get his little whiteboard and Teach us like conversational phrases. I still remember he taught us the phrase, by the way, as a way to change the topic. Oh, by the way, I think that's the only phrase that I remember specifically from what he taught us. Yeah. G: I don't quite remember how we learned English. We just learned how it is with kids. G: But I do remember, oh my gosh, this was so exciting. So when I arrived, I was in the fifth grade and I was in a regular fifth grade classroom. Everyone was like sort of weirdly fascinated with me for the first couple of days. And then they got bored of me. I couldn't talk to anyone. I couldn't speak English. G: But sometimes I would go to the ESL classroom, which was amazing. It had a whole wall of books. It was just so many books all in one place. I was obsessed with it immediately. So when I would go to the ESL classroom, I found all of the books that were in Spanish. I read them all. And then I read them all again. And then I ran out of books and Spanish. So I was forced to read the books in English because what else am I gonna do? I started reading all the books in English just because I had to. And that's really how I just started learning because I was forced to read books in English. So that was my ESL classroom. G: And I remember one day, me and my little sister were both in elementary school, she was in the third grade and my ESL teacher took me aside. And she was like, Oh, I need to talk to you about your sister. She likes to–she likes to “exa-juh-rar”. And I was like “exa-jih-rar?” and she's like Yeah, yeah, yeah. “exagerar”. And I'm like, What are you saying? So she pointed to the word in the dictionary and I was like, Oh, she [my sister] “exagera”. Oh, I get it. So yeah, there was a bit of a language barrier there. But yeah, we learned pretty soon. And then let's see what happened after. G: So then my dad started a business in the Dominican Republic because he really wanted to have done really well in business before he wanted to strike big again. He never succeeded. But any who–because he was doing businesses and the Dominican Republic a year after living in Colorado, he decided to move us to Florida so that he could travel more easily. G: And once again, they gave us no warning about this. So tell me why on a Friday afternoon–on a Friday morning, I get to school. And my all my students…all my teachers are like, “, I'm so sorry that you're moving and I'm like, I'm not moving” and they're like, “Well, your mom came and gave us your textbook. She said that you're moving.” And I was like, no, that's not happening. Give me my textbook, I need my books. So all day long, I was getting my textbooks back from my teachers. Then when I get to the car at the end of the day, my mom's like, why do you have those textbooks? I returned them and I was like, Why? She said we're moving today. I'm like what?...Anyway, it was a crazy time. G: We moved to Florida for a year and then my dad's business failed. And then we move back to Colorado where our hearts belongs because we had really come to fall in love with it in that time. So yeah, that's where I grew up in Colorado. G: What's funny is, by the time I came back from Florida, I had read so many books that I was like, insanely good at English in a very short amount of time. So when they tested me to place me in a class back in Colorado, they–the placement was advanced English and they were like, No, surely that can't be; she learned English two years ago. G: They put me in remedial English for no reason. G: I had to take remedial English in seventh grade for no reason just because they thought I couldn't speak English. G: It was quite unfair. G: Then. Yeah. That's pretty much it. Oh, and then grew up and all this stuff. G: So I did my undergrad in Washington State, which is in the Pacific Northwest, it is quite different from the Midwest. G: Quite different in ways that I was not prepared for. G: People are very friendly, very kind, but very not friendly. Like they're nice to you, but then they don't like reach out, they're not warm. Yeah. G: And then I did my master's in Michigan, which is very Midwest. G: I've lived most of my life in the US, in the Midwest. And then when I went to do my doctorate, I applied to a lot of different places and I got accepted to the University of Kansas. G: I was really excited about going–getting to a doctorate. But people in Colorado are not super kind about Kansas because of state rivalries, I guess. So I would tell people like, “Hey, I'm going to get a doctorate” and they're like,”Oh, that's amazing. Where?” [I was like] “in Kansas.” Then they were like “Oh…” G: But actually I'm so glad I ended up at the University of Kansas. It was so amazing. My first summer that I lived there, I got a fellowship for applied humanities to do some local history research at the Lawrence Public Library. G: So I did a ton of research into the early history of Kansas and Lawrence. And it was fascinating. It's such a really–it is such a cool history. G: Just, you know, all the Civil War conflicts and all of the founders and everything. So doing that history project really helped me feel like this town is kind of like it reflects who I am a little bit. This sort of like a place that was–that didn't belong, where it belongs. And that everyone was kind of attacking and saying that you shouldn't be here. But they were like, You know what, we're gonna be here anyway. And they were kind of like bookish and nerdy and they didn't know what they were getting into. I felt like, yeah, that's that tracks. That's pretty much what I mean, what I'm about. G: So yeah, I lived in Kansas for five years and I'm really, really good in it, at least in Lawrence. It was a really beautiful place. G: And now I moved to South Korea because I wanted to. G: It's only now that I'm immigrating as an adult that I realized, wow, that must have been so hard for my parents to do. G: Like immigrating is no joke. It's like everything that used to define you as an adult and a human no longer exists. And you're like, oh my, like, who am I? What is my role in society? What is my value to society? G: And one thing that my parents really, really made us do was–what's the word–mix with American society and learn really good English and just really not necessarily assimilate because they were always very proud of our Dominican culture. But, you know, mingle, mingle with Americans. G: And they always kinda low-key made fun of people who stayed in Spanish communities and never learned English. They were like, Oh, that's so so-and-so. G: But now that I'm living in Korea, like it is terrifying being in a country where they don't speak your language and you have to do like legal things and official things in a language that you don't understand. G: Like, I don't know what I'm getting myself into. I could be signing away my life without knowing it. Of course, I need this translated. G: So now I super understand why people stay in those communities and why people need these resources because yes, yes, they need them. G: Alright, so one thing that was difficult when we moved to the US was that, like I said, we were Dominicans in Colorado. And in Colorado, they only Latin–Latinx people are Mexicans Really, or Central American people, mostly Mexican people. G: So it is true what they say that it's hard for Latinx people to build a sense of solidarity right away. When we arrived to [sic] the US, we were Dominican among Mexicans. We did not belong together. They were different. So it was really hard to get a sense of community with the Latinx people who are there. G: For instance, there was a Mexican church, but my dad, sorry Hispanic church, but my dad never wanted us to go there because oh, they're Mexican. G: So yeah, it was strange to find a community of people, especially because we look the way we look like Dominicans look like they're mixed with black and white. So in school people would ask me, “Oh, you're mixed.” And I'm like, “Oh, well, yes-no. I'm kind of mixed, but I'm Dominican, I'm Hispanic.” And they're like, “Oh, you don't look Mexican.” And I'm like, “I'm not Mexican, it's a different thing.” G: So it's really, really hard to define myself for a long time. G: People would ask me like, “Where are you from?” And I would want to say the Dominican Republic. But first of all, that takes forever to say; second, many people thought I was saying the Banana Republic, which is a store and not a country. And also yeah, it just people weren’t understanding what it was that I'm saying. G: So a lot of times I just said Puerto Rico because it was easier and people knew what it was. So many times I'd be like, yeah, I'm Puerto Rican or I'm from Puerto Rico. G: So for a long time I sort of alternated back and forth like I'm Dominican or for Rican and a no. And also like, I had just moved from Puerto Rico. G: So it did feel like then many, many years passed and we kept going back to the Dominican Republic and visiting family and everything. So my connection with the Dominican Republic was maintained, whereas my connection with Puerto Rico was kind of lost. G: So I started consistently calling myself Dominican. And I remember one time somebody was like, “Oh yeah, I know someone from the Dominican Republic or maybe Nicaragua. One of the two.” And I'm like, “Yeah, it's not the same thing at all, but okay; thank you for trying.” G: Yeah. It was strange to find an identity. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gibette Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from the Dominican Republic to Lawrence, Kansas. Description An account of the resource Gibette’s family is from the Dominican Republic but moved to Puerto Rico just before she was born. She remembers feeling different from the other Puerto Rican children because of her cultural background and skin color. She moved to Colorado, Florida, and then back to Colorado again because of her father’s job. She came to Lawrence to study for her PhD. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lawrence, Kansas Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_8bahxqut" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_8bahxqut/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Heartland Gibette Trimmed"></iframe> Colorado Community Dominican Republic Education Florida Identity Lawrence Puerto Rico Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sayra Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from Mexico to Kansas City, Kansas. Description An account of the resource Sayra is an Afro-Mexican who grew up in Kansas City. She attended diverse schools but connected with her Mexican-American identity most while in high school. In this interview, she addresses her parents, her childhood, and the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Kansas City, Kansas Community Culture Differences Education Identity Kansas City Language Mexico Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marta Caminero-Santangelo Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Joao Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Video City (Region, State) and Country of Origin for 2nd and 3rd generation, this is the place of family's origin Bahia, Brazil Current City of Residence Where in Kansas or Missouri the Interviewee currently lives Lawrence, Kansas Intermediate point in journey (1) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Pittsburg, Kansas Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Joao (J) Marta (M) J: With my savings in everything that I got, after I left my company, I had less than $100 in my pocket. That's how I got to the United States. J: And I got the job in Maine, way up north. So I was so that's that's how I got here. And then I say is speaking very, very little English and with no money in my pocket. J: I remember my first job was at a ski resort and the job was to work as a ski lift operator. So it'd be outdoors all the time. And I had to work overtime so I couldn't make more money. J: And there was really hard because I didn't have money to buy the right boots, so I bought like a $20 pair of boots from Walmart. And I remember like it was really cold. It was difficult in the beginning. J: And I remember talking to my supervisor. They're asking for a different job at the ski resort and that I could do anything. J: So they put me to work as a housekeeper. J: And I remember I was the only happy housekeeper at the ski resort [unknwon] always complain about it. I would say no, this is really good. I get to be indoors all the time, so I was very happy about it. J: And so while I was there [in Maine], my university in Brazil had an exchange agreement with Pittsburg State University here in Kansas–Pitt State, it's about two hours from Lawrence. And…but in order to be able to participate in this exchange agreement, I had to pass the TOEFL test and my English skills were very limited. J: So my idea, my plan after I left Brazil was I'm going to work at a ski resort, learn English as much as I can, and then see if after April I can move to Kansas and start school in August…in Kansas. J: This is the idea. I could not go directly to Pitt State because I didn't speak English. J: So my idea is, okay, I'm gonna do these, save as much money as I can, work in Maine and then move to Kansas. J: But I mean, I mean, all the plans were very I mean, I had no idea if things would work out just like a big plan. J: And actually then I worked in Maine and worked overtime. I remember I had two or three different jobs at once and worked weekends and didn't take days off. And I was able I remember like leaving Maine with about $3,000 in my pocket and move into Kansas. J: When I got there to Pitt State, I–I thought my English wasn't good enough to take the TOEFL so I took one last English class. They have this English–Teaching English program at the university that costs like $2,000 for one module, so I did one month. J: But in my case, I had to take to do like two modules and they just had money from one. So I said “Okay, I'm gonna do one and take the TOEFL.” If you're taking the TOEFL, don't need to do the other one. And that's what happened. J: Then I didn't have time to study for the TOEFL and because I had to work also at that time, I had an on-campus job and off-campus job. And I so I've been all like all those lay–low paid labor positions. I’ve been a dishwasher, a housekeeper, I delivered pizza. I made burritos. J: I've had more than 20 different jobs in the US and neither have I remember going to get an appointment for the TOEFL. And they told me and then my plan was to take from one month from that day just to get these [unknown] do some kind of steady, and even though I have very little time because I was working a lot. J: And they told me know, if you want to take the TOEFL and you want to get the results by August to be able to enroll as a PSU student next semester, you need to take it today. J: And I remember going back home getting my checkbook because I had to pay. And that's how I took the TOEFL without… J: I just–I remember just sitting in front of the computer. That's how I took the exam and say, “Okay, whatever happens now.” And so I took it and then I think it was like two weeks later–at that time, like how this process was slower. I think nowadays you'll get the results fastest, faster… J: And I remember, I even asked the Secretary of the International Office at Pitt State to call and make sure that she got to the score numbers right because I was afraid they would misunderstand anything. J: And she called the TOEFL and she told me I had passed but very barely I remember the minimum score was 190. And I got 194, like maybe one or two questions that made the difference and I couldn't believe it. I couldn’t believe that I passed it. And so that's then from there, I was able to enroll in school and business classes and be a full-time student at PSU without having to pay tuition. M: Okay. Let me ask a couple of factual questions here. I'm taking notes as I go. M: How old were you and what age were you when you first came to the US and went to Maine? J: I was 21 or 22. I know that I was at least 21 because I could drink. And I remember that that was one of the cultural differences. That you had to be 21 to drink, to go to a bar and drink; in Brazil I had been doing that since I was 16. M: Wait a minute. So what year was this? J: I think it was 2001–was the first time I got here. 2001. Because I'm 40. Yeah, I was twenty two. 21. 