It’s Like if Everything You Knew, Changed

Sarah Dellapa

First off, I just want to ask if you could describe the place where you were born and grew up?

 

Carmen Mazze

Yes, of course. So, I am from Spain originally. And I am from a town that is not very large. It’s not a little village, but it’s a, an industrial city, south of Madrid, south of the central area. And it was, you know, in the 60s, so Spain was very restrictive when there was a dictatorship then so I didn’t travel very much my world, I guess I want to try to do my world was limited. But so it’s just a town of about 50,000 people, where everybody knew everybody. We didn’t really go far very often. And but it was a it was a lovely place, though. And we had close relationships, all my family, my parents, family, aunts, uncles, cousins will were there. So it was close, knit and, and, and nice. Yeah.

 

Sarah Dellapa

How long did you live there for?

 

Carmen Mazze

I lived there until I was I guess, 18/19 college age. And I moved to Madrid then which was just becoming something new. For example, my sister who is seven years older, did not leave the town. She continued her studies in my hometown. We didn’t have a university, we didn’t have a university nearby, we now do. So people don’t have to leave home to go to college. But I left I went to Madrid, it was a huge, big change for me. I’ve got to the capital city. So I then lived in Madrid for another five years because undergraduate undergraduate degrees were then five years.

 

So you left there to study?

 

Yeah, I went to study something called English philology, which is the English language with a lot of other things, literature and the origins of the language of those things combined. My dream as a little girl was to really learn English and I didn’t have many options in my hometown. So I would imitate songs and things like that. So that was a dream. So English was my path, that degree allows you to study, to basically become English teachers in school, once you have graduated, that’s what that’s what all my friends are doing back in Spain.

 

Sarah Dellapa

So you were, inspired by your childhood? When you were studying, did you think you were gonna teach in America or in Spain?

 

Carmen Mazze

Oh, in Spain, I never thought it would leave my country and It was really unheard of in my immediate community. Like, I can tell you, from my household, I was the first one to go go to college and leave town. We did not I didn’t know many people who had left my area to go live in another country. Now I do know a lot of people, even from my generation. So that really changed drastically. But no, I thought I was going to be an English teacher in Spain. So I thought that until I was in my early 20s. I mean, my life really changed for me,

 

Sarah Dellapa

What then like pushed you to go to America? What opportunities were available that you took, and how did they come about?

 

Carmen Mazze

Yeah, well, in college, most of us studying in this undergraduate degree, had to leave at some point in trying to perfect our English because our, our classes were very large, we didn’t have many opportunities to really learn like from a distance of teacher teaching you back then we didn’t have channels, I couldn’t listen to English radio or watch TV in English, my opportunities to learn this language were limited. So even in college, learning the language. I could not speak it very well. I knew the grammar, I can know the grammar very well. But so we all try to go abroad, a lot of people went to England, I spent a summer my second year I spent a summer in England as an au pair. And I extended it into part of the fall and then I came back and incorporated it in my class. And so we all have to find opportunities to find ways to really learn to be immersed in the culture and proper language. So I did that in my second year, but third end of that third second year or third year, just to let you know, how I came to the United States. I then met the person who is my husband today. He was an exchange student in Madrid. We were in the same building. And we met through a my best friend in college. And it was an exchange conversation opportunity we did that often were Americans who were studying Spanish and spanish, who started studying English with me that one afternoon to exchange conversation public half of the afternoon would be spoken in Spanish, the other half in English. So the both sides would have an opportunity to practice as well.

 

Sarah Dellapa

That really Interesting. Is there anything that the school provided as in a program or was it student based?

 

Carmen Mazze

Oh, I was student based, people have notes, the hallways were completely covered with ads for all sorts of things. And those little papers that you could tear and take a phone number with you. So my friend, and my husband can’t agree as to who left the note who put up the note, one says the other one and the other says the other one. One of them put up a note saying, would you like to practice English or Spanish and have an afternoon where you know, we can do that in a group? So the thing is that I didn’t do it, I know that for sure. My friend called me and said, Hey, I have this date to do this. Do you want to come? Initially, I said, no, absolutely not. Every Saturday, I was in my PJs watching a movie. And I didn’t want to go out, but I did in the end go. And that’s how I met him. And we spoke Spanish most of the time, which tells you how shy we were and how not shy my husband was, he was willing to.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Do you think that’s like a cultural difference? Possibly?

 

Carmen Mazze

Very, very much. So I think so. I think America, I think Americans were more willing to, especially those who go there, they’re willing to they’re going there for that. We want to learn the language. So we are more. I think we’re much more self conscious of making mistakes.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Really interesting. That’s a really interesting insight. So how did you continue communicating with him? Was it just during this program, because there wasn’t any sources of like technology that you could really use, especially when you’re learning the language?

