Interview with Diego
Introduction
On December 1st, 2022, I had the opportunity to interview my long time friend, former president of my high school class, and current University of Pennsylvania student, Diego Noriega Madrazo. I’ve known Diego since he moved to the United States from Mexico in the third grade, and was fairly close to him throughout my life in primary, middle, and high schools, but this interview was actually the first time we had gotten to talk since we both shipped off for college three and a half years ago. In the interview, we dive into what caused his move to the United States, his experience moving to a new country and learning a new language at such a young age, we reminisce on some old memories, discuss his process of eventually gaining citizenship, the ties he feels back to his home country, and discuss some hypotheticals about his life.
Methodology
I conducted the interview over Zoom as we are both attending college in different states and were unable to meet up over our thanksgiving break. Zoom was a handy if not imperfect way of bridging this gap. I found the interview went off mostly without a hitch, only small imperfections here or there. The audio is far from perfect, courtesy of being captured by his laptop and my Airpod microphones, but it is certainly clear and understandable. Additionally, there are at times some slightly awkward pauses and moments where the two of us talk over each other slightly, another result of being conducted over Zoom. Bandwidth and imperfect connectivity led to some slight delay between the two of us but other than these two blemishes, I feel as though this interview was very close to how I would have been able to conduct if we were both able to meet in person.
Thanks to our familiarity with each other I feel this interview went more like a conversation than it did an interview, and yet with that said I also feel like I learned a remarkable amount of new information about Diego considering I have known him for nearly 12 years. This familiarity allowed me to know exactly what I wanted to focus on talking with him about heading into the interview, and I believe makes the interview work very well.
Diego’s Story
Diego Noriega Madrazo was only eight years old when he found himself packing his bags to leave Mexico and head to the much colder and smaller confines of Canton, Connecticut. His father had taken a new job in Bristol, Connecticut to join ESPN as a broadcaster, and so it was settled. A new country, a new language, and a new climate were suddenly thrust upon Diego. Diego recalls just how fortunate he and his family were to have the help of ESPN, a massive and respected company in the United States, to help them in their process of immigrating.
“Yeah, so it was actually my, uh, we got very lucky. We’re like certainly one of the luckiest people with immigration stuff because my dad was able to get help from, um, ESPN…who hired him. So they took, they did a lot of the work…”
While undoubtedly fortunate to have such a large force in his corner to help with the immigration process, that did not mean life would be a breeze for Diego. He recalls his initial feelings about the move, and though the memories were a bit fuzzy for him due to how long ago it was, he remembers not wanting to leave. He also remembers, humorously, that it was not much of a negotiation on his behalf, but something that was simply happening and he had to get on board with.
“I was like kind of just a little scared of letting go of everything… And I don’t think I wanted to go…I think we just went with it cuz like, it wasn’t like ever a discussion… Cause like we, we literally got a job like we have to”.
Photo courtesy: Diego Noriega Madrazo
Diego was also now being placed in a school of almost exclusively English speakers, a language he did not speak a lick of. Northern Connecticut is not exactly a breeding ground for Spanish speakers, and while not outwardly antagonistic to Diego, the language barrier and culture shock was one of the most prevalent and immediate hurdles he faced on his journey to adapting to life in his new home.
“ Obviously the speaking, I remember we had, we had Character day and I remember I went up to my ESL teacher and I was like, what’s Chira Day or, so I literally couldn’t pronounce it. She’s like, what? And then I was like, I saw a Charra Day. And like I literally walk to the poster and showed her and she’s like, ok”.
As well as the language barrier, Diego was being placed into an education system that bore little resemblance to the one he had come to know in Mexico. His Montessori school differed greatly in the material it taught when compared the curriculum being taught at Cherry Brook Primary School. The stark differences in material as well as a total reset on the classroom setting was yet another obstacle Diego would have to navigate.
“Well, educational wise, it was very weird to be in like a classroom where like you didn’t get to choose what you did… on top of that, like the, the places we were at learning wise were very different. I think Montessori was very advanced in math. I remember, like, I asked Mrs. Ferrone like, um, do you guys do like long division? And she’s like, ‘what?’ And then she had me like, go up on the board and do a long division problem, like in front of everyone”.
Photo courtesy: Diego Noriega Madrazo
Right away with Diego’s story, I can see so many tie backs to material we learnt this semester. His family’s reason for immigrating is so similar to the stories of others we learned about this semester. The opportunity for work in this labor market presented the pull from the United States, with the fact that a chance for an opportunity that was not available in Mexico provided the push. One key difference for Diego compared to so many of the case studies we evaluated was, of course, he had a “legal” means of entry into the country.
The “legality” of Diego’s move to the states was another part of our conversation that I found to be incredibly interesting. Diego recalled that “…every year we had to go back to Mexico to renew it[his visa], so it was a bit of a hassle, but with the initial paperwork, yeah, it was a lot of help from ESPN”. I found this to be such an interesting statement because of how cumbersome this seems in hindsight, and yet I only just now had heard about him and his family having to do this. Through almost 13 years of knowing him, I had never known about this hassle of renewing papers and documents every single year. And this is supposedly the “reward” for coming to the States the “right way”.