22. M: Okay. Where in Brazil did you come from? J: From the south. Rio Grande du Sol. It's–the hometown is Bagé. M: Okay. J: This is like 30 miles from Uruguay, right on the border. M: Okay. When you went to Pitt State, what program were you enrolled in? Was it a grad program or an undergrad program? J: Undergrad. Undergrad. Business. Because this is something that I–for me, business was a choice because when I lived in Brazil, the easiest way to get a job was pretty much work in business. I wasn't that I was very, very interested in business, ended up doing business later in my life and I even had my own company. But I never really liked to study business and to read a business book to this day for me, it's one of the most boring things in the world but that way it was more like a survival thing than anything else, wasn't that I was really passionate about business. M: Okay. Go ahead. J: So then I became an exchange student at PSU. At that time I didn't have to pay tuition because of the exchange agreement with my Brazilian university. J: And then I got a job on campus, working 20 hours a week. J: And then in my second, second semester. So as I was living in the cheapest place on campus because I didn't, I didn't, I didn't have credit card, I didn't have money from my family, anything. I had to live just by the 20 hours at minimum wage that I worked on campus. J: And then one day I remember we–I learned about the host family program that they had. And so I went to the library to find out about [what] the host family program was and they told me that you had the opportunity to have a local family. They are to take you and on the weekends to places and do stuff like that. J: And I asked them, “Don't you guys have something that you have, you can live with the family?” and be like I, because I thought it would be a good way to learn English, to improve my English. And the lady that organized the program told me “No, but let me know, but let me see if I can find something for you.” J: And then two weeks later, she told me to come work at the at the library at Pitt State, she was a librarian and she told me, “Come, come here and talk to my boss; he's been to Paraguay many times.” J: He was the Dean of learning resources, which includes the library. He was in charge for the library at Pitt State. And he might be interested in taking you as, as his guest in his place but he wants to talk to you first to see if you are not like the regular college student that just wants to party. J: So then I went and I talked to him and he became my second father. To this day. J: And he actually invited my brother. I have a younger brother to come to United States and even paid tuition for my brother–he became..he is family, now–he’s family. And he became one of the most important people in my life. J: And it was funny how things happen like to be. I never imagined that it would be in Kansas and I’ll have like almost like a second father to me. And he helped me a lot, helped my family helped my brother. And to this day we hear my son calls him Grampa Bob because he comes home because he still lives that Pittsburgh. J: And that's the end finishing day. And I was able to extend the exchange agreement from two semesters to the whole thing, I was able to graduate Pitt State, which was excellent for me because I didn't have to be we shouldn't. I was able to finish getting a degree from here from the United States was something that I never imagined when I lived in Brazil. J: Because when that left Brazil, I only had the guarantee that had this three months work, working at the ski resort. Everything from there was just like things that couldn't happen until things turn out much better than I initially thought from Brazil. J: And then from there, there's a long story. Then from there I ended up, I started my MBA, there at the same university after I finished my BA– M: –Even though you hated business? J: Well, it's just convenient at that time. I wasn't really big. I mean, nowadays I'm, I think I'm a good student. I wasn't like that at that time. Like that's for me, school was much more a way to advance my career, to get a diploma. And I wasn't really big in education at that time for me or as much more, get a job, make money. This was important for me at that time. J: When I started, I did one semester of the MBA. And during the summer, I went to Thailand as an exchange student from PSU. And I am supposed to stay three months in Thailand and then go back to the US. I ended up loving Thailand and I stayed two years there. J: And so I stayed at least two years in Bangkok. I lived briefly in Poland, in Warsaw. And then, and then I went into Chile. J: In Chile, I met my wife and we lived in Chile for five years. And my wife is from the north of Brazil, is from the, from Pará, which if you look at Brazil map is the two extremes. Way up. Now if I'm way down south, we ended up living five years in Chile, and went back to Brazil. J: And so I'm jumping a lot here because I want to explain how I got back. In Chile. I had my own company. I actually made very good money or while working in the company. J: And then I had a family situation also, if then that made me had have to return to Brazil. And then in Brazil I was working in business. And one day, I was invited to give a talk at a local university about my international experience. I should talk about the student knows how I had gone to the United States. J: So in Thailand, I worked as a teacher because that was the easiest way to get a job in Bangkok. Pretty much if you are white, have round eyes and you have a diploma from the United States, you can teach. J: And I was teaching at a university that I was way under-qualified for just because of my physical appearance, I got the job. So I ended up leaving. That's how I got into teaching or just because it was a necessity, that was the only job that I pretty much that could get in Bangkok. J: And then I went, when I went to this local university to give this talk about my international experience, I went back home and told my wife I need to go back to school. That's why I ended up loving teaching in Thailand. And I'm not really happy. J: I don't care that much about the money situation as long as I have enough to pay my bills. J: And then I got back home and told my wife about that: I'm thinking about applying for a master's program in US. And she was very supportive. And she told me, “Yeah, If you think this is the best thing for you.” And she liked the idea of moving here to United States, so I contact… J: In Thailand. I had thought about doing a master's degree and I had contacted Professor Brent Metz, who at that time was working at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. But I think he was the assistance that assistance of Professor [Elizabeth] Kuznesof at that time or something like that. He was working. And I remember he told me at that time that they could not give me a scholarship because they didn't have enough money, but they would take me as a student in the master's program. And for me that was not a viable solution because I couldn't pay tuition. J: Then. So I got back home like 15 years like more than ten years later after that email that had sent to print maps. And say, oh, maybe I have it still have the contact of the guy from KU. I'm going to email him asking about masters for any opportunities in Kansas, but had no idea if you worked at KU, if what he was doing. I just got his email address, my email account, and I sent Brent in an email. There was in 2000…2016. Yeah. Oh, I see. Around like I am thinking about getting a master's degree, but I felt like maybe in two years from that time I could save money and come to the United States. And I usually around like I really would like to get a master's degree in Latin American Studies. J: And he–I didn't expect he would write me back–and he did like right away and say, oh, actually I am the director because he, Professor [Unknown] was on leave. That's a massive and he he took over as the director for that semester. The center. I'm actually the director at the Center, and I'd love to have you here as a student. Then things got serious from there. And then he told me that he they had only one scholarship at the center. J: That time was I think Joe was the TA at a time. So he tried to get me funding through the Spanish program. As I spoke Spanish. I couldn't teach Portuguese because Portuguese, there isn't a lot of demand for Portuguese classes and they couldn't hire it, a Portuguese instructor. So that's how I got here. They got me a scholarship to teach Spanish for the first year and that's how I got here. J: I had been here just once before because KU use to host a Brazilian carnival. And while I was at Pitt State, I came to visit here, the campus. And I just had this idea, told my wife that place is really beautiful. I remember walking on campus and walking on Mass[achusetts] Street and say, like, I just had this feeling, that place is really cool. I think if we leave there, we're going to like it. But I didn't I mean, I was I came here just to party that weekend. So I didn't have any concrete plans. I just I just had the feeling. I left Lawrence with the feeling that place is really cool, is beautiful, the campus is beautiful and the university is very good. J: And that's all I got here. J: It was in 2000…2016…yeah, 2016. I applied for it in 2015. Got here in 2016. And my wife was pregnant. She was five months? Yeah. Yeah. About five months into the pregnancy when we got here. So we are very concerned about this situation because we didn't know about the hospital situation. I always heard and felt also the experience of having to go to a hospital here and getting these huge bill for something that was very basic. J: I remember when I was at Pitt State, I hurt my arm and I fell off my bike school and I remember getting these $500 bill. So I was like, I don't know what this is going to cost to deliver a baby here, but.. J: So we came here with this very excited but very concerned at the same time with the things turned out to be way better than we expected at the hospital and the health insurance and everything. J: Everything worked out fine. J: And so I did the first, when I got, my idea was to do an interdisciplinary master's program because at that time I wasn't really sure what my discipline was. I just knew it was something in the humanities. J: That's the only thing that I knew. J: But I didn't really know to be history. And so I took classes for a semester, some classes from Portuguese and Spanish department and two classes, a history class with Professor Kuznesof. J: And after that semester for me, it was 100% clear. That's what I want to do: history, that's my field and Professor Kuznesof, of course, became my advisor and I mean, I–I don't have words to thank her for everything that she's done for me here. J: And it's on that and say, okay, so I took the, the end after my first year teaching Spanish. Professor Sontiago was in the transition to leave and you're taking over the department she had before she left? I think she had made arrangements for me to become the TA for the center. J: And I remember that my third semester I would take over Professor [Robert] Schwaller’s class, which was a challenge. J: I've been always open to take up challenges here they say, Oh, well I teach another class, you know this better than anyone and say, Okay, yes. J: I believe in preparation. If you prepare yourself, you can do it. That's the way I saw it: it would be a good challenge. J: And so after of the day, I had the best, the best experience here. J: And then from there it was obvious that I was going to continue my studies. I didn't want to stop at the master's degree. And I applied to the PhD program in history. J: At that point, I know 100% history is my discipline and so I’ve been here [Lawrence, KS] and now it's been five years. My son is four now. J: Now we are in the process of moving to Virginia and we already think about how much you're going to miss Lawrence because if you have had the best years of my life, I'd say I think it's four or five years here, that's been excellent. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Joao Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from Brazil to Lawrence, Kansas. Description An account of the resource Joao is from Bahia, Brazil. In Brazil, he took night classes from a local college while working full-time at a company. During this time, Joao also started to take English lessons. He arrived in the U.S. and took business classes at Pittsburg State University in order to advance his career. Joao reflects on his scholarly experience which would not have been the same without support from the University of Kansas’ Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_anvuakc1" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_anvuakc1/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Joao Interview Trimmed"></iframe> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lawrence, Kansas Brazil Education Identity Lawrence Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marta Caminero-Santangelo Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Diego Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Video City (Region, State) and Country of Origin for 2nd and 3rd generation, this is the place of family's origin Mexico Current City of Residence Where in Kansas or Missouri the Interviewee currently lives Lawrence, Kansas Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Diego (D) Marta (M) D: I'm Diego Rivera Rodriguez. Yes. And I am a child of a I guess I'm technically first-generation immigrant. Yeah. So my mom and dad both immigrated here from…my dad technically he was from La Paz, Bolivia, and my mom is from Moscow [?], Mexico. And then they met and I think Mexico City in college. D: And my dad moved to–first to Arizona where he had my older brother. He's older about six years. I'm 19 by the way. Then he had my sister three years later in Stillwater, Oklahoma at OSU. My dad is also a professor of chemistry. He worked throughout those colleges and then they moved to Lawrence, I guess they had me there [in Stillwater] and then moved to Lawrence about a year later, where he worked at KU for a number of years as a professor of chemistry. And my mom was like one of his research assistants, I guess. D: She also did research. She had a–they both got PhDs, which I think is insanely impressive. Just because like being able to..in STEM, too, I mean, maybe that's just not the way my brain works, but they both got that. D: And yeah, so they had me…a little more about them, I guess. They–I think it's just way more competitive. Just way more competitive in general. I think I'm like trying to immigrate here [to the U.S.] your especially…like through school, college. D: Because you have to beat out just way more people to get the same opportunity that the average person here could get. If that makes sense, not saying that it's easy to go to college, It's definitely not because it's very expensive, but I think it's significantly harder trying to get an education in Latin America and Mexico. And the fact that they—once I got that, they were offered positions in the United States, I think also just speaks volumes. D: I have a lot of respect for just the work ethic in general. D: So they had me. I pretty much lived in Lawrence all my life. I grew up here and around the age of five, my mother died of cancer. So I didn't really get to know her very well. Like in-person. Everything everything I learned about her came later. So it was really just me and my siblings and my dad for a while…growing up. And it must have been around the age of seven or eight or when I