 

Carmen Mazze

That’s correct. So we were we we saw each other dating sort of dating towards the end of the year, I was certain that that would be the end of it when he left, because I’d already seen other people go through the program and other friends of mine who had not continued with the relationship had to come back to the US to continue his studies. He had another year, I had two left. So he came back. And during that year, we communicated through letters that took two weeks to arrive, imagine that. Phone calls every now and then, which were very, very expensive. So we could not do calls a lot or would call maybe once a week. We did and he came back to see me at Christmas time during his Christmas break. So I did see him during the middle in the middle of the year. And then he came back again at the end of the year when he graduated and stayed for a year while I finished my studied.

 

Sarah Dellapa

So then did he get like very close with your family? I’m sure that gave him a good opportunity.

 

Carmen Mazze

Yeah, well, initially, I still wasn’t sure that this was going to work out. So and my family were I mean, they didn’t meet him until he was back not the first year when he came back for Christmas and didn’t introduce, especially because we were in different towns. I was in Madrid. We didn’t go to my hometown. But then when he came back, they had heard about it and then we’re like, okay, I guess we have to meet him. My mother was extremely concerned. I remember and I didn’t understand then. I really didn’t, now I do I have children of my own but to see how concerned she was that I was gonna go somewhere far. And when she found out that I was dating an American, first of all, she had never met one. So she didn’t know what that was and didn’t know if she was going to be able to communicate with him. If he spoke any Spanish, he spoke Spanish but so so you know.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Thats hard to think of your kid leaving. Going back to your family, can you tell me a little bit more of your family? Do you know anything about your family name where it came from, like history and origins? Or if it’s undergone any changes or anything?

 

Carmen Mazze

Yes, um, my parents are both from Central Spain, different towns. And they are from that area. Interestingly, I did this 23andme process to see where my origins showed, if I could, I was convinced that I had some Jewish blood in me, because, of course, the Jews were in Spain for a very, very long time, until they were expelled in 1450, something like that. And so but and I have this prominent nose that I thought had to do with it. But actually, no, what that showed is that my parents, grandparents, great grandparents had never left the area, we are from the central area. All people that come from a very simple background, they were farmers, they worked in different areas that had to do either with the railroad, most of them with the railroad and their farms, they grew, they had to raise my parents were raised during the Civil War and the post war. So their circumstances, we had a, we had a civil war in 1933/36. So Spain went through, like in going through a three year war that destroyed really a lot of the country and a lot of the infrastructure and a lot of the economic structure. So they had very difficult beginnings, like my mother couldn’t go to school, other than one day, one day. And she learned how to read and write with my grandfather teaching them at night with a candle. So in you know, there, I know that they had difficult times, but the good thing that I see from my parents that I compare now with life in the US, for example, and although they had difficult beginnings, that their whole life was improving, improving, improving, and that was a good feeling. I remember them all very happy, very, very happy people. Because, you know, at the end, they didn’t have anything. When my parents got married, they shared a room, a family in a room with another family that was in the middle. And I mean, there was not even housing available. And they were able to move to a little place then to a better place. And, you know, live for them was always a little better. And that was really a good way to live. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t have a lot until I was much older. But, so it’s not that I was deprived of anything. I never felt that I was lacking anything. Compared to my life now, of course, there were many things that we didn’t do, experience travel, we didn’t experience just having things, but we were very happy.

 

Sarah Dellapa

America is a very materialistic culture. I feel like, it’s kind of nicer to have a simple life and be happy. I think that’s a good way to live.

 

Carmen Mazze

And now Spain has become much more materialistic. Don’t think that, that they’re they’ve caught up completely. Everybody wants to have more. Yeah.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Do you think there are like, have you seen any changes where you grew up? In what way?

 

Carmen Mazze

Oh, very, very much. So. And you can see that I mean, when I go back, people say things have changed. But when you’re gone for a while and go back, you notice so many differences. Yeah, so the town itself is different. It’s become smaller, actually, in terms of population because it’s a town that the the only industries an oil refinery, that’s where my father worked as a laborer. And now they almost don’t have any laborers. Everything is mechanized. We have engineers and computers and there’s a few hands so it’s become much more economically is doing not us well, as I did before, but that’s that’s true for entire Spain. But I noticed that that everybody in the town, or my friends have, a lot of them have gone to other places. But still, there’s some that remain. And they live very different lives, everybody’s exposed to a lot more. There’s not that much difference now between living in that town or living in Madrid, it was exposed to everything. They go to Madrid for weekends, on weekends, people do leave. So it’s not that kind of isolated life that I lived growing up.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Do you think they still have this strong relations? Because when you were talking earlier, you knew everyone in your town, and everyone was very close, you still? Do you still have those relationships, and you think they’re still there.

 

Carmen Mazze

I do have those relations and very strong relationships with my friends. from growing up college, family, I do, more so than I mean, I do have wonderful friendships here as well and wonderful relationships, but it’s just the way that people do not let go in that culture, you know, some time passes, and they’re like, Hey, what’s going on? So it’s different in that sense, I think people still crave that warmth, and that closeness, and they work for it. They work hard for it. But I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s the same still for other generations. I don’t know exactly how that is going. I know that in my generation, people have maintained that way. Families tend to get together and still be close. But again, we have to remember Spain is a small country compared to the US. And it’s much, in case that we’re you know, drawing comparisons. The USA such a big country, I think of my husband’s family and there’s family on the west coast, South north, we lived in other states.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Yeah, definitely less connected with relationship. So that’s interesting. Um, do you remember? Sorry, this is kind of switching gears a little bit, but have any certain memories from your childhood?

