Interview with Juan Carlos Sarmiento
This interview, being my first-ever, was recorded on November 30, 2020, at around 9pm using Zoom but was conducted face-to-face with my father at our family home in Virginia, where he has lived since 1986. Knowing that I had two foreign-born immigrant parents to choose from for this project, I decided to have my dad as my interviewee because there is much less of a language barrier than with my mom. He had no hesitation about consenting to it because he is always willing to help me with anything, especially knowing it was for school. I could tell that he was very nervous to do the interview, in fact we both had very obvious anxieties about it being recorded, so I allowed him to read through the questions I had prepared before starting. My father introduces himself by his legal name, Juan Carlos. However, he normally goes by Carlos in his daily life, so for that reason from this point forward in the paper I will refer to him by that name.
Summary and Analysis
Carlos Sarmiento was an 18 year old living in La Paz, Bolivia, where he was born and raised in a nuclear family of five, when he received an invitation from his aunt and uncle, who were already residents in the United States, to stay with them in Virginia for a while. Given the circumstances of the Bolivian government shutting down universities due to political unrest, Carlos ran into a break of uncertainty. Not knowing when he would be able to resume schooling or work in La Paz, he decided to go for a visit to his aunt and uncle’s house in the US, though not at all expecting to settle down forever. With the push factor of seeking to resume life beyond the political unrest at home and the pull factor of earning more money with his uncle, Carlos sold what few valuable possessions he could, “little things to come up with the money” to afford the plane ticket and came to arrive in Virginia in 1971. What was meant to be a round-trip visit on a three-month student visa became an extended nine month stay, which thereafter turned into a permanent residence.
Even though he completed high school and had already begun dentistry school in La Paz, he had to enroll in high school courses such as English, History, and Geography when he arrived here. Carlos nostalgically mentioned having wanted to continue with dentistry studies but, “it didn’t happen, things change.” Additionally, because the extent of his knowledge of the English language before immigrating was limited to counting, basic greetings, and a few lyrics from The Beatles, he had to take adult education classes in Washington D.C. to officially learn English. When asked about having social ties to his specific destination of Northern Virginia, Carlos said no, not other than his aunt and uncle, but I believe that is enough to count as a glimpse at the network effect, as he also mentioned other distant relatives who lived nearby as well as later being acquainted with other Latin American immigrants. That being said, I think it was easy for him to describe his reception to the area as “pretty welcoming” because most of the people he met here at the beginning were fellow immigrants from Bolivia. The area had already been saturated with Spanish-speaking folks, so the natives didn’t necessarily have any open wounds so to speak, on which to display hostility towards him as a newcomer.
It seemed as though one of the only substantial challenges that came with his newfound American membership was the emotional turmoil of leaving the rest of his close-knit family behind in La Paz, which are pictured in the photograph above, circa 1966. When asked about it, Carlos said he’d “never been away from [his] mother or father or brothers, [they were] all close together,” they had always lived together in a small house, and they had “never made any trips to other places in Bolivia,” so it was a tough and sudden move. He talked about how in the first years of living in the US, he stayed in touch with his family by writing letters, “mostly letters, because um, phone was pretty expensive those days,” and if by phone then only a minute or two at a time. Carlos continued to say, with a noticeable pain in his voice, “it was tough. And I know it was tough for my relatives, especially my mom.” This reminded me of the Schmalzbauer reading about gender and emotion in the lives of guest worker fathers, not because he was a father doing guest work but because it was clearly a similar set of sacrifices. It was hard to be away from his parents and brothers; not getting to share life’s milestones with them, to miss them and know that they miss him. However, since he was single with no kids, Carlos had the motivation of knowing that his emotional and physical sacrifices will one day pay off when he can provide for his wife and give his children the better life he never had. Pictured below is an image of a letter written by his mother, Blanca, sent from Bolivia in 1982, which he kept all this time.