was eight, I think when I was eight. So like three years later my dad remarried. And he married a super nice lady, my step-mom, Huili Yao. D: And I guess–I'm sorry, I'm just rambling about my story, but yeah–I guess it's like the first time I noticed things were…[reacting to Zoom chat comments] Oh, I’m completely fine. No worries. Notice things where like maybe a little different than like other people's experiences was definitely after my mom died, not having a mother figure. And also just like my dad was extremely busy with work and having to take care of three kids. D: So it left a lot of time for me to try to figure stuff out on my own. Like same with like all my siblings. We kinda had to figure a lot of [expletive] out on our own. Luckily, we did have this lovely lady who came to kinda take care of us when I was like genuinely too young to take care of myself. Her name name is Debbie. She's also from Panama. D: So I guess I had growing up, I had a lot of like Latino, Latinx, just like figures and at least older people. But also like at school there is absolutely… D: [Responding to Zoom chat question] Oh, no. My step-mom is Chinese. She's from Beijing. So that is that was that was a big difference too. But also I think that…I'll get into that later. D: She…I had those kind of figures growing up, but also at the same time. There was no one else in my grade–at my school at least–who was Latin or Hispanic or anything like that…And when there was it was about like fourth or fifth grade and his name is Sebastian. I remember it was a pair of twins named Sam and Sebastian. D: And they were like the first kind of my people, I guess I meant, which I think is like a big thing that I've kind of like realized now is that just like when you don't have people who like you can I like racially identify with, it kinda–definitely makes your own you question your own identity a lot. As I had something, I struggled with a lot. D: You know, obviously, I'm not white. I'm very much brown, but a lot of times I feel like just either because of my interests or, you know, I just—I felt out of place like not a real Mexican. D: [Reacting to Zoom chat comments] Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's actually interesting. That's what I thought too, but he–he's got his own things, I guess. Yeah. D: And the thing is I would I would go back to Mexico during the summers to visit my family there, on my mom's side. And why was there? I'd get really good Spanish again. Because when you're not speaking it, then, you know, kinda gets rusty. But when I would go there and get really good Spanish, and I'd start feeling like kind of more, especially as a kid when I was like eight, seven–around that age. I felt very in place there, if that makes sense. Like I would hang out with the kids on the street and they were just everyone was super nice. D: I remember we'd always just like, you know, like just play in the street like rollerblade or like they're just like all the kids in this little neighborhood where my aunt lives. D: But as I would go there later, I'm like around the age of 12, 13 and then later, like 14, 15, I started to notice that there was definitely, I mean, maybe it was just me being self-conscious, but being there, it's like my Spanish definitely has a bit of an American accent, probably, I bet, or like more. I know. D: And then also just like I would get told a lot that I like, I didn't look like stereotypically Mexican, which is I think it's I mean, I don't f***ing know, people are just weird. But they like it always like to either think I was like Indian or Native American or something like that. D: So I mean, it all just kind of fueled into this like really weird dynamic where I didn't know my racial identity, I didn't know. I just felt like a like a weird fraud. Like I'm not actually Latino. And then like everyone around me is white. And I think, I think a lot of people of color go through this where they have, they, “they want to be white phase.” Which is just sad, I think. And I'm glad I'm over that. I'm glad it didn't last, but I talked to my sister about that. She had it too. D: It's just like–It's a feeling because you don't necessarily belong. And the woman you do belong, but it feels like you don't, you're not like a “real” Latino or “real” Mexican. So it's like you don't want to necessarily like, just completely embrace that side of your culture. D: And then the other side is, you know, where you live and it's like, obviously you don't fit in there. Just like on the surface, like appearance wise…I'm luckily, I never never, I was so blissfully ignorant for the first 13, 14 years, I thought, like people in Lawrence didn't have racial racist tendencies–weren't racist at all. D: But that's just me being stupid as like I literally have people in middle-school just call me like a beaner I'm like, You can't. I mean, like then I was like, Oh, ha ha, he's joking, but obviously that's not that's just stupid f***ing kids. They would–they would always make jokes about something and then I would make jokes about them. Back. I mean, then again, it's not quite the same when it's not racially charged. D: But that's, I mean, that's just growing up in the Midwest and growing up ignorant. D: Then I think I've really started to like, realize that like, oh, people actually care about skin color. I mean, obviously I had known this stuff, but just because I had so many [sic] stuff I've seen on the media and it's like when you don't experience it, when you don't think you're experiencing it firsthand. It's really hard to kind of accept that you–don't you. I mean, like in my head, I didn't want to didn't want to think that like the majority of people who have interacted with, like, may have prejudice against me because of my race. D: And it's a bit different. I think a lot of Latina, Latino people , Latinx people are, or, sorry, a lot of Hispanic people necessarily. And some of the Latino are like white passing, white passing in quotations. I hate that term just because it's like, I don't know. It feels like it's like enforcing some white superiority thing, but I'm obviously not that. D: So when I started to realize, I think when I started really realize, okay, s*** is f***ed up is when my parents moved to Louisiana when I was 16. And I went with them. And immediately, like immediately I noticed, like all of people's prejudice, all of people's like just like inherent racism. D: I don't know if it was ingrained…I mean, it's obviously it was like in my school, which was also way different because it was majority like POC [People of Color] people, BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] people. I immediately noticed, like, a, like a, huge, huge difference. And just like everywhere in the city, I would get moved to Baton Rouge, which obviously has a lot of problems, are still has a lot of problems with like police brutality. D: There's just so many, um, yeah. And so like that was going on while I moved there. They're like, I think what had just happened when I moved there was one of the gangs there had just, like, retaliated to the cops and then killed like six of them [the cops]. D: And so it was like straight up a war in the city where I'm just like show up and people are hanging up. Your blue bluer lights are red lights to support either side. D: Just like okay, this is something that's just crazy, but obviously something way different than I had experienced in the Midwest. D: In the Midwest, I feel like most of the stuff that comes out is like passive aggressiveness. Passive aggressive racism, if that makes sense. Microaggressions, that type of thing. D: But I moved there and I realized, oh, I'm getting followed. I'm they followed when I go into stores. You know, people are just like blatantly being like sketched out [colloquial: made uncomfortable] about me because I'm walking around the city or especially in white happy places. D: Like talking to people at school, I would hear they're like their experiences and I'm just like, Oh, okay, make sense. So I kinda have that experience and that definitely changes like my outlook on things. D: And I come back to Lawrence and am I allowed to say, I think I'm allowed to say this. Yeah, I'm going to say unexperienced with the police, which was really f***ed up. D: [Response to Zoom chat comment] Okay. Cool. Yeah. D: So I came back and it was right before I can't right before I was in college and it was the summer and me and my friends were–we were smoking weed, Cool. We're smoking weed on the [Kansas] River and, you know, it was like my friends’ last day. Okay. Come on. We were like, I don't think like I mean, like obviously. D: [Response to Zoom chat comments] Fair enough. Fair enough. D: We were doing it and we, like, went downtown afterwards. We were just spending the day with my friend right before he left. And he was like good and we get out. And this was like four hours later, so [I] was not high and I was driving–we were like, Let's go drive over to my friend's house to say goodbye to my other friend or whatever. I was in the passenger seat. And it was like seven of us. D: So it was me and my white friend who was driving the car. And then there are other people who are in the other car. And he just threw weed under the seat. I mean, obviously not a good idea. And by the way, it wasn't wasn't my weed. And he threw the weed under the seat and he starts—starts driving over there and we're just driving and we get pulled over. We don't know why we got pulled over. D: We just got pulled over. It wasn't like breaking any laws. We asked him [the male police officer] and he's like, You guys have a tagline or something. And I was like, Okay, cool. And he's asking his questions like, you guys drink tonight. I'm in the passenger seat. By the way. D: First, he he knocks on the door or on the window. Rolled down the window. My friend rolls down the window. He sees both of us. Then just walks around to the side I'm on and asked me to roll down the window. And so I rolled down the window and he's just like, “Can I get you guys’ IDs? Do you know why I pulled you over?” and I'm like, “Why is he talking to me?” I'm in the passenger seat belt. But it's like no what's going on? And he was just like you guys had a tag light, has been drinking at all tonight and he hadn't. So we're like “No.” And he's like “You’ve been smoking?” And we're like, No, not right now. Obviously, we're not going to say that we were and he was like, “Okay, I smell it.” And we're like okay. D: Like he's got to search the car. He searches the car and he finds it. And obviously, we have–we have like things [agreed, planned responses]for this, for situations like this where it's like don't Just like don't claim it. Like just don't say it's either of ours. Just just what it'd be like. I don't know if it's like someone left it in there, like a friend when we dropped off. So that's what we say, right. I'm also not my car, just in the backseat. D: And we both say that he questions and I get a ticket for possession. Even though like we both said that it wasn't ours and my friend. And you get a ticket for possession. You got let off with a warning. I got to hit–a ticket with possession. D: And he found a little bag…that was a bag that had had the weed in it. And so he also gave me a ticket for paraphernalia. In Douglas County, the charge for having possession is a dollar–so it's it's easy; for having paraphernalia, which I guess you can kind of a bag as paraphernalia. It's like a $300 ticket. D: So that happened to me. And I kinda realized, I'm not a statistic. What the f***, you know, like actually like what the f***, I don't know. It just seems extremely like why? Like why just me? If it's not my if we bust said, it's not like it's weird. Okay. Whatever. D: So I go to the–I go show up to the [unknown] court and I paid the ticket and I want–I want to go into diversion because I don't want this to be on my record. So diversion is where you complete a second, like you pretty much complete some stuff and then they take it off your record. And you pay a lot of f***ing money because that's what the system is like. D: So I…at this point, this happened right before I went to college. literally a couple of days after I turned 18. And so I am going into college with this [charge/incident] and I'm like, okay, this is I show up to court and they're like, okay, apply for diversion. Do all these like prereq steps: which is get a drug evaluation and take a class or something, or the drug evaluation will tell you what you need to complete in order to complete your diversion. D: I had lots of friends. Lots of friends, mostly white. But who have gotten pulled over for DUIs, having like felony amounts of weed. By the way, we have a couple of grams, like, so it wasn't really a lot. Like Sure. Yeah, sure, straight up [unknown]. Like literally like just like so much worse. Like, I think I don't know. I think driving other than getting a DUI for being like blackout drunk is like, that's ridiculous. D: But they took drug evaluations, which is where a therapist will, a drug therapist, will interview you and ask about your usage of whatever you got in trouble for, right? Then they'll recommend either a super light punishment or I guess it's not called punishment, I guess it's called rehabilitation, or something worse. D: Now, my friend who got the DUI and my friend got a felony, or had a felony amount of weed and his car, they both got it, both got one ten-hour class that they had to do. And by the way, the drug, the drug evaluation cost about a 100 bucks. I'm paying this for this all on my own because I don't want to ask my dad for money because I know he would be very disappointed. And I…I don't know, I just don't wanna do that. So I'm trying to pay for this on my own. D: And I do this–this drug evaluation. And I'm like, I cannot get prescribed more things because everything that they will make you do cost a s*** ton of money. And so they asked me about my drug use. And I–you know, I tell the truth, but also in a way that makes it seem very not, like, bad if that makes sense. Like, I don't use it that often. And like I told her the story that happened, it wasn't my weed. D: So it takes about a week and then she sends a report, which gives me a report… D: Also, am I going too off track? I feel like I did. This is just I feel like this is just an experience that like.. M: No, there's no way to go too off track on the story you want to tell. D: Okay, cool. Yeah. And so I get this evaluation back. And pretty much in her evaluation, she just called me a liar. She just was like he's lying. I'm going to prescribe him drug therapy, which I had to pay for, which is $100 per session, eight hours of drug therapy. So $800. And then a class. And I was like, this is ridiculous. This is. Ridiculous. Like okay. I don't I don't understand what–like why–why–why you're doing this? To me. I don't know. It just felt like I was very much getting picked on. D: Which when I found out later that, hey, there's a little statistic that Latino people get incarcerated way more for minor drug offenses. I was like makes sense, checks out. D: So I don't know that–I thought was like after I moved back to [Lawrence] and I thought point I realized people are racist. I think it really sucks. I mean, obviously it's not getting before it before that and Louisiana, but I was like really like my whole like innocent perspective where maybe you give them the benefit of the doubt. No, it's it's a f***ed-up world and people will do anything. I mean, people would just want to I just want to f*** you up. D: And so I completed all that. Where luckily my drug…it’s funny because my drug therapist who was also Latino…we went into a couple of sessions and he was like, you don't have a problem, do you? And I was like, yeah, no, I don't. And he was like, Oh, okay. Well, then I guess we can cut some of these sessions because like you're passing the drug tests, you're not like we're talking about your use and it doesn't seem problematic. And I was like, Okay, cool. D: This is like straight up rehab. Like