 

Carmen Mazze

Oh, yes. Yes.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Do you have one in particular? Um, maybe it was someone that like, has also moved?

 

Carmen Mazze

Well, a couple things come out, memories from my hometown, I’ll start there. With a friend who has not moved. Actually, interestingly, she slipped in my hometown, I happen to talk to her yesterday, because she’s going to be a grandmother. She wanted to share with me as soon as I found out, so she’s called to tell me that she’s in my hometown and never left for various reasons. And I do have memories. She and I used to play the guitar, and singing as a duo. In school, since we were in middle like equivalent of middle school, and I my memories of I carried my guitar, my shoulder or by my side, she and I Her name is manaphy Mary faith could be translated manaphy. And we go way back. And I have that memory of, you know, gathering with friends. And we would take out our guitars and start singing songs from some we wrote and some from other artists that we just like to, you know, whose songs we like to sing. So I have, I have memories of doing that. For years and years, and there were contests, like the Friday show kind of thing that we, you know, have here in the states that we did there. We were always singing and playing. And yeah, that’s it. That’s a favorite memory. I haven’t done that here. I have a partner to sing with.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Other than singing, what other kind of activities did you do as a child, such as like, other forms of entertainment? Because I know there wasn’t like technology or anything. Also drawing on that, do you remember your first encounter with like a television or personal computer? What was your experience with that?

 

Carmen Mazze

That is a great question. I can talk about all that. I’ll start with the with television and computers, I did not have a television when I was a young child. I do remember very distinctly going to a friend’s house who got a TV before I did, to watch cartoons. Trying to see if there are any shows that you would know what you probably know, like, eight is enough.

 

Sarah Dellapa

There were similar cartoons to the ones in America?

 

Carmen Mazze

Yeah, The Pink Panther. I don’t know, if you had the Pink Panther we had that. We had some well, we did not have then the ability to really create a lot of their own programming. So my recollection is that a lot of things were actually bought from the US and then just broadcast there. So, um, what else? The Flintstones was one of my favorite shows. Things like that. So yeah, I used to go to my friend’s house until I was already I want to say six or seven. We didn’t have a TV in my house. And it was black and white. Not color. So my my recollection of watching TV, which is watching black and white and two channels only for a very long time. And then computer I had not heard of a computer until I met my husband. So I was already 20. And, and he came he was there saying when he was telling me that once he came back when he graduated, he was going to bring a computer with him. And I thought, what would that be like? I have no idea. And of course I was. So he came back with a computer monitor with the orange letters and numbers. That was all that was there. And we could type on our keyboard and thank you bought a printer eventually and and I became very popular. My my all of my classmates wanted to write their papers on my computer, instead of a typewriter.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Because of a lot of the things that were being broadcasted such as the Flintstones, do you think it America somewhat had an impact on you and your culture? Because you were watching things that were culturally constructed through America.

 

Carmen Mazze

Probably, actually, I can give you an example. Everything was dubbed. Obviously, we didn’t understand English, but I can give an example of the Flintstones that I love to watch. And there was one element as a little girl, I would watch the beginning, you probably haven’t seen the beginning of the Flintstones, if you ever have. But you you have a mental image of the characters with the look like so the Flintstones, the beginning, there’s a song and this and they’re just going into the house coming out and there, they get into their car. They’re not engine powered. So they go with their feet, you know, running the car. And there’s one scene where the whole family the guys go to work and back, get the whole family in the car with the kids then drive somewhere. And they get the food through their window. And then they go to a place where they’re eating, and they’re watching a movie and it was a drive in. And I could not understand for the life of me what that was.

 

Sarah Dellapa

That’s amazing. That’s the first time you’ve ever seen a drive through and you’re like, what is that?

 

Carmen Mazze

A drive drive through, I don’t know what it was. Until I swear until I came to the United States, in my 20s my husband said let’s go to a drive thru to watch a movie. I said, Oh, it’s now is I did not understand that scene as a young person. Culturally, there were many differences.

 

Sarah Dellapa

That was really interesting.

 

Carmen Mazze

So of course we didn’t have electronics. I didn’t have a telephone in my house until I was 15. So we had to if we wanted to agree on a time to meet on Saturday, we had to say that on Friday at school and everybody had to stick to that. We’re not changing it. We will meet you know at on Saturday at five by the water fountain downtown. You know, there were some meeting spots, we always had the same meeting spot.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Where was the meeting spot?

 

Carmen Mazze

It was always a place where we could all just hang out because people were not on time. So it would take an hour to gather the whole group and then go from there somewhere.