In terms of integration, Carlos reported feeling “like a foreigner first,” thinking “I can’t do this,” “it’s so difficult.” All the while attending high school classes in Fairfax, Virginia, his uncle made him start at work in construction “on the second day” that he was here, “so [he] had no time to adjust.” Just a couple days after arriving in the US, his uncle brought him to Washington D.C. to be introduced to friends at the office and he was put to work right away. Carlos was undoubtedly lucky to have his uncle as a mentor and to have entirely missed the risk of initial unemployment upon arrival, but the job as an immigrant laborer in construction was still to be considered a secondary sector job. He also mentioned having worked in a restaurant––this information is missing from the interview audio but was clarified at a time after the recording took place––with other undocumented immigrants, at a time after his visa had expired. There was a day when immigration officials came and in fact caught several coworkers of his; Carlos was able to run away and hide, but he didn’t want to go into those details for the interview, and I respected that decision. Other than that incident, he later assured me that he was fortunate enough to never have had run-ins with the police, ICE, or anything of the sort.
Returning to his work in the field of construction, Carlos described that “holding the jobs was not at all hard for me because I was a pretty hard worker. … No matter what the hours were, or the days were, how many days a week, I was there.” At the same time, holding onto money was difficult at the beginning because he had to send money to his family back in Bolivia. As a part of the segmented labor market theory, Massey would argue that Carlos still saw himself as part of his home community, and that sending such remittances back despite not being able to save money here carried honor and prestige. Having forgotten how much inflation has changed the economy, it was shocking for me to hear that my father’s starting wage was $3.25 per hour, but then he reminded me that that’s just how things were in 1971, and the actual minimum wage was $1.60. As a laborer in construction, the wages increased “a quarter at a time, you know $3.50, $3.75, four,” based on the experience one had. After that year, Carlos started what he described as his “steady job,” where he would get paychecks every week and started a “habit of saving money” which apparently helped him a lot.
When asked about the differences he noticed between the US work norms and what it would’ve been like in Bolivia, Carlos gave a stark comparison. He said that it’s a lot different; here, “if you don’t work, you just won’t have any money. … And back home, a lot of people can get away with working a few days a week,” essentially that in Bolivia nobody pushes you to work too hard, but you also don’t make a lot of money. He then acknowledged how “here, if you want to keep your job, you’ve got to work five days a week or more,” and this reminded me of the Gray reading about immigrant workers. While it wasn’t agricultural work that Carlos was talking about, construction labor in this area remains an occupation largely dominated by immigrants and those workers still make the comparison of their current lives with their lives back home. He was able to recognize how the sacrifice of working more days a week came with the reward of long-term earning power and economic gain, though it didn’t feel like such a drastic change to him because due to growing up poor, Carlos had to start working at the early age of eleven.
Concerning legality and his work experience, in the time between his expired visa and paperwork finally going through to naturalize as a US citizen, Carlos mentioned that the only time his legal status constrained him was when his company got to do jobs on military bases or restricted places of the sort which required a badge for proof of citizenship for entry. Here I was reminded of the Torpey reading where means of movement are discussed, specifically how people become prisoners to their identities, which limited my father’s opportunity to cross this jurisdictional space. Other than being restricted from these government jobs, however, Carlos claimed to have “no problem” navigating as a non-citizen.
The topic of making trips back home to visit family got personal very quickly. Carlos explained how he’s well aware that he made home visits far less frequently than other immigrants do. In his 49 years of living in the United States, he has only returned to La Paz four times. He lightheartedly said that he was afraid of flying, but in a more serious note added that it’s not a hard trip to make, and the truth is that work is what kept him from going back more often. Carlos regrettingly admitted “[he] was just a workaholic, really,” thus the only circumstances that he returned under were serious ones. His first return was in 1976, unfortunately for his father’s funeral, which passed away unexpectedly. The next return was for a happy reason, for one of his brother’s wedding, but the third return was again under the sad circumstance of his mother’s funeral. He said this with grim expressions on his face, not unexpectedly, but it was clear that visits back home did not have the most positive association with his experiences. Carlos’s memory isn’t the best––I can say this because he’s my father––so when he said that the last time we visited “was four years ago, or five years ago,” he meant almost three years ago, as we visited as a family in March of 2018. Nevertheless, he was correct in saying that it was a lot of fun, we all enjoyed it very much “and we hope we can all make that trip again.” Pictured below is a photograph of him and his American family in Bolivia, meeting all the relatives for the first time.