you're saying Me too. Like the DCCCA [ Douglas County Citizens Committee on Alcoholism, Inc.] center where people are like, I mean, like I get rehab for like, I don't know if you're addicted to heroin or cocaine or is like the like, weed? Are they really sending me to rehab for smoking weed? Okay. I guess if that's what you think. I mean, I don't know. And then that ended. D: Now I'm going to talk—I guess I'll talk about my experience. I'm starting to like everything that I feel like has happened to me because of being a Latino. So I'm a theater major, theater and film major. And right now. So there's right now there's not a lot of like people and like on, like big media for BIPOC. But they're trying to change that. But that also means that they're tokenizing to a huge degree. D: So like my experience in the [Theatre and Dance] department has been very much just me being a token which feels really bad. But also I was like, maybe I'm at KU. I…I'm just like I'm still getting stuff done and like my professors who are nice are telling me I'm talented. And so it didn't feel that bad. And then my professors who was like a mentor was like “You should get an agent and see what work you can get out in the K..and out in like KC” [Kansas City]. And so I was like, Yeah, I'll do that. D: So I apply. And they interviewed me. And they don't really care about a lot of like my resume stuff which is understandable and they don't really ask him questions. They–they seem to just be very…The woman who was interviewing me was like we don't have anyone your flavor. I bet you can understand what that means and can immediately clear that in the department.. D: I am–I'm just gonna get tokenized for a long time, which just makes it very hard to kind of makes you feel a little bit of impostor syndrome, a little bit of just like my getting things because brown, but obviously, I mean, I am I am literally n But then I, you know, and then you have to deal with the other things about background. I don't know. It's just weird. I'm just really, really fucking weird. D: Yeah. And so that's been my experience at school [the University of Kansas]. Oh, I guess I also–I don't know. I've I've definitely been treated by figures of authority. I don't know if I have to get into another story. But it's pretty much just like I know at this point that like even in high school, like I've been treated by figures of authority like way s***ier because of the color of my skin, which is just a**. D: And it's like, I think especially being in the Midwest where there's not a big community here. It's like I'm getting treated—treated like shit by one side of the community and I'm getting not accepted by the other side of the community. So it's just, I mean, treated by s*** by white people not getting accepted by the other side of the community. So–it's just like–being an immigrant in here, like in the Midwest., sucks. D: I mean, I think it definitely makes people, I think it makes you feel a lot more alone. And like a racial identity sort of way. D: I'm trying to think of like…other…. Yeah, I don't think I need to get into some other stories for just like authority figures treating me. I feel like there's the point is already across. M: You totally can if you want. D: Okay. Yeah. M: You could give one that sticks out to you or something. Don't have to give them all if you don't want, but I've got the time. D: Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I'll just go like a quick rundown on this one. High school, I was pretty well-liked about, like with all my teachers, I wasn't a bad student. I was a little loud, but like my teachers never seemed to have a problem with it. They just, you know, they would joke around with me. D: And one day of spring break, my…I was with my friends and we were playing that one game where you type a sentence on [sic] a story and then the person comes up with the next sentence. And they were just passing my laptop around. And it was logged into my school email. There's a sentence in there that was like “I had a gun.” And it was logged into–on like Google Docs…and the story made no coherent sense. Like it didn't make any sense. But I guess it got flagged because there's the word “gun.” D: And the next day at school or like right after spring break, I show up at school. And the SRO, the school resource officer, the school cop, the one that also by the way, dropped her gun and let it go off in school. But whatever…terrible, terrible person, by the way, she comes into class. And then this other lady who I know one of the administrators really seen them. D: They're like Diego, Can you come with me? And my friends are like, Oh, he's in trouble..[That’s them being] that stupid. And I'm just like, Well, what did I do? I got to know what the f*** I did. Genuinely. I'm like, I didn't do anything, so I don't think I'm in trouble at this point. And I'm just walking. I'd walk out with my backpack and just as soon as we get out the door. D: They pat me down there like any weapons on you? And I'm like, well, it's like now I take my bag and they search it and they are like, okay, we have no weapons on you. They take me…they take me down to the office area, whatever, where they're like the SRO is straight up trying to like…she's interrogating me. And I'm just like, I was just like What do you know why we brought you in? I was like, I gotta be honest, I have no idea what happened. D: And at this point I'm like something's up [going on] because I'm like, they want to ask me if I had a weapon. They pull up the Google Doc and I go, Oh, oh, this is just like a huge misunderstanding. Like this isn't like…that doesn't make any sense. So you can look at it like this just doesn't make sense. Like I obviously this isn't true. You can ask my friends and they’ll vouch [for me]. And they're like, Yeah. Okay. So they just I mean, they don't say that. They like kind of make me feel like s***. Like I'm like I'm not going to shoot up the school. I'm not going to shoot up the f***ing school. D: They take my phone, my laptop, and all my belongings, and then interrogate all my friends. And like pretty much say s***like, by the way, my friend group and high-school was probably like–it was like eight people and half of them were bipolar. So like they said to like those guys, like my brown friends, just like you guys would be the type of kids to pull the s***. D: And I was like, first of all, I didn't know this lady. Well, I knew her as, like, the SRO, but I didn't know or like, I never had met her and we were like, what like who who does she think? She goes like, first of all, no or not? Liked by our teachers. And they realized that I'm telling the truth. And they're like, Okay, you are telling the truth. But the lady was like, we're still going to suspend you. And I was like, why I didn't do anything. D: And so that technically they couldn't really sus…like what can what can they see? What rule did I break? And so that labeled it as misuse of technology. Okay, cool. What my, like, my teacher, I might upset by this. And my teachers, like one of them is like, I'm gonna get you an attorney like you can f***ing sue them. Like this is f***ed up. And it was but I was just, like, tired. I don't know. I ended up not following through with an attorney and just kinda took the suspension for literally no reason. There was no reason for me to spend it. D: But yeah. So just like that's that's the other experience I had with authority figures feel like kinda just–kinda just sucks. M: I told Val [Diego’s older sister] after I interviewed her. But this obviously as a Free State [high school in Lawrence, Kansas] mom, this is horrifying and shocking to me like, this is my kid's school. How is this happening at my kid's school? Yeah. What I told Val is, give me some names. I will track them down. D: So funny because this is the same SRO officer who dropped her van and let it go off in school. M: Oh my God… D: Like first of all, do you need a gun? I mean, whatever, I guess. Yeah. Bring your gun into a high school. It's good. Whatever you think you need to do. I don't know. It's just just so much bulls***. And yeah, I think it's like those those experiences kind of shaped like a bit of anger and resentment towards just like authority figures in general. But also kinda made me realize that dislike, ignorance I had that giving people benefit of the doubt, which is not true. And…stuff. D: Yeah. I guess that's I think that's about all. I didn't really talk much about like my home life, but life is very much it's hard to separate what was going on because it was just like a lot is going on at the time and what was caused by anything. D: But I think also like growing up without a mother figure, it definitely was a hard thing because I think it's ingrained into..into a bit of like masculine. I'm masculine…toxic masculinity. It's also, I think it's slightly in Latino culture, which is something, anything else I had to realize. D: Even like my experience with, I guess this is probably the last thing I'll talk about my experience with, being queer. Bisexual. But I just had a terrible not like a terrible experience. My dad is very open-minded guy, but just like definitely came out not the way I wanted to. I got kinda got outed. But I think like I can tell if it's just because it's old or it's probably a mix of both and toxic masculinity. D: They'll just make, make comments about when I do things slightly more feminine or queer. And definitely it just makes me feel sometimes like just not not good. I guess. I don't know. I think yeah, I think I think that's it. D: And I was also talking to because it's funny is I have another one. I get another queer friend who is also he's Latino. And he kind of says the same thing, like it's like at least on Latino side because it's white, but like there's definitely like some kind of toxic masculine leftover that I think might just be specific to…obviously not just like toxic masculinity is just the Latino men are fathers, but like it's a different type of I feel like there's a word for it. I can't remember though. I don't know. Like a word in… M: Machismo? D: Yeah. Yeah. But that is–that is probably about all I feel like I just… M: How about being queer at Free State? D: Oh, I was not on out. I pretty much the situation was I was very much just questioning for a long time. But I didn't know I was I was experimenting like kind of like a little bit like my senior year of high school. And then as I kind of like stop being so much experimenting and started being like, Oh, okay, this makes more sense. Now, I got out in not the best way. D: [Responding to Zoom chat comment] Yeah. I know. It's–it's okay. I'm over it now. D: But then that kind of for a long time made me feel not like not secure and letting other people know my sexuality. So even now I come across as more of a straight or masculine, I guess. I think that is probably a product of that situation. D: Although, like, I feel like I've been unlearning a lot of those habits recently, just being around more and queer people. So yeah. D: I think my experience was like within Free State really didn't exist because I just–I just ran much kept it a secret. Or like the people who knew were like the people who I was doing stuff with. And I told him I was like, I don't want to come out. Yeah. That makes sense. D: But yeah, that is then like my experience, I guess. Yeah. And it's been my experience. Intermediate point in journey (1) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Arkansas Intermediate point in journey (2) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Stillwater, Oklahoma Intermediate point in journey (3) City/State or Country to which interviewee (or parents/grandparents) traveled before coming to current point of residence Baton Rouge, Louisiana Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Diego Subject The topic of the resource Oral History from Bolivia and Mexico to Lawrence, KS. Description An account of the resource Diego grew up in Lawrence, KS. His father is from Bolivia and his mother is from Mexico. In this interview, Diego reflects on the lack of various Latino role models in his life (especially in school), his sexuality, and navigating his Latino identity. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant La Paz, Bolivia and Mexico. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <br /><iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_6qnf0at8" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_6qnf0at8/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Heartland Diego Trimmed"></iframe> Bolivia Culture Differences Discrimination Education Identity Language Lawrence Mexico Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marta Caminero-Santangelo Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Martha Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Video City (Region, State) and Country of Origin for 2nd and 3rd generation, this is the place of family's origin Durango, Mexico Current City of Residence Where in Kansas or Missouri the Interviewee currently lives Dodge City, Kansas Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Martha (M) Marta (C) M: [My father] was–had already been in the States for a year. M: My aunts and my uncles had moved to Wichita. They had a pretty decent beef packing plant and job and so they felt they could help him out. So he did come illegally to the US just because we didn't have a future. I mean, he didn't have a future in Mexico. He just can find work. He'd go and sometimes he'd come back right away because he didn't have he didn't have work. So he finally just told my mom I can't do this. You don't need to provide. And so he ended up coming, but he did send for us a year later. M: And he had paid somebody to bring us over. Obviously. He passed around a lot and made sure he talked to families that he had crossed over. She was really nervous about for children and his wife, putting a trust and somebody to bring his family. So he ended up getting somebody he thought he could trust it cross us over. And so that's kinda what we did. M: My my mom left everything as it was in our little home. It was just a one bedroom one room for everything home. And so we just had the clothes we had on our bags. That's all we traveled with. And there are four men, four children, my mom and a 16-year-old girl. And the guy bringing this over, that crossed. M: And so we ended up, like I said, in Wichita and get the taste of my new life right away. I felt like I fell in love with everything about which taught that it was a beautiful place. And most importantly, we were–we were with my dad M: And so school–we came in closer Labor Day and school started. I absolutely fell in love with school. M: My teacher, I think had everything and anything to do with my success at the start of my new life in school here in the US. She took a very special interest in me and my family. She ended up pretty much adopting all of us. She was a single. She was single. She was a nun for 30 years, then ended up in public education. And she was strict. Obviously, she was a nun before, but she was definitely–not was but is definitely the reason why I am in education now. M: She made me fall in love with education. She taught us all the hidden rules of this country and all the new things that I was exposed to that I know nobody else would have taken the time to. M: She exposed us to our first library visit–public library visit. She showed us exactly what to do so that my mom could then take us. And we didn't live so far away from there that–it wasn't so hidden. I mean, it wasn't so far that my mom was unable to learn the ropes of okay. This is what you do in a public library. This is how you check books out, you know, but she [the former nun] taught us that. M: She also exposed me to your family. It isn't just cut your hair. You actually go to a hairdresser. She took me–she probably saw my hair. Have wondered who I'm probably going to give this girl a haircut or whatever, or somebody gave her a haircut. So she exposed me to that. M: She exposed–exposed us to this