 

Sarah Dellapa

What would you usually do on Saturdays, when you all met up?

 

Carmen Mazze

There was there was a lot of walking. My hometown has a large paseo, it’s a long walkway. So various plazas connected by long, I guess stretches of fountains and benches and greenery, where people just walk up and down, and both, and they’re the whole town gather their old young, we were all together. Okay, so we did a lot of walking and chatting, there was a lot of talking a lot of laughing. Eventually, we would all end up at some bar type place where we gathered. When we were older. When we were young, of course not. We had a swimming pool for the, in the summer, we’d hang out, we’ll just be out there sitting on a bench walking some more. There were little places, there places where you can buy some candy or some popcorn and we just eventually would go there buy some stuff to eat. But we were out, my parents knew where I was because they would just come out and go for walks and find where I was and who I was with and all of that. So there was a very everyone was out in the open, there was really no hiding, we did not gather in homes that much. When we’re older we had a club, youth club, that was community based. And so the community created a place where we could safely gather, there was a there was a dance floor was a place where you could buy beer and some other drinks. We were allowed to drink it at a younger age. And so there was a lot of dancing and talking and yeah, we did not have, girls especially did not have any access to sports, which I am sorry about this. I’ve seen my daughter play and I would have loved I would have loved to play some sport. Yeah, there was just no way. It was very limited. There were no soccer teams for girls, there was almost nothing.

 

Sarah Dellapa

That’s a really interesting point that can draw into my next question. What were some of your duties that you had as a child or a teenager? And did any of the duties breakdown by gender?

 

Carmen Mazze

Yes, very much so. See, when I was growing up, the assumption was, and I can tell because my sister again, I only have that one sister, she’s seven years older. And I would hear it from neighbors from my parents. A girl’s education was really to grow up to be a good housewife. My mother would say to me, you really need to know how to clean the house. You need to know how to do your shopping. So she would take me to the market, the open market to buy fish and chickens and to learn how to do those things. Every Saturday morning, my sister and I were on duty to clean the house, with my mother, in detail you know I learned everything from doing just a moderate, you know, dusting and cleaning floors to in depth closet cleaning, some cooking. So from an early age, but especially to be good. There was a lot of emphasis on being good girls and your behavior your demeanor had to be just so proper. Boys were not asked to do any of that when I was growing up.

 

Sarah Dellapa

So they kind of just went off the line that people use for gender stereotypes in America that boys will be boys.

 

Carmen Mazze

Very much so, exactly. And boys were accepted that, you know, they misbehave, they’re mischievious or would throw a tantrum, but a girl, no. I have to say that I caught, I’m giving an image, my sister lived that very, very much. When she was teenager, it was frowned upon if she went out if she was seen out in those areas Plaza where people were walking, if she was seen with boys, that was not acceptable. And Tisha was much older.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Around what age?

 

Carmen Mazze

My 20s, I mean, either a boyfriend, a formal boyfriend, or you’d still be girls and boys kind of segregated. She had a hard time with that. And I remember my parents giving her a hard time. Because what if other people saw you doing that, especially in a town where everybody knows everybody, I caught the transition, exactly the transition. And I caught the end of the it has to do with political reasons, the political changes, the dictatorship ended, and Spain, opened up in the 70s. I was born in 64, so by my early teens, Spain was really opening up. And I remember that the transformation on TV, the kind of programming that you could see the things that you would hear from people, interviews from students on the street, in Madrid, on the streets, that everybody was really craving that opening.

 

Sarah Dellapa

So that’s a huge shift that impacted your life.

 

Carmen Mazze

Huge, huge shift. And it was I it was my generation that lifted and brought it on really, like I remember, you know, facing my parents, because women could not be seen smoking, that was a bad thing. It might this might be different for you to understand, because nobody smokes, or nobody people smoking the US, but not in the areas where you know, places that we share with others. Back in Spain when I was growing up, smoking was very common. It was not even understood that it would kill you. Honestly.

 

Sarah Dellapa

I remember when I visited there, everyone was smoking.

 

Carmen Mazze

Right. Yeah a lot less people are smoking. The restrictions are in place. Before it was the right of the smoker. If you went to a restaurant and you didn’t like to smoke, you could leave. Frankly, I’ve seen my own doctors smoke. Well, you know, checking me out for a cold. When I was a kid. I know, that’s unbelievable. I do remember his cigarette on the ashtray writing my prescription. He died young of cancer. But anyway, so very, very different. And I live that change where I could really tell my parents, things have changed and now we go out in mixed groups. It was very hard for my parents because it was almost like they skipped a whole generation was skipped. They had to catch up so fast to what was coming.

 

Sarah Dellapa

That’s like everything you knew changed.

 

Carmen Mazze

Everything and I lived it, I pushed for it. For them, It was like a bucket of water, the changes I had to deal with.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Did you have to push your parents a lot? Or did they accept it more because everyone else was doing it?