When asked about making a permanent return to Bolivia, Carlos admitted that it “would be kind of hard.” He gives reasonings along the lines of daily life such as difference in traffic, “the rules we have,” and thinking of being here for his kids and grandkids, but I believe the true reason is that he’s too far assimilated into American culture. Relating to class material, he certainly surpassed all of Gordon’s seven stages of assimilation except for intermarriage, since he married a fellow Hispanic immigrant. Other than that one stage, however, Carlos shows signs of having been fully integrated into the dominant culture, having worked his way up in socioeconomic status, living in an affluent suburb, receiving no discrimination, and having now virtually no power struggles. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I asked how he felt about the lifestyle differences from his generation to mine, his kids’. He took on making a comparison more between his childhood versus mine, but I allowed him to go on as I was taken by surprise at his telling of the fact that he had only gone to see one single movie in his entire Bolivian life. He mentioned how he had some cousins of the same age back in Bolivia, with a wealthier father, so they could afford to see more movies. Those cousins became his and his family’s source of entertainment, coming over to give the household a play-by-play of the movie they’d just seen every time they could. I thought this was a good testament to how different our childhoods were, though it didn’t quite speak on the generational differences in America, but I was distracted by how much he seemed to enjoy recounting this memory. Below is a picture of Carlos, his siblings, and those cousins that would act as their entertainment a few years thereafter.
At the end of the interview, Carlos continues to speak theoretically about how if he was reborn in Bolivia, he would hope to have a little more money and a little more liberty, as opposed to the strictness he grew up with, and see what it would be like to live over there “as a young person with a little more to spend.” With a smile on his face, he then adds, “But I didn’t, and I don’t regret that, and when I came here, I had more than enough fun.” This was my favorite part of the interview, knowing that although he left a whole life behind in La Paz, he was able to build a new and better one here with just a little help from a well-meaning uncle, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Pictured below is Carlos holding his grandson Liam on the day of his other grandson’s baptism.
Discussion
I regret having focused on the questions that I had prepared and letting my anxiety get the best of me, leading me to miss out on asking many more follow-up questions that so easily came to me once I played back the audio. Questions that I wish I had asked include when his aunt and uncle immigrated and how they did it, how his American classmates in the high school classes treated him, why it took so long to finally become a citizen, how he went about choosing who to marry, and how he felt about visiting his home country after having been “Americanized.” Those are all things that I thought about a lot while writing the analysis and wished I had thought of beforehand. That being said, I am overall satisfied with the outcome and I am glad that I chose my father as the subject of this project because I got to learn so many fascinating things about his story that will get to live on this site forever, as well as gaining an understanding of it all through a sociological perspective.
References
La Paz, Bolivia on map
https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/bolivia
Okay, let’s start with a short introduction. Can you tell me your name, age, ethnicity and your current legal status?
Juan Carlos 0:12
Okay, my name is Juan Carlos Sarmiento, I am 68 years old, and I am originally from Bolivia, and right now, I am an American citizen.
Jessica 0:25
Okay. How many years have you been in the US?
Juan Carlos 0:30
Uh, 49 years.
Jessica 0:32
And how many years as a citizen?
Juan Carlos 0:34
Since uh, 2016, so it’s four years.
Jessica 0:41
Okay, can you describe what your life looked like in the years or months before your initial migration?