to movie theaters. She took me to my first play ever–was Sleeping Beauty. My first time to a restaurant, Dairy Queen,..My first dictionary that I ever had. M: My dad's friend on the weekends used to play guitar for us and he saw that I showed interest in their guitar. And she he gave me his guitar because he was leaving and my teacher took it so that somebody could fix it and get it ready for me because she thought that it was necessary for me to have something that was of value and she didn't have to do those things. M: But so there's other things that she did teach me, hidden rules about how to act in public and what Hispanic children do that might not be so prevalent and unlike the American culture. And so she was Hispanic herself, but she'd been here forever. So she really took interests in our family and just teaching us different things so that we were successful in the US. M: So she was part of my life until we moved to Dodge City. M: And just back then, you didn't have text messages or, you know. Phones, that cell phones. So we slowly started losing the connection. But I wish that I would have done more to let her know how wonderful she was. M: So yeah, we just we came to Dodge City after five years in Wichita–the reason being was that the beef packing plant, my dad work that they asked him to transfer to Dodge [City] because they were closing there is and since he had not missed one day of work in five years, they told him that, we know you're not legally here, but you're a good employee and we will hire you on the spot in Dodge City and we’ll even pay you $500 cash in your first month's rent. M: So my dad took the offer. He didn't bring us right away because we have school. So he waited until we finished school, which was only about a month and a half. He was in Dodge City in April. M: And so we moved to Dodge, which was a huge shock. It was a big difference from the area where I was going to school in Wichita which was the north side, which was predominantly Hispanic and African-American. M: When I moved to Dodge I had a huge exposure to people that were not like me, which was mainly white people. M: And so I had to, I felt like I had to re-learn a lot about the American culture that–not the American culture I was used to seeing, but a whole different being. M: There was nobody in school that looked like me as far as teachers are role models. There were some kids, were Hispanic, but none of them like–I longed to see somebody that was also born in Mexico like I was, and I didn't see that. M: So there's a lot of things that I did to not cause attention, which now I'm like, I wish somebody would have guided me. M: For example, like in my social studies classroom, are Tea Tree use to recognize those that were doing very well in her class, she would have you stand and give you a ranking like Martha Reeves had a 97, has a 97% in the class. Well, I noticed that it was me and a few other kids that were very, I guess, the well-known, rich kids. And she said, you know, if the top ones will end up coming to my house for a party and I have a pool and I'm like, Okay, Number one, I don't know how to swim; two, my parents would never buy me a bathing suit; and, three, I don't I don't even know how to get there. M: So I purposefully went down in some [of the] assignments because I didn't want to be called like she did. And so just I guess this dumb stuff that you as a kid or really kind of analyzing in your head. And I just shut myself from the top of the class to not have so much attention drawn upon me. M: But of course, you know, my parents were immigrants, so my dad didn’t finish second grade, my mom didn't finish fourth-grade. M: So there's a lot of navigating that I had to do for them because I was the oldest. And so there are a lot of things that I did for the family since I was very young. M: I do remember as early as third grade, maybe even possibly second, where I would go in and take care of paying the bills. I had my little envelopes and would go in and do the transactions myself. Obviously, somebody would drive me there. My dad would drive me or an uncle, but I would do–I would get down and get those done. I would go pay the rent. M: So the exposure to that was just that was a common thing that I had to do. Translating papers at vino would come in, I would have to do that. Then it got a little bigger to–opening a checking account and making sure that I balanced the checkbook and buying our first car, negotiating about that. M: And then I–when I was 13, we bought my dad actually found an abandoned home that somebody was selling it very cheap, like $3 thousand, which is unheard of, but my dad was just looking for a way to not pay rent. And obviously with six kids at the time, he just wasn't able to provide a lot of for us. M: So this house, my dad just said, hey, there's this house. I need you to find out what we could do to purchase it. I didn't–I had no clue how somebody had mentioned that downtown and dodge, there is somebody that could help and they pinpointed where the business was. So it was like a county title place. M: So I went and I'm sure they were shocked to see a 13-year-old kid saying, Hey, well, we want to buy a house and this is what's going on. Can you help me? And so yeah, the lady walked us through the entire thing. Obviously, it took about a month to go through all the paperwork and things, but I felt pretty proud that I was able to negotiate those things that pretty much adults do, but I had to do it because my parents counted on me to do it. M: Just everything. I was a first for a lot, so my siblings kinda had a count on me and we were in charge of our own education because my parents just trusted us that we would do the right thing. Did all of us follow that, possibly not all of us, but I feel as the oldest I had a responsibility. M: And so when I didn't understand that I was not legal here until I knew that we were illegal, but I didn't know the extent of how it was going to affect me until I started high school. M: I didn't know what I was gonna do past high school, but I knew that high school–that just getting my diploma was not going to be the end. I just–I had bigger dreams, I guess. I didn't know how he's gonna get there. I didn't even know what college was about. M: But I remember that they did like a Hispanic day at K-State and they selected some Hispanic kids from the high-school to go. And I was one of them. And it just gave me a whole different perspective about life after high school, but I still didn't not know two things: I didn't know how to get there; and I didn't know what you did there. M: But I couldn't ask anybody because of my [indistinguishable] people know. M: So a few close friends at the bike. So how did you fill out your application for college? And they're like, No, my parents did. So I'm like, Oh man, who's going to help me? M: So I remember there was a meeting for parents for financial aid and I told my parents about it and they're like, Well, you know, go ahead and go and see what they tell you. What are we going to do? We don't understand anything. You have been pretty much doing everything on your own. So just go Listen. M: So I went by myself. No parents know students were there–it was just for parents. So I didn't give anybody eye contact. I just went with my notebook. And I just listened and took notes and kind of stumbled my way through community college, which was here and Dodge because I really didn't know what else to do. And at the time I felt like marketing was probably going to be something that I would get into just because everybody told me you're bilingual, you should go into business, etc. M: So kind of listening to some people, but I was the first to graduate from high school in both sides of my family. Nobody had ever done that. Which was a big accomplishment to them because, you know, I mean, I think I had a few aunts who graduated sixth grade and that's it, Like nobody else. M: And I was the oldest on my mom's side of the family, which were the ones that were here in the US. Mostly my dad's, we're still in Mexico. M: So most of the time in Mexico, even today, sixth grade is basically if you don't go after that, but unless you have money. M: So I kinda had a little secret. Actually, it was a big secret when I graduated, I knew that I was pregnant. And that was a big, huge burden that I carried for a little bit because they were so excited about me getting my diploma and just doing something with my life. And then I have this hidden thing that I was carrying a child and only two people knew. M: I knew and my now husband at the time, he was my boyfriend, we knew that we were going to be parents. We had seeked help. Both of us decided to go to what was called Birthright, I believe, and for advice. M: And so they were very, very good to us and just kinda helping us try to figure things out and navigate this humongous thing that we were encountering. M: But long story short, I just kept pushing forward. I took 21 credit hours when I was pregnant and I got straight A's and I just kept going after that. I mean, not as strongly as, you know, when I didn't have a child, but I just kept pushing forward and got my associates and then obviously then my bachelor's degree. M: By that time, I had my second child when I was teaching already. And then I decided to get my master's degree and they–through K-State–hey had a specific cohort. M: They were doing academies, and so I was part of a leadership group for five years through case date, I went every summer. And so a lot of the negotiation and trying to figure out this cohort and academy to come to Dodge. M: And we finally made it a reality. We were the first academy ever offered in Dodge City to get a master's degree, which I feel like I led that somewhat because I was so desperate to get something here based on just higher education. M: But long story short, I've been co-liaison, which means that I help teach some of those classes here. M: This is, I believe, our fourth or fifth Academy where I take part and I collaborate with the professors and they let me teach some parts of it. M: And now I'm working on my doctorate. I started about a year-and-a-half ago. I still have a long way to go, but I feel like everything is possible and people say like, I have why do you do that like is unnecessary for you too, to get your doctorate and I'm like, you know, I've always been I always feel like you can do anything you put your mind to and I'm not doing it for anything, but just because I feel like that's what I want to do. M: Next summer. I'll have my–I'll be eligible for my license to be a superintendent. Do I want to be a superintendent? Not right now I don't. But I always feel like it's not about luck that you get things. It's about being prepared. M: So who knows, you know, five years from now if something would come up, I just want to be prepared. M: So I feel like through both of my parents, my dad being such a hard worker, he worked the beef packing plant for 37 years. He got tons of awards for not missing work for being just very, very true to his job and just being a hard worker and a person that people counted on. He taught us a lot in that aspect. M: Yeah. My mom, she was a silent, silent parent for a lot of times because she didn't drive, she didn't speak English, but she still made it to all of our conferences. She still was the one that was the connection to the school. And she's seeking a lot of help at times from teachers, from counselors, whatever. When she found that there were difficulties raising teenagers, which, you know, how that goes. And then she had so many of us right in a row. M: So but I feel like my family had a lot of success in Kansas because not just my parents, but also our community. We had in Wichita, Hoover kids. M: We had so many people helping us, whether it's from church or the recreation in the city, people, the police. I mean, we had, so, I have so many stories of how wonderful the community was to us. And I felt like that was a big turning point. M: For example, we were brand new newcomers to the country, and it was Christmas time. I believe I was in third grade at the time, but the police came. It was Christmas day and a police officer, his car was out there and he knocked and we were all in shock. Of course, my parents had with the kids because we just tried to stay completely out of their radar. M: And I opened the door because I was the one that spoke English and he just asked if this was the Reece residence and I said yes, and he said, Well, I have something for you guys, I have gifts. So I told my siblings, of course everybody went running except for my parents are still behind, but somebody must have asked us at that time what we wanted for Christmas and they actually got us some really nice gifts. So when the officer was leaving my little sister at the time, she said I want to be a police officer just like them. M: And she actually is–she's a detective for the Wichita Police Department and she never deviated from that path. And I felt like even though she was young, that was a humongous turning point for her to know that people do things and people from the community did embrace who we were. M: And I don't know, there are so many amazing stories about people that touched our lives, but I feel like six kids. All of us have some type of degree. Obviously, right now, I'm the high school principal at Dodge City high school. And my first year I've been in administration for a long time, but first-time are at the high-school level and I have a sister that does professional development for security along the coast of Florida, and then my brothers an electrician, my sister, like I stated, she's a detective for the police department in Wichita and then I have my next sister. She is second to the youngest, and she has her own salon here in Dodge City and she's very successful salon. I think this is gonna be her 15th year as a salon owner. And then my youngest sister, she is a broker. She has her own real estate company, ReMax. M: And so I feel like as immigrant children, truly our whole entire lives, we have lived in Kansas. Kansas has been a blessing to us. We didn't understand the degree of what happens when you become an immigrant when you leave your own country. But I feel like the gifts that were given to us, we really took advantage and in a blessing way, not, not in a bad way. M: But I do remember coming back to Dodge City after we were legalized because we were–we were able to be legalized through the amnesty act that Ronald Reagan signed in 1986. We were coming back from Wichita after they told us that we were residents and we were driving home, making so many plans with our lives because we now have the ticket to be able to live without fear of being deported, enabled to go to school, meaning college, being able to do the things that American people do, except the voting piece at that time. M: But, um, it was a trip that I will never forget because we just felt like we had so much power to do so many great things. And my dad, he just had this big smile because he just kept–he kept here. And all of us talk about all the things that we're going to do and it's just an amazing, amazing experience. M: But when people–when you did the pledge of allegiance or you do you any opening of any sporting event or whatever it may be. I really feel the words that we have to say when we do the pledge or when we sing. Because it's–it's very significant for me. M: I don't forget where I come from. I think it's important to know and to always remember and always pay tribute to where you come from. But–but also know where your home is. And we feel that Kansas is our home. It's been our home. M: I'm 51 now, so I've never left Kansas and never plan to leave Kansas. It is just part of who we are. It's because of people in this state, but that's basically just–my story in a nutshell. I mean, if I can go in detail into some other aspects, but I feel like that's basically just a brief summary of what we've encountered in as an immigrant family in Kansas. C: So that's