 

Carmen Mazze

My parents, they were strict. but they were in the end, much more accepting now looking back and looking at where they come from. And like I said, My mom didn’t go to school, now she is an avid reader. And writer, actually, she’s written a lot of her memories and family memories. But I think about where they came from and my world was small, their world was very small. And they’ve had to go through, like my parents, if you can imagine now I have a niece who’s married to another woman and has a child, that is something that would have been inconceivable.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Yeah, they lived through a huge shift. I can’t imagine, that’s like culturally, socially, everything. So shifting the conversation a little bit? What was your perception on America growing up? I know you talked a little earlier that you would listen to songs and other things. What did you think about it?

 

Carmen Mazze

Well, of course you can imagine what we saw on TV was Hollywood. So I had this image of America being this glamorous place where everybody did great. We would watch shows where young teenagers went out and, had a lot more options and lived such a different life. So I had a an image of, like I said, glamour, it was like a very shiny image. But I was just seeing Hollywood.

 

Sarah Dellapa

So the American dream and stuff like that?

 

Carmen Mazze

The American dream, yes. And in all respects, I thought that it was the most liberal and the most open minded place in the world, where every everybody was accepting of anything and everything, and also the land of opportunity in terms of what you could do and where you could go, which I still believe is actually quite true. I still think all things considered some things are hard here, as in other places, but I still think that in America and the United States, you do have more opportunities. And if you’re lucky, you there’s an element of luck, for sure. But you can find your way to different places and to get to be whatever you want to be or do whatever you want to do so far. Still is. But yes, I had a non realistic, it was not really it was a completely romanticized view. But I hadn’t seen it.

 

Sarah Dellapa

I think that’s very understandable. I think the American dream and all that is very romanticized. What were your biggest fears moving to America based off your perception of it and everything you learned about it?

 

Carmen Mazze

Oh, I had big fears. One of them was I did not think I could fit in I thought it would be so inadequate in in so many ways. And once I came, first I came to study, so I’m backing up a little bit I met my husband and we were not married. So I did not have the right to just show up and come other than with a visa as a visitor for a limited amount of time. And again remember I mentioned that my dream was to perfect my English and improve my English so I I applied to different programs in the United States and I got into one that was a master’s degree for translation and interpretation. So I did that but I was certain that after those two years I was going back I was going back to my country I never if someone had told me then in my early 20s that I was going to make my life here raise my children here I would have said no way I do fear of leaving but then when once I realized that I was probably going to end up staying I did fear losing my you know the connection with my family, my friends, everything I knew. And it’s not just like moving in the United States with there’s not that much difference. My English then wasn’t that good, as good as it is today. Took me a lot of work to get to where I am so I felt initially that I could not communicate. You know, when you don’t when you don’t communicate well. You sound a little bit dumb. Like, like you didn’t know enough like you’re not smart enough. Like you’re not. Oh, so I couldn’t joke in English and I’m a big Joker in Spanish actually. Yeah, I couldn’t be myself. I realized at some point, coming in my 20s there’s this huge cultural gap that I feel like I’m still trying to catch up with, I talk to people and they make cultural references to things they’ve lived. And well now I know, I know a lot more. But at the beginning, I realized that I, I couldn’t get that. I didn’t know football, I still don’t understand baseball for the life of me. I’ve tried. My son has played baseball, I still can’t get it. Things like that, you know, communities are big on sports and some others might not understand. So it was just a drastic you really your feel uprooted.

 

Sarah Dellapa

I think also the fact, something I learned in my class, that a huge pull factor are the networks of, daughter communities. Then you can go right into where you feel comfortable. So you must have been scared, because you’re going for education. So you’re learning about a whole new language and a whole new society. So that that’s really impressive and I admire you for that.

 

Carmen Mazze

Oh, thanks and something and something I didn’t mention, I was a teaching assistant, because it was a program that paid for my program, my tuition and stipend to live on all of that. But in exchange for that I had to teach Spanish in college, and that I came fresh, and I became a teacher of these college age students. I looked like one of them, they were very kind to me, but again, culturally and connecting with them, and understanding their world and football was hard. They would all tell me about football and I didn’t know what they were talking about. I had to get on with it quickly.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Did you bring any possessions with you or anything like family keepsakes, mementos or anything, if so, what’s their history? How  were they handed down to you and how are you connected with them? Do they continue to be passed down throughout your family?

 

Carmen Mazze

I didn’t initially bring much with me, but I have eventually over the years, brought more. Of course, you know, photos, clothing that my mom made for me, sweaters that she knitted for me that they’re not as fashionable right now. They’re they’re stacked in a top of shelf in my closet. They mean a lot to me. I have a lot of tablecloths and bedding that was made for me as a dowry. That may sound weird to you but when you’re a little girl, because it was so expensive, moms started collecting those things to be ready, once you got married you’d have that to bring so I have the most beautifully embroidered bedding, with crochet and crocheted endings that I don’t want to use, because if I have to wash them or destroy them. I keep a lot of those things. So though those were partly made by my mom or bought by her, and then I have items that my father made. My father was very creative. He’d like to do a lot of things with his hands. He was always doing things in the house, fixing everything and creating things. But he liked to build windmills, just decorative pieces and I have one with me that is not that like a big and he made it out of just styrofoam and then just little river rocks, everything that he collected from behind my house. Also reeds that he dried out and peeled and fattened to make the roof of the windmill and it works. So I have some things that are mostly made or written by my mom and my dad.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Did these objects help a lot after your arrival to get settled in and immerse your culture within your new location? Even though you didn’t bring a lot?