One thing I was very interested to ask Diego about was if he felt as if he lost touch with any of his roots or culture. Connecticut is a very white state, and Canton is even whiter, and Diego jokingly remarked that “my opening line in interviews is, or one of my lines when I talk about moving to Connecticut is that I was one out of three people in our school who spoke Spanish. The other two being my brother and my sister”. Clearly, maintaining one’s roots and ties back to their original home would be tough in a place so vastly different, but Diego insists he that while he did worry slightly about losing his spanish roots, he still fills a strong connection to his first home, and did in fact make efforts to retain his Mexican heritage upon first moving here, specifically in keeping in touch with his native language.
“…speaking English all day was stressful and even later when I got the English down, I looked forward to going home and speaking Spanish. To keep practicing it”.
Diego did comically note however that there was one small “identity crisis” regarding his upbringing.
“My dad tried to make us do a weekly national English day where we would all the family speak English and it was the worst thing in the world…I think that was like a moment where I was almost like, oh God, are we losing who we are? My dad’s going psycho!”
Before we concluded our interview, I knew I wanted to ask Diego about any barriers, discrimination, overt racism, etc. that he had experienced as a result of his immigrant status. Specifically here, I was interested in the idea of the context of reception that we had discussed during our class sessions. Though he was very young at the time, I asked Diego to use the benefit of hindsight to consider if there had been any hostility that he had received upon his arrival into a culture and country so incredibly different from his first home. However Diego could not recall any overt hostility.
“I think we get really lucky with not feeling like that too much, but most of those feelings came from like, not from people doing stuff, but from just general difficulties… we were really lucky I guess in that way, um, with not experiencing anything like outwardly racist. I will say I have grown to have appreciated much more than I ever thought I would growing up in Connecticut”.
I then asked Diego to look through a hypothetical lens to consider if the reception he and his family had received would’ve been any different had he come to the country in an illegal way, or even as a refugee.
“I think for sure… I don’t know how we would’ve been able to go to school or whatever, but I definitely think that would’ve been much more difficult and definitely probably experienced way more of the negatives if that had been the case”.
Diego’s modesty in this admission was something I found very impressive, and it was a trait that I always thought was so apparent about him. As a young boy he was uprooted from the only home he ever knew and placed into a culture where he could not speak the language and was completely unfamiliar with his environment. In a very short time, that same young boy would go on to become a class president, an Ivy League student, and as of just a year ago, an official United States citizen. Diego Noriega Madrazo is both an immigrant and simultaneously a true example of the American Dream. And I am proud to call him a friend.
[00:00:00] Ryan: Alrighty, well, let’s get going. So why don’t you just, uh, give your name and, uh, for the record here.
[00:00:07] Diego: Yeah, I’m Diego Noriega Madrazo.
[00:00:10] Ryan: All right. And, uh, you go to school as a college student, where at?
[00:00:14] Diego: Yeah. I’m currently a senior at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m studying, um, within the Wharton School, just business in general, but concentrating in marketing.
[00:00:26] Ryan: Awesome. And you and I know each other. We went to high school and basically all of all of secondary or uh, primary school together. You came over from Mexico, what, like third grade? I think it was.
[00:00:37] Diego: Yeah. And I actually, now this is coming back to me. I don’t know if you know this or I, you were the first person I ever met, actually.
[00:00:45] Ryan: That’s true?!
[00:00:46] Diego: Totally true. I don’t know if you remember, uh, when we would walk around the gym, I remember,
[00:00:52] Ryan: Oh yeah!
[00:00:53] Diego: The first day I showed up, I think it was Mrs. Ferrone.
[00:00:56] Ryan: Yep
[00:00:56] Diego: . Said like, go walk with this here, this person, I’m gonna walk you around. And that was you. Oh my God.
[00:01:02] Ryan: That’s crazy.
[00:01:03] Diego: So that’s, Literally since day one. Yeah. Wow.
[00:01:06] Ryan: That’s unreal, dude.
[00:01:08] Diego: Yeah.
[00:01:08] Ryan: So, so you came over, you didn’t speak a lick of English, right?
[00:01:11] Diego: Nothing. Uh, like we had been getting, uh, English classes in, in school for like few years, but I only knew like the basics cuz I mean, I was like nine years old.
[00:01:25] Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. That was a long time. I can’t believe how long ago that was.
So, yeah. Uh, and then you, you didn’t come over, you came over, you went through the whole. Legal process, right? Like you were you, uh, how’d you, what, what process did your family end up coming through?
[00:01:40] Diego: Yeah, so it was actually my, uh, we got very lucky. We’re like certainly one of the luckiest people with immigration stuff because my dad was able to get help from, um, ESPN
[00:01:54] Ryan: mm-hmm.