Juan Carlos 0:53
Well, I was uh, a teenager, still. Uh, finished my high school and after that I started in the university, and finished one year of that. Then on the second year, there was a lot of political unrest in the country, and the government closed up the university for like, three months. And then the unrest kept happening. And then the government, instead of opening the schools, again, they closed it for six months. At that time, I had some relatives back home, they were visiting and they saw that, they saw that I was going to have six months, like a break, do nothing, I didn’t have to go to school. So they offered, they suggested I come to visit them in, in the USA, they were residents of the USA, they were from Bolivia, but they lived here. So they offered me that trip and I said, “Well, I’ll let you know, thank you for the invitation.” So they came back home, here. And then it was in my head, trying to- I didn’t know what to do, was uh, needed some money. So the only way to get the money for the trip was to sell a few things that I had, like my high school ring, started with that. I sold several things that I had- little things to come up with the money. And um, and I put the money together and had to buy the round-trip, because I couldn’t come one-way. I had to do a round-trip, so I did that, and I came to visit my uncle and aunt, and I came in 1971.
Jessica 3:03
So you bought the round-trip, but you stayed?
Juan Carlos 3:07
Yes. I stayed, because after- when I came I had a three months student visa. And then, I could- after that I could renew it. So they gave me- they extended it for six months. And the American Embassy here, I mean, the government here gave me six months after the three months. And then I started going to school here even though I finished high school in La Paz, um, I went back to high school here, but I just- I didn’t take a whole course I took like uh, English, History, and Geography and I um, and that’s- that’s how I kept going to school. Then I also joined a school in Washington, D.C., there was for adult educating for just English. And there was mostly Spanish people in there, there’s a few oriental people, but it was mostly Spanish. And that helped me a whole lot on learning the language.
Jessica 4:23
Did you have any prior knowledge of the English language?
Juan Carlos 4:28
Very little. I knew how to count, I knew how to say hi and good-bye, and I knew a few songs in English, but I just would repeat the words without knowing what they meant.
Jessica 4:41
What songs?
Juan Carlos 4:41
“Help! I need somebody- [laughter] Help! Not just anybody.” The Beatles were pretty popular then. And I- that’s how I- just, I would just repeat the words and um, like I said, knowing what they meant, for the most part. So that’s- that was my English.
Jessica 5:05
Okay. Would you say it was more of a pull or a push factor in terms of what made you leave your country?
Juan Carlos 5:16
Well, the invitation was a pull, from my uncle and aunt that were visiting, uh they, you know, they asked me to come over here to visit. But actually it was also- it was a push from the situation out there with the government that kept, you know, there was so much unrest there that if you stayed, then you don’t know when you’re gonna go back to school, or when you’re going to go back to work or, you know, anything. It was just uh, chaos, so.
Jessica 5:53
But- when you left, did you think it was going to be long term; forever? Or it’s just a short trip? You thought-
Juan Carlos 5:58
Oh no, it was just a short trip. I thought I would come and visit and, you know, stay a few months and then have to go back, you know. It was my second years of uh going to dentistry school, though I wanted to finish that but um, it didn’t happen. Things change, and I started working and [pause] that was it.
Jessica 6:32
So can you tell me about like, the legal process about coming here? And, did you have- so you mentioned your family was here, but was there any other social ties to this specific destination?
Juan Carlos 6:46
Here? Um, to in Virginia? Nope. I just knew them, uh my uncle and aunt, and they also had some other relatives here. They were distant relatives to me, but uh, well after I was here, for a few months, I got to meet a lot of them. I got to meet their friends, and they were all pretty welcoming, very nice people. I met um, two brothers that had gone to- they just came back from the war of Vietnam. And um, they let me use their clothes that they wore there with their names, and I was still young, so I was wearing those camouflage clothes and all that. So everybody was pretty welcoming here.
Jessica 7:37
Were they-
Juan Carlos 7:38
At the beginning.
Jessica 7:38
Were they Bolivian or American?
Juan Carlos 7:41
Those two brothers, they were Bolivian. Most of the friends- that- most of the people I met here at the beginning were uh, from Bolivia. Or they were countries- Spanish countries, you know, I met a few-
Jessica 7:56
So they were also immigrants?