 

Carmen Mazze

Yeah, initially, I was actually drinking from a firehose, I have to say that, although, you know, I mentioned my fears and all of that. But at the same time, I was so focused on immersing myself in the culture, that I was very, very focused on learning about as much as I could. So I didn’t interestingly, I didn’t look, obviously I was I was not missing any in a sad way, my family or my friends, and again, I had my husband, we got married a year after I was here. We went back to Spain to get married and came back. And I also had told him that I had one requirement, and that was that I would have to go back to Spain. Initially, I said, Christmas and summer, which we did. So I felt like time would pass fairly quickly. Come Christmas, I would be there again, too. And we have we have a big Christmas tradition. So I had to be there. I could not be here. And summer eventually was only summer because it was harder with my kids. But I felt like I was going back often enough that I I never really disconnected. So yes, all those things. do help me.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Speaking of your holiday traditions, could you tell me a little more of that, such as which holidays are most special and if there’s any special family traditions and customs and if they created any?

 

Carmen Mazze

Definitely, Christmas is big. It’s big for everybody. But we have our own get together. With my sister, my sister’s family and extended family. Typically, at my parents house, most of the time really was at my friend’s house, even if there were other cousins and other people. And it’s just a lot of togetherness, and a lot of cooking, tons of cooking. And one of the things that she mentioned that going back that I loved, and I still do to this day that, at least in my family, they’re big on cooking, my mother and my sister when I go back, now I go to my sister’s house, that’s where my mom lives since my father passed away. And they spend all morning planning the meals, going shopping for it. But that time in the kitchen is the most fun, we talk away and catch up about everyone and everything and it’s fun. So for me, that is really fun. And I noticed for them. So that tradition of being in the picture myself in the kitchen a lot when I think of myself there. So summertime, we would go to a beach nearby, it’s probably three hours away, something like that. So we will go to the beach all together and share an apartment. So we had an opportunity to do that we’d go by bus, because we’d never thought I’d never own the car. But we tried. I remember the bus would leave my hometown at four in the morning, to get there early, really early. They wanted to avoid traffic, so we didn’t drive with them at night. An as a little girl or the younger girl that was so exciting and that was provided by my father’s company, it was a benefit to the workers at a very, very low cost and I’m very grateful. And given our very limited resources in the ability to travel or to things like, it was an offer that they didn’t have to take but my father always took it always took advantage of that. So that was a tradition, you know, the trip in the summer to the beach for two weeks. I have wonderful memories of that.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Thats a nice tie between his company as well as relational ties that they gave you through that service.

 

Carmen Mazze

Yes, yes, indeed. And we would go with a busload of workers and people from the town so when we when we went out when we walked down the boardwalk, it was like my hometown on the boardwalk. You’d spend the whole evening saying “hello, good evening! Hey, how are doing?” Because everybody was there. A lot of people were there. There were there were several buses that would go.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Going into settlement,  I know we talked about this a little bit, what were your main first impressions, right when you came to America?

 

Carmen Mazze

Everything was big, land and stuff and people wouldn’t think twice about driving two hours to go for meal. I was like, Okay, fine. I went to Kent State, which is a very small town. So my first impression was the place where I live was not that big, but I would visit my husband’s family in the San Francisco Bay area where everything was different and wealthier. I have not traveled in other areas of the city where people are not that wealthy. So my impression at the beginning was just the the big land, expands, how big it was, and I also remember that people were very warm and welcoming. I have wonderful memories of those few years in that town where we studied. I made great friends that are still some of the closest friends to this day, although we don’t live in the same town. I thought families would not be that close. And the families are actually very close, all of them. It was all positive good impressions but I knew I had a lot of learning to do.

 

Sarah Dellapa

What kind of accommodations with integration or settlement did, because you were studying at Kent State, they offer. Did they have any opportunities for you to immerse yourself in the culture more or was it just mainly you doing it.

 

Carmen Mazze

I had opportunities because I lived in a park. It was a town that didn’t have housing, a campus with with dorms and things like that, but, but they did have married student housing. And we were allowed because we were planning to get married and they got married, were allowed to be there and we live with other students. I felt that I that I was immersed in the culture. It was just my lack of knowledge and my gaps that didn’t allow me to feel immersed. I was a foreigner, I am still a foreigner. I don’t think I’ll everfeel like I’m not. Yeah, I love going to Taco Bell. I could not get enough of it.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Drawing on the next question, what are some differences and similarities you’ve noticed in the culture here, and in your home country? I know we somewhat just talked about that. And then also, actually, I’m going to wait to ask about applying it to your children.