an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It's really, really powerful on so many levels. C: I wrote down some questions is I was going along. You do not need to answer them if you don't want to. But these are just some things that occurred to me. C: You mentioned when you got to Dodge City that maybe there were some Latinas are some HispaniC, but there was no one who looked, who you thought was like you from your situation. C: Did that change later? Were there more? M: Yes. So the beef packing plant in that time was called Excel, now called Cargill, but that's when these jobs opened up. So within the 10-year timespan that we were here, the minority majority flipped. C: Wow. M: It was significant. But at the time when we got here, it was–everybody knew everybody. I mean, you still to some degree do but not really because it's grown. I meant everybody knows everybody within the Hispanic community, like you knew. M: Oh, so you live on because everybody lived in the same area. The church was the hub of the–Catholic Church was the hub of that area. M: So we would go to church, 150 people or whatever. It was. Not a lot. We just felt the closeness, but then it just started getting too full. And then it turned to various masses and then that was too–not enough. So then they moved it to the Parish center. And then from the Parish center. Then they–they made this humongous church that wasn't even close to our neighborhood anymore they seated now a thousand people, So just kinda just yeah, it just progressed. C: So. When did that sense of like, as you were growing up, did that change your or did that affect in any way your sense of your relation to Dodge City? C: Or I guess it was this was was this this was Wichita? M: Dodge City by then. Yeah. No. It was a blessing in disguise that we ended up in Dodge. Later on, we realized through our family that was done in Wichita that the area where we grew up, it became big. It really truly began to be infested with gangs. And it was all the kids. We knew the area that very same block that we lived in. M: We have an uncle that lives there and we lived next door and then a lot of neighborhood kids were around there. We were the not–we weren't the troublemakers, but we were the louder kids. We were the ones that were always outside. And there is a family who–their children went to a Catholic school and they hardly ever got to play with us. Well, they were the main guys in the gang now and we were floored–we were like, what would have happened to us? Who would've stayed? Because– C: Oh, my God… M: Literally was infested. Yeah. C: And do you have any sense of the source of the gangs or where did that come from? M: I think that when you, when you grow up literally truly living two cultures, you began a huge almost like a separation because you go home and you live a specific life that your friends have no clue about. And so if there's a, there's a piece missing, you tend to go to the side where you are getting what you want, your craving. M: And so I feel like my parents saw that a lot of the people that were working at the meat, beef packing plants or where the job was dominating. So for example, a lot of my friends at that time, their parents both worked at the plant, which one worked at night and one worked during the day. M: So they didn't see one of the parents or they didn't see both parents. So my mom and dad made a commitment that my mom would not work. Even though there were six kids. Just because my dad's like, we need stability in the home and he busted it for many years, but we knew we went to bed at a certain time. My mom made sure that she did her part as a mother to make sure we had food to eat. We were clean. We–all those things that mothers that work still do but it's just it was a different time back then you know. M: So I feel like there was–me and I'm not saying that some of my siblings didn't want to turn that direction. Obviously, your teenagers and you're looking for rebellious things, but it thank goodness that it didn't stick. C: Are you still close to the entire family? M: Yes, we are extremely close. M: My dad once said just recently, he said, If one of you is in pain, the rest of you hurt, which is true. M: We are very, very, very close family. I love my siblings or my friends, but you know, that's we hang out with each other and we're such a big family that we can do that. And to some degree, my dad raised us where the home is just for the families. So we really didn't have friends that came over and friends that were part of our lives, but we were not–we didn't go to their homes a lot. They came to ours. And it was just kinda like that even though we were had we had a 400 square foot home for six kids, mom and dad, but we still have friends stay the night. We still had we still had kids at crave to be in our house. M: And I look at things differently. You know, we had a friend who was white. She had an underground pool at her house. She lived–she lived with us like she was always at our house and we're like, you have your own room. But she–she was the only child. And so when she came over and my mom my mom and dad acted like she was their kid. So she just really gravitated towards our family. M: And so I understand now, but back then I'm like, I didn't get it. Yeah, it was quite a few of our friends, like my best friend, her dad was an alcoholic and she spent her time with us. My parents understood. My dad and my mom paid extra attention to her because she needed it–she need that love. That's the family I don't know. C: Yes, it's the family connections and ties. The luxuries that. C: My daughter, when she was growing up, had a friend who I don't know this for a fact, but I strongly suspect that the friends family was undocumented and the friend was not ever allowed to sleep at our house. And so we that's how we were there. But the friend was not allowed to sleep. M: It's very common in the Hispanic community. I really don't understand why, but that was a big bright and that's why we only went over before– C: If you–if you're in a potentially insecure position, you don't want to send your kid to another place? Very scary. M: Yeah. I remember we were at Shelton park in Wichita and something happened. I don't know if a little girl got ran over or something happened, but the police–it was just packed with police while we were at the park is my dad always took us in the afternoons and we played basketball or we did something, but I remember the police just try coming out from everywhere. M: My dad grabbed us and we ran the opposite way, took the long way home and left the truck there. We didn't go pick up the truck till late at night because we wanted to stay under the radar as much as possible. C: Yeah. So here are some other questions I wrote down. You didn't say much about whether you remembered coming over? M: Yes, I do. I–I mean, I remember my mom and dad talking at night and my mom was crying because my dad's like, hey, yeah, we gotta go. I have to go. There's no other option and she's like, you know, how many men leave and then just leave their women and find somebody else over there and they thought that the children were asleep, but I heard everything. M: It was hard because my dad is very like–we have the same love language. So it's a lot of hugs, a lot of “I love yous” a lot of physical touch like we just–he just loves that way and we did too, So we missed that. We missed him a lot. M: And my mom said that I did go through depression because it was just hard–it was hard for me as a wife. But the kids suffered. So when he asked for us to–when he got all the arrangements for us to come. I mean, I do remember traveling on the bus, getting to the border, Juárez. M: It was a whole different world because Juárez is crazy. I mean–I this the first time I saw first transvestite and we just stared at mom's like, you guys can't stare, you know, we just we're here. We're going to stay at a hotel to hear what we have to do. M: So a guy that night, he kinda told us what was going to happen. The next morning, we met up at a park, and that's when we met all the people that we're gonna go with us. C: You said you were the oldest. How many were there? M: There's four of us. Four of us, four men. And then my mom, a 16-year-old and the coyote. M: So when we got to the actual river, they had some deal that said, you know, if you–if we honk twice, you know, getting the water, if they gave us the clues. So the men already headed arrange for they're going to take each of us, each guide to each kids [sic], which I honestly think it was just like a God thing because how did four men end up with four kids. I don't know. M: But so anyway, we were–I remember one of them had me and he was just going through the water and I turned back and I saw my mom and the water was up to here–to her [Martha points to her neck] and she was walking with the 16-year-old and we just started screaming. M: I started screaming first. Siblings are screaming bloody murder because we were going to lose my mom, you know, and so the guys are really nice there. He was reassuring me. He was as soon as I put you down, I'm gonna go get your mom. M: And I look now and I'm like, you know, here are for men with four little ones in the back for a big long trip like we didn't know them but it turned out there turned out to be good people, you know, it's just we're all on a mission for the same thing, but but yeah, it was a very long trip. M: And I just remember we couldn't get down. But we did go up, pull up. What's–what's now Sonic, but I didn't know what it was at the time. And just you push a button, somebody comes in rollerskates with your food. I like, you know, like–like the hamburger had red stuff like this is gross but we still try to do. M: But even now, when I tell, sometimes I tell my–my kids, my students that stories and I say even now, I have to, I have to take a whiff of the bag of Sonic because it takes me back to that day. You know what? M: The other day I had a really, really, really hard day at work. It was a Friday, August 27th. Because it [was] terrifically time-consuming and a hard day of my new job because we had threats and social media got–it was chaos in here. M: And at the end of the day, my husband, he's like–don't cook. Like let's, you know, let's just go get some food somewhere. I'm like, I do not want anybody to see me. I don't want to be out in public because it ended up being such a horrible thing. And it's [Dodge City] a small community. M: So he's just let's just go to Sonic. You know, and I–we sat in the parking lot and The smell took me back like, you know what? Look where you are now. Like don't I don't know. It just it's a constant reminder to me just because it's the smell just takes me back to that little girl. M: And I, and I'm blessed and I shouldn't be complaining about a difficult day like you learn from it, move on and do things differently. M: But yeah, it just there's little things that always reminds me of honestly like if you don't progress in this country is because you don't want to. It's there, It's there for you to do something with your life in so many different things are offered to you that you can–you can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish. C: That's so powerful and I'm so–I'm so impressed that you tell your students that story. C: Do you think your students identify? M: I do because our schools is 80% Hispanic and I'm very passionate about recruiting teachers. M: So we have a teacher cadet class in high school. And before I came here, this is my eighth year that I come talk to the kids. It's my former teacher. I've only had two amazing teachers was my second grade teacher and my high-school teacher, Mr. Maple, who's still here. M: So I give a speech to his class and so he asked me this year to come in. You're here now, so just come come early. And so I went a few weeks ago to talk to them and I do want them to know my story because it's very similar to their stories. M: So I want them to understand that you can accomplish no matter what obstacles are in front of you, you still have to push forward. M: I remember being pregnant and showing up to college and here's all these young girls and guys partying it up. And but I felt no shame, honestly, I just needed to do what I needed to do. M: Even now, like my doctorate, I feel like there's so many people that are extremely brilliant in my class. But you know what, I'm going to push through it because it's what I want and it's gonna take me three or four times the longer than some of them because I have to work at it, you know, and so… Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Martha Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from Durango, Mexico to Dodge City Description An account of the resource Martha is from Durango, Mexico and is currently the principal of Dodge City High School. In this interview, she talks about her positive experience in school, the closeness of her family, and the importance of connecting to your community. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Durango, Mexico Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_j5jzjvf7" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_j5jzjvf7/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Heartland Martha Trimmed"></iframe> Crossing the Border Culture Differences Education Identity Social and Family Networks Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marta Caminero-Santangelo Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Fernanda Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Video City (Region, State) and Country of Origin for 2nd and 3rd generation, this is the place of family's origin Aguascalientes, Mexico and Chiapas, Mexico Current City of Residence Where in Kansas or Missouri the Interviewee currently lives Lawrence, Kansas Transcript Fernanda (F) Marta (M) F: I can go ahead and start. F: This is my story as being the first-generation in Kansas and being the first-generation of kids born in the United States in my family starts with my mom. And I know my mom's side of the story a lot better than I do my dad, but I do want to share both. F: My mom is from Aguascalientes, Mexico, and she is from a neighborhood called Loma Bonita. This was–it's funny to having gone back with my mom and Mexico because the city has expanded a lot. So that used to be the border of the city, which is now a huge metropolitan area that has extended far beyond this neighborhood. F: But at the time that's where she lived and that was central to her story because that was one of the poor neighborhoods in that time of the city. And she grew up there, That's the house they had always lived in. They had built on top of it. F: And my grandpa is a very ingenious guy and just builds and makes whatever he's incredibly smart. Even though he only had nine months of formal education where he learned to read and write. Beyond that, he is completely self-taught. F: And so she was born in that house. And it was five siblings, my grandparents. And she had a lot of ambition. She wanted to go to college, she wanted to have a career in finance, but her family was very poor. F: So when she finished high school, she really didn't have the opportunity to go to college. And I think she was 17 around this time. And seeing that there was no really opportunity for growth for her, she decided to move to the US and this is something that happened pretty spontaneously. F: She says that one of her uncles have come back to visit in Mexico. And she was like, I wanna go with you, take me with you in a matter of a week or two, she was able to get a visa, which was really, really lucky at that time, but she had falsified all her documents, got a visa, and left with one of her cousins to come to the US with that uncle. F: And they ended up in Wichita, Kansas. And she stayed here for a couple of months. And then or it moves maybe a couple of months to a year. F: And then her family had this doesn't really know what caused this or anything, but her aunts lied to her, saying that my grandma was having serious health complications