Juan Carlos 7:58
Yeah, most of them.
Jessica 8:01
Okay. How did it feel leaving your family behind? Did you think you were gonna see them again?
Juan Carlos 8:12
Um, it felt, um- It was bad. It was um, I’d never been away from my mother or father or brothers, we all close together. We would share- all share a small house where everybody was close together. And um, never went um, I stayed in La Paz, for my- for the most part; never made any trips to other places in Bolivia. So, it was tough coming here. But um, at the beginning, I stayed in touch quite a bit writing letters, it was mostly letters, because um, phone was pretty expensive those days, you know. So, whenever we talked it was for a very short time, a minute or two and because- because of the cost, but mostly letters. We exchanged letters a lot. So it was- it was tough. And I know it was tough for my relatives, especially my mom.
Jessica 9:24
Okay. Do you remember how you felt being a foreigner in the new country? I know you said that you had the friends that were also Bolivian, but like, in the outside world, like your neighbors or classmates. Would you say that you felt like a “foreigner” or just another fellow American?
Juan Carlos 9:43
Uh, both, both. I felt like a foreigner first, um, because I was lost. I was looking around for things and trying to read signs and trying to talk to people. And- and think I said “Well, I can’t do this,” you know, “it’s so difficult.” But I was lucky enough that I- I’ll pick up the language pretty fast and, like I came here, it was on a weekend, probably a Saturday, I remember. And that Monday, my uncle said, “Okay, we going to Washington, D.C.” We came to Virginia, they live in Fairfax, Virginia. But he took me to work, to his job, on Monday. So I had no time to adjust. I went to Washington, D.C., and he introduced me to the friends on his office. It was right in the middle of Northwest D.C. And he says, “Okay, you’re on your own,” and he just dropped me in D.C., and I came back- oh he said, “We’ll meet for lunch here,” so I came back for lunch, and then at lunch we ate lunch, and then, he said “I’ll meet you at five o’clock,” so, I went around D.C. and, and came back after lunch, and uh, we came home. And that happened for about a week. So I got to visit Washington, D.C., on my own, learning everything, right away. On the second day I was here- second or third day.
Jessica 11:24
Sounds fun, okay. Can you tell me about your experience with economic integration? Like was it easy- was it easy to keep your job? Was it easy to save your money and pay your bills throughout the years?
Juan Carlos 11:44
At the beginning. Not for a long time, but for only a few months, it was kind of hard. Because I didn’t have a steady job, um, like a lot of people that come here, I started working in a restaurant. Then, didn’t last long, because immigration came to the restaurant, got everybody and, I got away. And then-
Jessica 12:15
How did you get away?
Juan Carlos 12:16
I ran. I hid, first. Okay, but I can’t talk about that yet. Then, so, what was the question?
Jessica 12:28
Was it easy to hold your job? Could you save your money?
Juan Carlos 12:31
Right, okay. Holding the jobs was not hard at all for me because I was, I think I was a pretty hard worker. Um, and I like to work. So, no matter what the hours were, or the days were, how many days a week, I was there. I was to work- I was working. Holding money, at the beginning, was a little tough because I had to send money home. In August, I started making $3.25 per hour. That was my pay. So, but, so it didn’t go a long way, but, I had enough to send money home. But then, once I started working on my steady job in April 2000- I mean 1972, um, it was- it never stopped. So it was a steady job and I would get my paychecks every week. And I just, for some reason I- either I was lucky or what, but I was able to save some money all the time. I was never, you know, that I needed money. I just had- I had a habit of saving money. So that helped me a lot.
Jessica 13:48
Okay, but that $3.25, was that the- legal?
Juan Carlos 13:53
That was the wages at that time. Um, as a laborer on uh- in construction. Um, it was anywhere from three to $3.75, and I started at $3.25, and then quickly, it went up like a quarter at a time, you know $3.50, $3.75, four, and just because of the experience you had. And you got to know you- all your bosses and uh, so they, you know, just started making a little more money. But that was legal, yes, the $3.25 was legal.
