My family and I migrated to the United States in 1995 for the same reason most other people do: My parents sought a better future for us. We were relatively well off in Bogotá, Colombia. We had our house, my two siblings and I went to a good school and all of our needs were met. My dad even owned his own business in textiles. Then, the economy started getting really bad and my father's clients could no longer afford to pay him. Before his company could go under, my father made the decision that had been in his mind ever since his youth. Despite our love for Colombia, we decided to leave.
Luckily, we were granted a visitor's visa, which meant that getting on U.S. soil was not difficult. The hardships began after we arrived.
My mother and I came first. My mother had a cousin in Danbury, Connecticut, so we came to stay with her while my father stayed in Bogotá with my brother and sister until they finished high school. After living in our own home, it was difficult to share space with another family, mostly because we knew that we were the invaders. My mother's cousin was married and had two daughters. Her children were six and four years old at the time. I was almost 12.
That summer, when we first got to the United States, my mother and the other grownups of the house went to work during the day. My mom, who had never worked in Colombia before, got a job cleaning offices for some company. That transition must have been difficult for her, yet she never complained. She worked in order to save some money for when the rest of the family arrived, but also because we had to pay rent for the room where we stayed.
While the grownups worked, I took care of the girls because none of us were going to school. They were a handful. I spoke absolutely no English and they constantly made fun of me. They would ask me things over and over to which I could give no response. They would never obey me, for they pretended not to know how to speak Spanish around me. I always had to clean up after their pranks. None of it would have been so unbearable, had they not started to make up stories about me. When their mother got home, they would always say that I took their toys, that I refused to give them food, that I would yell at them or even that I would hit them!
Imagine being accused of behaving horribly and not know it. They always spoke in English to their mother when accusing me of bad things. I knew it because of how she looked at me, but she never confronted me about it, though I was dying to know what they said. Finally, one day, my mother's cousin kicked us out of her house. She said that her little girls told her how I treated them and that she could not stand it any more. They apparently told her that I had locked them in the basement! How could I defend myself? It was their word against mine.
Imagine being kicked out of the one place that you have any connection to. Having to go "out there" where you don't speak the language, you don't know anyone else, you have no means to get anywhere and where you are terrified because you are practically defenseless. My mom and I just began to walk. We held hands and walked for hours, not knowing where to go. A few times before, I had seen her hiding in the bathroom or a corner of the house, crying. She always had a strong face for me, but I knew that she suffered inside.
As it turned out, leaving that situation was the best thing that could have happened to us. Suddenly we reached a park. My mother stopped and sat on a bench. We both started to cry. A woman from my mom's job miraculously appeared in front of us, and through signs was able to understand what had happened. She took us to her house and asked her friends about places where we could stay. A woman from the Dominican Republic was renting a room of her house. We met her and chatted. She was so comforting and warm. First thing the next morning, we packed our few things from my mother's cousin's house and never returned. Many other things happened to us during our transition to living in the United States, but none stand out so much in my memory as that day when we walked away with nowhere to go.
Read More
At Emmy Squared, Detroit-style pizza is upstaged by star handhelds and sides
By Xander Tilock | 2 days agoEmmy Squared is a Brooklyn-based restaurant that serves Detroit-style pizza and recently expanded into Charlottesville.
Sustainability in the lecture hall and beyond
By Ingrid Gay | 4 days agoStudents in all three of these programs stress that now, more than ever, it is important to be learning about our environment.
Top 10 pieces of advice from fourth-year students
By Sam Saks | 5 days agoThe following pieces of advice will help you achieve academic success and personal growth during the remainder of your college experience