when she wasn't. But my aunts kind of made her rush back to Mexico. So she went back, realized that there was nothing wrong and people just wanted her to come back. As she was obviously very angry about that and immediately tried to come back again, got her visa within a matter of two weeks, which super, super lucky–ended up coming back to the United States and then she'd stayed there, stayed here ever since. F: She was still only 17 or 18 at that time, she got a job, started renting. Eventually, my grandpa came over. They both helped save money to get the rest of the family over and they were all still pretty young. I think my youngest uncle was 14 or 15 and started going into high school in Wichita. F: Then she married my dad. And my dad is from Chiapas, Mexico. And he, similar to my mom, was fleeing poverty and violence in that part of the country. F: So I think his family slowly started to migrate north–living in separate cities until they came to visit one of their uncles in Wichita and just never left after that. F: So that's also an interesting story to me because he [Fernanda’s father] still has not gone back to Mexico since he came maybe 25, 30 years ago. And he has always regretted not having the chance to say goodbye to anyone because it was unplanned. I don't know if his parents had planned it and didn't tell the rest of his family or what had happened, but the kids didn't know that they were moving. They were just going to visit an uncle and they never went back to Mexico. F: But then they [Fernanda’s parents] got married. They met at a Taco Bell, which I've always thought was funny. Working at Taco Bell. F: And then they had me, my brother and my sister and I, the first child, grandchild, cousin, that whole entire side of the family and my dad's side as well. I've only been the oldest and the one to start everything or try everything first. F: And so my whole beginning of my life, my mom and dad have worked so hard to build absolutely everything. I think that the first house that we ever lived in, my mom and dad paid $6,000 for. And then my dad added new bedrooms, new bathrooms, new living rooms, and that's where I lived for most of my life and I loved that house and we just sold it two years ago, which made me really sad. F: But that was–it was a really, really good childhood. We lived in that house and it felt very isolated in–not in a bad way, but in a very comforting way. Because I grew up just almost exclusively Mexican. Because it was just us interacting with my family. We didn't really have a lot of relationships outside of the family. It felt very isolated and safe in that sense. F: Then I went to St. Margaret Mary, which is a private Catholic school. But it's about, it's maybe 70% Mexican, 20% Vietnamese, and the rest is white. So we also grew up very, very interesting. I just felt like home, I just felt very safe. And everyone is really proud of their cultural identity. And everyone speaks Spanish in that school because it's mostly an immigrant community. F: So I feel very privileged to have been able to grow up in that space because I talked to people, a lot of people that I met at KU and they don't have similar stories of where they had to go to school with students that didn't identify or that they didn't identify with. And it is messed up their–their just sense of identity and they had identity crises as young children, which I had never, I never experienced because I was in a room full of other kids that were speaking Spanish and whose moms gossiped after school. F: And it was just a very, very Mexican childhood. F: And I think that's also really interesting for me now because I don't know that I have so much. Because I grew up around just my family and all of these other kids at school that were also first-generation or second-generation immigrants. I somewhat grew up left out of Mexican-American culture, how it has developed in the United States. F: Like I feel more Mexican than I feel Mexican-American, if that makes sense or they're very different. I'm Mexican but I was born in the US, which makes me Mexican-American. But I have them in separate categories. Like sometimes I'm American and sometimes the other times I'm Mexican, but internally, I always feel Mexican. I don't feel that that has developed to where I just go about my day with both of them combined. F: So that that has been interesting, but yes, that was my experience. It was a K through eight school, so elementary school, middle school. We always grew up there. It was a really small school. It was–my graduating class was 13 students. So as a family, it was very, very safe. F: And everyone was just the same. Everyone was the same socioeconomic status. Everyone lived in the same neighborhoods. It was just a great, great environment to grow up in. F: And then I went to Kapaun (Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School), which is the Catholic private high school. And it was completely different from my experience in middle-school because it was an incredibly wealthy school. As soon as people turn 16, they get their brand new Jeep. And even though we wear uniforms, everyone has the newest shoes, the newest jewelry, the newest, everything that gets a very, very, very wealthy school. F: So that was a shocker going into it I think. F: I had people from my middle school that also went to that school. I still–I still felt comfort and I still felt safe. And I–I did a great job adapting to that kind of culture because it was very, very different. F: The first two years were great. I had–I was just having fun. Everyone was nice. And I think I was blissfully unaware of how different each–each of us were. And I think that's a good thing. Right. F: But–but then I think it was my junior year. It was either junior or senior year. I think it was–I don't remember if I graduated in 2018. I can't remember when Trump got elected. Maybe it was 2016. F: But Trump got elected and it's a very conservative school as well. And everyone is very Catholic. And everyone was a “build-a-wall” kind of person like all of the cool, rich kids thought Trump was amazing and still do. F: It's the funniest thing to be in the wealthy East side of Wichita and everyone like adores Trump. It's the weirdest thing. But everyone was huge Trump people and administration supported him because he was also anti-abortion or pro-choice–no, pro-life. F: So not only did he have the endorsement of the students who were–isn't racist and classist. They also had the support of administration because of the Catholic values supposedly. F: And so that was really tough because students started talking about it–started saying, oh, go back to your country like pack your bags, where are your suitcases? And it started being–I mean, Trump essentially made it okay to be racist and discriminate against people openly and made it cool at my school, which was really interesting, like those were the cool people. F: And so that was a weird moment because even though no one had no one ever directed it to my face or directed it to me. I mean, I still took personal offense to it because that's my entire family. And even some of my friends and like is this what you actually think about me and think about everyone that I came from? F: And it's such a personal value. The right to immigrate. And it's made up my whole childhood–and people–I started to almost see the real side of people and what people actually thought of me and how they saw me and valued me. F: So that was the first time that I openly–like my bubble burst and I started to see, how discrimination was hugely, hugely affected every thing I think I was so young and I even had an amazing childhood and a supportive network and parents and people that were unapologetically themselves that I didn't realize that the that we were on the outside, that we were outsiders for most of people that we were around. F: So it was an interesting time in high school. F: And it's also been interesting because there's a lot of different experiences in my family, especially within my three siblings, which is really almost funny to compare because we are three different shades of brown. I'm in the middle, I'm the middle shade. My brother is a lot darker, black hair, big, curly black hair. And my sister is very fair-skinned and very tall and skinny and dainty. F: And just when we were all related, we all look similar, but just on these physical traits–we've all had vastly different experiences. Our high-school and just in different parts of Wichita even growing up, I remember my brother was always the one that got picked on the most and he was always the one where the things about his skin color came up the most. And people openly offended him in high school, just because he was big and tall and browner than us three. F: And this goes for my whole entire family. I have a lot of family that–I have two little cousins that somehow my brown haired and brown eyed uncle and aunt have made these two fair skin, blond, blue, white girls. F: And whenever we go visit people, even in Mexico or anywhere else, they would get so much praise for being so beautiful and so smart and so just so amazing. F: And you can tell it's just because of these physical attributes. So that’s been something that's been really interesting to me and always I've always compared, especially in high school, because my brother, sister and I have always gone to the same high school with the same people, the same families. It's just a generational thing. F: But yeah, my brother is the one that's always gotten the most hate. I'm always very protective of him. Now he defends himself, but yep. So that was high school. F: And then I went to KU. And I remember in admissions and just taking the tours of the schools and the school and reading about this school, there was this huge emphasis on diversity. F: And by this point I'm just so over high school like I want it to be around new people. I was tired of being with all these closed-minded, wealthy, privileged people. And I was excited to get to KU. I know there's a lot of Wichita people that go there, but unlike the campus is big enough, there will be so many new people like I will find my place and it will be away from Kapaun. F: Then I got to KU and it was the same thing. F: It was–I did not see any of the diversity that they have mentioned and admissions pamphlets. I guess it was more diverse than Kapaun but it was–I was in STEM for my first two years. F: There was not a single Hispanic, other Hispanic person, maybe one or two in lecture halls of two to 300 people. Especially as the levels advance. F: So I was in all these spaces. Where still I was not seeing any diversity. F: I didn't feel at home. F: And that was really surprising to me and I was really disappointing to me. When I got to KU and I was staying in the dorms. And it was GSP, which is right next to Corbin, which is where the Greek life people stayed. And then I was standing next to that dorm. And I don't think I met another Hispanic person on my floor. F: And I guess I was used to it at that point. I was just really looking forward to it at KU. F: And then and then I joined CLACS (Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies) and that was awesome because I found so much support. F: Yeah, I joined CLACs my–or I started taking Kachiquel my second semester, freshman year. F: And that was really cool. Because it was just a whole other–it was just very different people like people that were so passionate about. I would consider it like a very niche thing to be passionate about Latin American indigenous languages. F: And finding these people was a huge game changer for me because they were so passionate. F: And I think growing up. If I allowed myself to be passionate [shaky voice, watery eyes]. F: But there weren't that many options. F: So like [silence…] F: And I guess kinda what I mean by that is like, since I'm the first one in my family to have the opportunity and the privilege to go to school, pursue a career. All of these things. F: I put a lot of pressure on myself [sniffling]. F: And I didn't allow myself to explore very much because I had to be successful in whatever I did. And that's something that's been really hard for me right now because I'm going through med school applications, and especially not getting in last year. F: I just feel like I'm letting my family down [crying], which is not true because they're all incredibly supportive, but we just grew up very poor and [...] that was something that I had always wanted to take my family out of. F: And I don't need to anymore. Like my mom is very successful now. F: We are not in that situation anymore, but I think growing up and seeing that all around me, it was just a personal mission that I was going to make my family better. F: I was going to be the one that–I always looked forward to being 21 because that's when I could apply for or sponsor my parents for citizenship. F: They now got remarried. F: My parents got divorced and my mom got remarried when I was like 15 or 16. So she was able to apply for citizenship a lot earlier. And I remember being so happy for her, but so sad that I couldn't be the one that did that for her. Because I've always just been very protective of my family. F: I remember my mom…English is her second language. I mean, it's mine too, but it's different when you learn in kindergarten than when you learn at 20 years old. So she's always struggled a little bit and been self-conscious about her accent and not really knowing a lot of American pop culture and that being hard to make friends. F: But I still do this and I try not to do it anymore. But whenever she is talking to someone, I will say I'm really close to her and just listen to everything she's saying so that I can help–not correct her–-but like help people understand what she's trying to say, even though she's totally competent now and incredibly smart and she doesn't need my help, but it's something I always grew up doing and I'm very, very protective of my family. F: Right now. I just feel this–these applications are giving me so much anxiety and it's been hard to even talk to my mom because I just wanted to make her proud and I want to be successful. I feel like I'm failing even though I'm not, but a little bit. F: But back to CLACS. CLACS was a really awesome space because it kinda took me back to to who I was almost oh, yes, CLACS is the Center for Latin American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kansas. And I think this whole time, I had never really thought about it. F: I never really questioned what my identity as being Mexican was. I had never because I just looked it. At this point. I mean, throughout middle school and the beginning of high school, I had not gone to Mexico because my mom was undocumented during that time. So I didn't really know what it was like to be Mexican in Mexico. F: So all I do is how is like to be Mexican in the US and I had never really question that. F: Then I got to KU and started taking classes with the Center for Latin American Studies. And it made me really intrigued because it's all of these things on my heritage, the culture, the history, dynamics between Latin America and indigenous peoples and the land. And so many things that hadn't ever thought of. F: And it really made me feel like I had a lot to learn about myself, not only about the area and the space, but just about myself. And then I did–I was able to go to Mexico. And this made me even more curious to learn about that history and social problems in Latin America and how they carry over to the United States. F: And this whole time I've been very interested in health care. So I started reflecting on my experiences in health care with my family, which included translating for my family members at doctor's appointments and trying to help navigate health care and insurance and just this being part of my life. F: But I started to realize it–this part of a huge immigrant communities’ lives and it shouldn't be this hard to receive health care. And there should be more doctors that speak Spanish and there should