Jessica 14:29
Okay. Was the US work environment different than what you would have experienced if you stayed in Bolivia? Was it like- Like what was expected of you, you know?
Juan Carlos 14:46
It was- I would say it was a lot different. A lot different. Here, it’s like you, um. If you don’t work here- if you don’t work, you just won’t have any money. So you got- you have to work. And back home, a lot of people can get away with working a few days a week, not the five days, week, you know, maybe two or three days, and then you stop working. Nobody pushes you that much, you don’t make a lot of money. But here, if you want to keep your job, you’ve got to work five days a week or more. So, yeah the rules here were a lot tougher than back home. And mind you, I was used to working back home. I started working when I was 11 years old, and going to school as well, so I was used to working.
Jessica 15:43
Okay. Were there any really noticeable cultural differences between the US lifestyle, and how your life would have been in Bolivia?
Juan Carlos 15:57
Um, well, since I was here by myself, with very few, you know, I didn’t have anybody to tell me where “You got to be home by this time or that time,” you know. Only at the beginning, my aunt would keep track of my hours and you know, she would say “You got to be home before 11 o’clock at night,” but, and things like that. But then, I didn’t stay with them for too long, maybe six months at the most. So I think- and then I left, I started, sharing a house or apartment with friends. So it was it was a lot easier. Back home, it’s the- it’s like you got, you know, there’s only a few things you can do. You know, because I was still young, I was uh, well, 19, then 20. So, your parents keep you at home longer than- or you want to be with them, it’s not they keep you, you know, you don’t have the luxury of going to rent another apartment because of something like that, because it’s so expensive. So you gotta, you know, people my age, at that time, like say 19, 20, you’re still a home until you get married, you know, and then you find a places to stay.
Jessica 17:26
Okay. Were there any specific times in your life where you felt like you were constrained or held back by the fact that you weren’t a official citizen yet? Were there any legal things that like, you were unable to do, or anything?
Juan Carlos 17:51
Not necessarily. Uh only, like I said, I started working in construction and sometimes the- there’s a job that is for the government, let’s say on a military base, or something like that, where you need to have your citizenship to get in. So I didn’t get to go to those jobs. Unless there was, you know, there was there’s ways to get around that, that when you can, you can go in, they could send you to that job, but every morning, you have to fill out a form in there. So you come in as a guest, and then it’s not- not even for the full week, you got to do that every morning. So, if you were a citizen, you just get a badge. Once they give you a badge you can come in and go, you know, in and out any time. But as a non-citizen, you got to do that every morning. So that would be the only time that that um, my not being a citizen held me back a little bit. But otherwise, yeah, had no problem.
Jessica 19:07
Okay. So, since settling in the US, have you returned to visit your family in La Paz?
Juan Carlos 19:17
Yeah, not many times- as many times as many people do. I know people that go back home like, at least once a year and um, I didn’t. And I’ve been here 49 years and I’ve only been back four times. So, and um-
Jessica 19:40
Was it easy to make those trips?
Juan Carlos 19:44
Easy? Yeah, sure. I was afraid of flying at the beginning. But- because it’s a long trip, and, but, it’s no, you know, it’s not- it’s not hard to do. Once you get used to it, it’s fine.
Jessica 20:03
So what kept you from going more often?
Juan Carlos 20:06
Work, work. I was just a workaholic, really. So I came in ’71, the first year I went back, it was when uh, in 1976, so that’s five years later, when my father passed away in ’76. So I went to his uh- um I got there, the day after he passed away, and so I was there for his funeral. Then, the next time I went was for my- uh brother’s, my younger, younger- youngest brother, wedding. I got invited, and that was a fun time. Then the third time was another funeral; it was uh, my mother’s. But- that was a little different, because my mother was here visiting. And she lived here with me for close to two years. And then she passed away here, so I had to take her back. And, but that was different because my mom- other three brothers came here, when she passed away, to be with her at the end, and then we all went back with her. So that was another sad, but, and then only after that, after that we went back, oh, probably about five years ago, to Bolivia. And maybe a little longer than that, but that was the fourth time. So that was another fun time, and, so- but I’ll go back any time.