 

Carmen Mazze

Similarities between the two cultures? The cultures are very different the way I grew up, or the way the culture is right now. I think similarities are people are much closer than I thought they would be. In terms of, friends, families, communities, the community where I live, that you know, it’s very close. That is very similar to what our community growing up in Spain would be.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Yeah, I do want to draw on that a bit more. I remember you said you used to go to the pool a lot and walk around. I feel like that’s pretty similar to the community I live in. So do you think like, comparing your community at home and then the one you live in now, do you think they still have that close relation?

 

Carmen Mazze

I seek that for my family? I chose fallsmead by choice, very carefully researched choice. It was not just like lets live here. I understand that that is not the case for a lot of people in this country. I’ll go back a little bit to differences. So in some areas I do know more lonely people here, people are much more reserved and have very few friends that they do things with, people gather at homes more and not everybody does that. In Spain they have a lot of connections. I think that there’s a difference, there are more isolated people here. I think it’s a cultural thing is that it’s acceptable, it’s okay to be by yourself more.

 

Sarah Dellapa

That is very true, how do you see these similarities and differences applied to your children’s life, the second generation?

 

Carmen Mazze

We made an effort, both my husband and I to make sure that they knew both cultures as best as we could. So we sure that they would learn Spanish from birth. I made sure that we were able to go to Spain for extended periods of times, from the very beginning. They are actually very similar to the way I was when I was a kid. They both have tons of friends, they’re both outgoing, they both seek the same connection. So in that respect, socially, they’re very similar. We go back to Spain, and they have friends from not my hometown. They have some there are children of my friends from my hometown. But then we spend a lot of time in Madrid and my sisters and my sister lives in a community that is enclosed, as a pool, similar like, where I live now, and where they’ve grown up. And they did the same thing there. Then here, they would get up in the morning and their friends there, they’ve known for years now and they still keep in touch with would call “Hey, can you come down and play come down to the pool” they will do the same thing every day there than they did here. Just go into the pool, play cards, chat, go for a walk, then go to a house watch a movie or or play in the backyard. Same thing so there are a lot of similarities in that sense. But I don’t know if it’s been instilled, and they’ve seeked they’ve tried to do the same thing in both. So in that sense, there are similarities for them.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Definitely despite any, generalization change there’s definitely a lot of similarities. Its cool, because it’s similar between generations and culture. So, I have a few more questions. What were your hopes for yourself and your family when you came here? How did you realize these hopes? Have you attain them or have they changed?

 

Carmen Mazze

Well, once I realized that I was going to stay in the country, which the reason was, I got married. After those two years of studies, we did go back to Spain for a little bit. It was 1982, there was a recession, and Spain was hit by it. And jobs were really not there. I could have worked, my husband would have had a hard time, especially limitations on language, although he’s Spanish, but there were just a lot of obstacles for both of us. So I realized that I was going to live here, waited a few years until I had children eventually said, okay, this is it, we’re going to live here. My hopes was I wanted to have some professional, I wanted to continue with my professional life. But once I had children, I really was dedicated. And I wanted to have just a good, healthy family living in a safe place where they would have opportunities to, to learn and to look for a path for them. So they were very simple wishes, but I guess like everybody to to have socially, economically, to be in a place that is safe, that you feel safe all of those areas and live in a healthy community in that sense. I did realize those hopes I was able to be in a place where I think was wonderful to raise my children. That was the focus. I don’t remember what my hopes were before that. I think I’ve realized and now that they’re both out of the house doing other things on their own.

 

Sarah Dellapa

They’re very successful!

 

Carmen Mazze

I can say that, but I have to say that they work a little too hard. I wish they worked a little less and enjoyed life a little bit more.

 

Sarah Dellapa

They work very hard.

 

Carmen Mazze

There is one thing, one difference, I should say, from both countries and cultures where I think, in the United States, because of those opportunities, you can work hard and get places. In Spain, you can work really hard times you don’t get anywhere. You can study and get all your best grades. And I do know some people who unfortunately, you know, niece and nephews and children of my friends who have had a hard time, you know, engineering degrees, stellar students, and they can’t get a job in their field. So people are a little bit more laid back and didn’t see the point because it’s hard, but here you can. And I think in this country, people work very, very hard, very dedicated, at the expense of living a more balanced life. I think that would be the key, you know, sometimes in our culture that balances off in the other direction. So it’s a give and take, I think, I think my life has been enriched, very much by being here. I wouldn’t change it. I haven’t looked back. I can’t imagine a better life. Although I would combine both places. I have gained a lot, and I’ve missed a lot, I’ve lost a lot. I go back and, and there are things that are just the language there new words that are being used that I like, Whoa, okay, I didn’t know that. Yeah, language is a living thing. And it changes. That’s one thing that I noticed.

 

Sarah Dellapa

That is really interesting. It must be hard to shift in between these two areas.