be more doctors that understand these kinds of problems. And there's not. F: So I kept my studies, research has always been intertwined with health and how all of these issues affect health. And I studied abroad in Guatemala, which was a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge formational experience for me. F: That was the summer after my freshman year, which I'm glad it happened so early because it opened up a lot of doors for me and gave me a lot of curiosity. F: And it made me realize the complexity of my identity and being Mexican in the US and then American in Mexico. And then in Guatemala, being part of non-indigenous community when I was with indigenous people the whole time and the complexities of that. It was just very interesting. F: And I remember there was another, there was an anthropologist, sociologist in that study abroad group. We all actually hate him because he was the worst. F: But he asked me like, Oh, what are you identify as? And I was like, oh, like Mexican and font me for like 30 minutes about why I identified as Mexican and not Mexican American. F: And I had honestly been the first time I had ever. thought about–I had never really just giving it that much thought because it's just I don't know my family. We just call it like–we're just Mexican and I had never thought about the dynamics of that and how that changes based on place. F: But these were all conversations that I had on my study abroad and is huge, huge, huge formational [sic] experience. And I was roommates with a PhD student at the time. She think she just I don't know exactly how it works, but she just defended her thesis, slipping–that makes her a Dr. now. But she was 33 and I was 19 as she was getting her PhD in the Latin American Studies department at UT Austin. F: And she just taught me a lot about what it's like to be a Latin American woman in academia. She even gave me a lot of the vocabulary of just a lot of the things that I was feeling. So that–she has been a really important person in my life. F: And yeah, I–I pursued Latin American Studies for the rest of my academic undergraduate career. And I loved it so much. I loved the people in my class is so different from the STEM people. It just gave me a lot more dimension and knowledge ability of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be as a doctor. F: Now, I guess we're at current time. Now I'm kinda seeing all the cousins, everyone that was born here, we're all very, very close. We all grew up in the same neighborhood. It's been really fun to see. Everyone grew up and even all of my aunts, my uncles, parents, grandparents, everyone has–it feels like I've grown up with them because we all started at zero when I was born. And then everyone's slowly become successful and happy. F: Makes me really proud to see my grandparents–I think two years ago, maybe a year ago–they were able to get their citizenship through my mom. They have been saving [money] their whole lives and my mom calls it, everyone's still has a poverty mindset where everything is save, save, save. No one feels, like, totally secure or safe. F: So made me really happy to see my grandparents finally be able to retire and get all the social security that they've been paying for this whole time. F: They moved back to Mexico. I guess they're kinda like seasonally living here and there. But they built the cutest little cabin. This it's called [indistinguishable]. It's an Aguascalientes. And it's like this mountain range because it seems too small to be a mountain, but too big to be a hill. But it just looks like a dead person laying on their back because you can see the outline. F: So they have–my grandpa has had land there for ever. And he was finally able to build a little cabin and they're just so happy and cute living up there. F: And then my mom is doing great, she's very happy. F: She's kinda–she has done one job that has led her to another job that has led her to another job setting. Now she's having a little bit of, uh, prices. She never got to follow her passion because she just had a road that was kinda carved out for her. And now she's doing this job, which is great, but she a little bit hates. So I hope that she is able to find a job that she loves soon. F: My siblings are all now going to college. My cousins are all now going to college and following their pursuits. F: And there's also new generations that are immigrating to the United States. F: I have two little cousins that just moved. And it's been really interesting seeing their experiences and seeing them start their families and almost seeing them start where everyone else in my family started just starting over and it's really hard, but at least know–I know that they have us that we're a support system. We've figured it out and we're going to help other people. F: But yeah, that's kind of a combination of me and my family's–a little bit of my family's immigration story. F: There's so many things that randomly come up that no one has. I've talked to my mom about this before, but about her story specifically. But no one else in my–I haven't talked to other people in my family and it's just funny how little things will come up every now and then. F: Like my grandpa the other day randomly, I think one of the cousins was complaining about how the food at her school was terrible and that's why she didn't eat. F: And my grandpa made a comment. He was like, I tried to eat sawdust one time because I was moving with his brother and they were traveling by train, tried to get across the border and they were starved and they try to eat sawdust but it wouldn’t–he's like but I wouldn't go down. So we ended up just turning ourselves into immigration officers. F: Because it's all these little stories that will come up every once in a while that are just crazy to hear people's experiences. F: And even one of my family members that recently had to cross the border–it was just terrible. It was just horrible. And I can't believe it's still happening. F: But, you know, I do–I do have a lot of hope for them. And yeah. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fernanda Subject The topic of the resource Oral history from Mexico to Wichita, Kansas. Description An account of the resource Fernanda grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her mother is from Aguascalientes, Mexico and her father is from Chiapas, Mexico. Fernanda attended a Catholic school with a majority Latino/Hispanic and Vietnamese student body. In this interview, she talks about growing up in a community that she could relate to as well as her third year of high school which she identifies as her turning point for understanding her identity. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Mexico Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_g0fis4kp" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_g0fis4kp/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Clip of Fernanda"></iframe> <iframe width="100%" height="800" src="https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/cd7565c4fe1257583797c055d04a37d0/routes-to-the-heartland/index.html" frameborder="0"></iframe> Discrimination Education Identity Lawrence Mexico Social and Family Networks Wichita Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marta Caminero-Santangelo Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Adina Language of Interview English Format Video, audio only, text only Audio City (Region, State) and Country of Origin for 2nd and 3rd generation, this is the place of family's origin Mexico Current City of Residence Where in Kansas or Missouri the Interviewee currently lives Hoxie, Kansas Transcript Adina (A): Marta (M) A: We were actually from Scott city, which is about an hour-and-a-half from where we live now. And my parents chose to go there because like all my mom's side of the family was there. A: But then my dad got a job at the feedlot in Hoxie, Kansas. And so then we moved over there and it was–I didn't I guess I didn't really know much about like first grade. A: Then that's when my parents, like my brothers just started talking to me–telling me to watch what I say in school. And so it was kinda like we were, like, hiding. A: So anytime my friends or anything would ask me if we were like–as a kid, it's not as much of a big deal now, but as a kid, they'd be like, “Where are you going on vacation?” And I wouldn't say anything because we couldn't get on a plane because to get on a plane and my parents would need their IDs or passports. A: And being undocumented, they didn't have any of those things. A: I think the biggest struggle was getting older and into high school like it and trying to get a driver's license or farmers permit, I need it–I would meet my parents to show their license to the courthouse so they could sign for me. A: But they didn't have any of that because they were undocumented, so I would just have to wait around and like my friends and stuff would ask me, like, “Why didn't I have a ride?” and do that and I would just have to make up the story because I couldn't tell him that my parents were undocumented. A: Applying for college–that was probably the most stressful part because I think on almost every form they would ask for my parents’ social security number. A: And with the FAFSA, I never knew what to put her because obviously you can't lie on those things. But at the same time it was like, “Do I have to I have to say it?” “But what are the risks of saying this? Like what's going to happen to my parents if I tell you this. A: So it was just constant fear and you were just never comfortable because you didn't know when someone who's going to find out or when ICE was just going to come and [then] my parents would be gone. A: It was the same for my brother to my oldest brother because he is also undocumented as well. But the rest of myself and the rest of my siblings are documented. So it's definitely not as hard as it is for other undocumented children that came up here with their parents. A: So it has been a little easier for us, but getting a kid being a minor, getting stuff originally, like necessarily get by without having somebody sign so that I could get a license or ID as well. A: So we would like–I would try to have my brother sign for me…for the longest time, they wouldn't allow that because he wasn't technically my legal guardian. But I don't know what happened. [The DMV] did not let me get a license until I was 18; until I did not need my parents to sign or until he didn't need that stuff for my parents. A: But yeah, I guess I always felt I couldn't–my friends didn't really know me because I couldn't. I felt like I was lying to them. And I do not like to lie, but I always had to make up a story or an excuse or pretend like I had this because I couldn't say what the real circumstances were. A: So I got to take driver's ed[ucation class] and stuff with all my friends, but I couldn't get my permit or anything with it. A: So I went through high school pretending like I didn't have it. And same with passports or stuff. I couldn't travel and I would have to miss out on some school trips and stuff because I didn't have an ID card because I couldn't get mine without my parents’ stuff. A: It was just a lot. A: It's not necessarily as hard now that I'm technically an adult. I'm like, Sure I can do stuff by myself and I don't need my parents’ documents or like my parents’ social security number or their IDs. A: But as a kid, it was hard with school and especially in the small area that we live in. It's just very, very conservative there. So I never knew even if they werelike my close friends, I never do. Like how they would feel about something like that. M: Remind me, where did you primarily grow up? A: In Hoxie, Kansas. M: Where is that, roughly? A: Ummm. On I-70, you go all the way west. It’s about 4 and a half hours from here. You know, we're Hays, Kansas, is at? It's an hour and 30 [minutes] from there. M: Okay. Can you tell me where your parents were from originally? A: Yeah. My mom was from Sala Bosa but most of her family is from Chihuahua, so they're all around that area. And then my dad was from Aguas Calientes. M: And when did they come over here? Must have been more than 18 years ago since you were born here? A: Yeah. I think my dad–my dad came up [to the United States] when he was really I think about 15 because he had some uncles up here and he wanted to work. So he came up extremely young. A: And then my mom, actually, she probably was around her early twenties, mid-twenties because she had my oldest brother in Mexico and then her, her sister and my brother crossed. A: So my brother experienced like going at a very young age. M: Wow. So your parents were having a long distance relationship? A: No. My parents met here [in the U.S.]. M: And so did your brother experience dangerous crossing when he was little? A: When we would like, talk to him about it he said the hardest part was the heat because they didn't and he was a kid. So obviously it was a lot like harder on him than it was for my mom and aunt because they did not have any water… A: There was this one instance where he like he dropped his sippy cup as they were like running away because they were like doing their patrols. I don't know if that's what it's called. So my aunt had to run back and grab it because he had started crying and they like almost got caught. It was like a whole… M: Oh my God. Wow. How old was? A: I think he's I think my mom said like six. M: Wow, that's incredible to think about. A: Yeah. M: So once you got here [Lawrence, Kansas], then how is it different? Or I mean, I think you had said something about you feeling different now that you're here? A: Yeah. Here there's just more. It's a lot bigger. So there's a lot more like diversity and people are just more welcoming and helpful. Like I found a lot more people that have experienced or have friends in that same situation. A: And if I go back home, that's like it's like unheard of it. It's so we're just like we're like completely different people when we're back home. Because the only people that we ever talk about any of this to is our own family that lives there [in Hoxie]. M: So is there not a Hispanic community there in Hoxie? A: Not much. Most of it is just family or their close family friends. It's a predominantly white community. M: Oh, okay. Great. Thank you so much for sharing that story. It's really incredible. It relates to stuff that I've been teaching in my other classes just like completely perfectly. But honestly, I mean, I've been doing this stuff for awhile and I–it never occurred to me that even if you were documented, it might be hard to get a license. A: Yeah. M: You're a citizen. It might be hard to get a license if your parents were not documented. That had not occurred to me. A: So that's a really yeah. It was like I just remember thinking like this is the most stressful they ever. I don't know and now my sister is going through the same thing. M: So do you have any advice for your sister? A: I would just tell her like you really just have to wait until you hit that 17, 18 [year-old] mark. Honestly, there's not much to do until you hit that point. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adina Subject The topic of the resource An oral history from Mexico to Hoxie, Kansas. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Mexico Description An account of the resource Adina is from Hoxie, Kansas. Her mother is from Chihuahua, Mexico and her father is from Aguascalientes, Mexico. Her parents migrated to the U.S with limited resources. In this interview, she recounts challenges she faced when applying for college and the “constant fear and uncertainty” in her life. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="400" height="285" id="kmsembed-1_73eejpwi" src="https://mediahub.ku.edu/embed/secure/iframe/entryId/1_73eejpwi/uiConfId/45147491/st/0" class="kmsembed" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Heartland Adina Trimmed"></iframe> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990s Community Crossing the Border Hoxie Mexico