Jessica 21:57
What were the circumstances for that trip?
Juan Carlos 21:59
[pause] Yeah my last trip to Bolivia, like I said, it was four years ago, or five years ago. We went for a fun trip, and we get invited, I took my wife, and my daughter Jessica. For the- a really nice trip, we all enjoyed it. It was uh, we got to visit several places, and ate lots of food, and it was a lot of fun. And we hope we all can make that trip again. We’ll do it and anytime. We could do now, it’s somebody else’s- somebody’s wedding right now that we could go to, but we can’t because of what’s happening with, health-wise with uh COVID, so.
Jessica 22:59
Since you had such a nice time, would you- have you ever thought of returning to Bolivia permanently? Moving back?
Juan Carlos 23:07
Um, I would, but not right now. Um, probably in a few years when uh- I’d like to go visit again, no problem with that, I like to visit. But uh, to go- to return there permanently, it would be kind of hard. I am used to, to to this country, to the rules we have. Back home it’s, it is just dealing with- traffic, for example, is is is impossible. Weather wise is it’s similar to here because there’s there’s winters and summers. But, maybe when I get older, I will retire completely retire over there. It’d be a lot easier to live there than live here. But, I gotta think of my kids and my grandkids and I hate- would hate to leave them here, unless I could take them all with me, then I, I would have no, no questions asked.
Jessica 24:24
Mkay, so about the, the children and grandchildren, have you noticed any differences between your generation and your children’s, in the way that they have to go through life? Like the different challenges that they face, and how does that make you feel?
Juan Carlos 24:46
Um. Yeah there’s a lot of differences, a lot, um between the younger generation now and when I was growing up back home. Here, well let’s just start back home. When I was a kid, um, I guess it depends where were they, for your economic situation is. We had very little money for, let’s say for entertainment, or, you know, like going on, you know, on a trip, or anything like that. So, for the most part, we spend time at home, all the time. Just to give you an idea, um, just think of how many times you go to the- you went to the movies when you were a teenager, or your whole life. Probably, you know it’s, you know, a lot of movies. When I was back home until I came to this country, I went to see one movie.
Jessica 26:03
(Look of disbelief)
Juan Carlos 26:03
Yes. One, I went to the movie one time. And it was uh, and I would remember the movie over and over in my head, over and over again, because impressed me so much that um. But that was, that- that’s how, you know, and a lot of people back home live that way, unless you have- you live in a family that they- they can afford it. And then they can go every, every weekend to the movies. We had, I had a couple of cousins, we were about the same age, and their father was, you could say rich, so they went to the movies every single weekend. And after the movie, they would come to my house. And they- they loved my mom, and dad, and us, because they would come and would sit on the table eating whatever, cookies or anything, and they will tell us that movie from beginning to end. They knew exactly what to do, make the- the dialogue, they would learn it, they were so smart. For some reason, they could pick it, they’d just tell you the movie from beginning to end with uh, all kinds of details. So it was like if we went to watch the movie and that was our entertainment. So. And also just uh- kids back home were- they were not um, I will say not um- they into trouble sometimes. You know, but um, parents are more strict, those days were, very strict. So we lived completely different than here. But um, I don’t know what else to say. I wish I could, you know, if I could be back home now and I don’t know, be reborn, I guess I would I would, I would hope that I will have a little more money and I will have more liberty and see what it would be over there to to to to live as a young person with a little more to spend. But I didn’t, and I don’t regret that, and when I came here, I had more than enough fun. So.
Jessica 28:46
Okay, I think we’re done.
Juan Carlos 28:52
That’s it!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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