 

Carmen Mazze

I go back and my friends make some cultural references some personality or some famous person or event that happened and make a joke or reference to something and I’m out. I don’t get it. Because I’ve been gone so long. So then I’m like, darn it! So I miss some things here, I miss some things there. So there’s there’s a loss for sure. There’s a gain and a loss.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Yeah, I definitely do think it’s cool that you’ve really opened your world, but it makes it very spread out. You miss some parts. But you have a very cool story.

 

Carmen Mazze

Ah, thank you.

 

Sarah Dellapa

The last question I really wanted to draw on is your job. I thought it was really interesting, if you could tell me a little bit more about that.

 

Carmen Mazze

Yes, yes, of course. So remember, I was going to be an English teacher. And I needed to get better at my English so that I could actually actually teach more than just the grammar. I came to to do this program in translation and interpreting at Kent State, because it was the only program that was in a combination of the romance languages department and English department and foreign languages department and they could pay for my studies. I applied to hundreds and 1000s of programs in those days, I don’t know how many letters I sent to all universities in the United States. And everybody said, we can pay you to teach Spanish if you want to teach if you want to learn Spanish, but I wanted to learn English. So I ended up doing that program. By chance, I never thought I would be a translator or an interpreter. I never thought I could achieve that level of skill. But I took the program and I thought, Okay, I will do the written translation and maybe not the oral part. Because, again, remember, I really learned English in my early 20s pretty late. But little by little I worked hard, I started getting some some jobs. And I absolutely loved interpreting the oral part. It is done mostly into my native language, which of course is a plus. So I listen in English and interpret into Spanish. I’ve been doing that for I guess it’s now almost, I always say 20 plus because it’s 20 many years. But it has opened parts of the life and the world that I would have not have had access to otherwise. Every job I do is a little window into something that I otherwise wouldn’t have seen. And I work both in you know, I do conferences, just different settings so they could be on some things, some things that are very technical and for that I always asked for a lot of materials and had to study and prepare and do flashcards and do vocabulary and prepare a lot and do a lot of reading. Some are not, some are really not that complicated. I did something today to give an example that was for the United Nations, but it was on the freedom of assembly and association. It was simpler, but I learned today I learned about the freedom of assembly and association in Guatemala, Nigeria and Ethiopia. Those were the three case studies that were being presented. It was really interesting.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Yeah, so you’re constantly learning while you’re working.

 

Carmen Mazze

Yes, I wish I could retain everything. So that’s one section and they’re just different things. That is done simultaneously so it’s when they speak and you speak at the same time, it used to be done in a booth with your headset, and you’d be physically whatever they were meeting. Now it’s all zoom, so it’s almost the same thing at my headset, and we have features to do that on zoom and other platforms. So that’s what I do now. But there’s another area that is legal and for that, it is a lot of depositions or interviews with defendants, victims or whatever the case is about all sorts of things. I also work with the government and the Department of Justice in other very interesting subjects like narco trafficking, I’m doing a lot with the interviewing people that are in jail, we’re trying to, to get information to bring others from especially Mexico. So that’s one area, but my favorite one, which I want to get to is working with the community. Those are mostly with families who have children who need help. I work with teachers, special educators, or physical therapists and families to better the opportunities for their children. That’s one that I enjoy the most. So it’s very varied, the work that I do is not constant as a freelancer, it’s some hours a day. I am glad that I can do that I feel that I can contribute that being helpful in settings where someone is needed to enable communication and network with other interpreters were almost always in in pairs. Something funny that when I told when I told my mother, when I was going to college, and I told her that I wanted to study English, she said to me, “I hope that you can be one day like one of those interpreters that I see on TV interpreting for people”, and I laughed out loud, and I remember saying, “never”. And, you know, and I and now I do that. So I never thought I could achieve that level. Because I live in Spain. We didn’t I thought I would go for summer and improve it but never get to that level because I didn’t envision my life, I didn’t imagine where I was going to be. So my mom’s dream came true.

 

Sarah Dellapa

Do you think you would have had that opportunity if you were to stay in Spain, or do you think being in America definitely opened it up?

 

Carmen Mazze

I would have absolutely not had that opportunity in Spain. To to get better at my foreign language I needed to be abroad and abroad for a very long time. There’s a lot of studying.

 

Sarah Dellapa

It takes a lot of skill to learn a new language.

 

Carmen Mazze

Yeah, and you can’t do it overnight overnight. I had to practice a lot I had to you know, I had the luck of getting into that program. It really never crossed my mind to to pursue that profession. There are translators and interpreters in Spain and I’ve worked with some and and they have to also they’re either children of diplomats who grew up like my children grew up, you know, speaking both languages. If you don’t leave your country if you don’t leave your culture, it takes special circumstances to be a good interpreter and to be able to interpret without being immersed in the other culture. So no, this is an opportunity that I would have not had had I not lived here.

 

Sarah Dellapa

It’s really cool that your settlement and immersement into the culture helped with your job.

 

Carmen Mazze

It gave me a different life that I wouldn’t wouldn’t