[00:01:55] Diego: who hired him. So they took, they did a lot of the work, but um, basically we came here on my dad’s work visa. Uh, which ESPN helped get going, and then through it we got, I don’t know the exact name, but like a visa ourselves. So every, yeah, every year we had to go back to Mexico to renew it, so it was a bit of a hassle, but with the initial paperwork, yeah, it was a lot of help from ESPN.
[00:02:24] Ryan: That’s awesome. Yeah. Were there ever any like big concerns, I don’t know how much you would remember from being so young, but were there ever any concerns like heading back to Mexico, worrying about like getting caught up or not being able to get anything renewed? Do you remember?
[00:02:37] Diego: Yeah, so it was like the biggest concerns was just like the on clarity with all the information or like what papers we needed, so mm-hmm. I remember going back. Even just traveling was pretty hectic because my dad would walk around with like an envelope, like one of those like big yellow ones.
[00:02:57] Ryan: Oh yeah, yeah
[00:02:58] Diego: . For each of us with every single paper, birth certificate, anything. Because like you’d show up to an office and like try to do something and they’d ask you for one thing and another. Um, and the stuff on the website wasn’t always clear. So. I think just really knowing what was needed was the biggest obstacle for us.
[00:03:19] Ryan: Mm-hmm. . So looking back, how much, I mean, I dunno how much you would remember, but you lived a decent amount of your life there. What was life like for you in Mexico and then like when you got the news that you had such a drastic life change coming for you, what was that kinda like?
[00:03:33] Diego: Yeah, so I actually do remember quite a bit. We went to a private school, so. My dad doesn’t come from a lot of money.
[00:03:43] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:43] Diego: But he became a soccer player, so he started making money. Um, and he basically invested most of it in getting us into a Montessori school where we all grew up and honestly received insanely good education. Um, and yeah, life in Mexico was honestly pretty fun. Uh, I mean, I was little, so it was. Just like that, but like in our classroom, like we would get to choose what assignments we wanted to do. I think that’s like the Montessori style.
[00:04:16] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:04:17] Diego: Um, but yeah, nothing too. Yeah. Too different. But once we got like the news, I was obviously super young. I, I was like kind of just a little scared of letting go of everything.
[00:04:34] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:04:34] Diego: I remember I bought a. A notebook and got everyone’s like emails, phone numbers and everything. I have no idea where it is. , um,
[00:04:45] Ryan: Sign of the times though didn’t have anybody’s Instagram or anything like that. .
[00:04:48] Diego: Yeah, exactly. Like that was a huge, like, nowadays, like I would be able to like, follow them on something and we’d stay in touch, but like, basically coming here was just fully letting go of everything. So it was like a reset.
[00:04:59] Ryan: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:05:00] Diego: Um. And I don’t think I wanted to go. Uh,
[00:05:03] Ryan: Yeah, I could imagine being so young, that’s a huge change. That’s not like you’re moving from, you know, Connecticut to Pennsylvania or something.
[00:05:08] Diego: Yeah, exactly. It was, yeah. But I mean, I, I didn’t, I just didn’t understand. I think we just went with it cuz like, it wasn’t like ever a discussion, it’s just like, oh, this,
[00:05:17] Ryan: Yeah. It wasn’t so much a negotiation as more of like, this is happening .
[00:05:21] Diego: Cause like we, we literally got a job like we have to .
[00:05:24] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:05:24] Diego: Um, but yeah. Did you also ask about when I got here, did you.
[00:05:29] Ryan: Um, I’m not entirely sure. Um, um, but like, yeah, I guess we touched on it briefly in the, you, uh, we brought up Miss Ferrone’s class, but like when you got here, obviously you said you hadn’t known much English at all. I mean, how much, how different was your schooling would you say, like when you first got here? Cause you’re not like, you know, somebody moving from another school where it’s just like, get moved into a new class and meet some new friends like you. How, how different was your education as far as like, you know, you literally had to learn a new language basically.
[00:05:56] Diego: Yeah.
[00:05:57] Ryan: From scratch, so how much different would that look like for you?
[00:06:00] Diego: Well, educational wise, it was very weird to be in like a classroom where like you didn’t get to choose what you did.
[00:06:08] Ryan: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. You were just saying how different that was Exactly.
[00:06:11] Diego: And I also arrived, I think like in the middle, or not in the middle, just like when the school year was going on. So it was,
[00:06:18] Ryan: Yeah, I definitely remember like when you came over.
[00:06:21] Diego: Yeah.
[00:06:21] Ryan: I remember Miss Ferrone talking about like she, I remember her making labels of things with like basic English words, like for the desks, and then would have the Spanish translation for you. And I remember, I don’t know if you remember I don’t wanna trash somebody on a public website or anything like that, but he was a known trouble maker and he would constantly be picking at the things and getting under Miss Ferrone’s skin. And eventually, I just remember her snapping on him for once cuz she’s like, I have a kid coming here who doesn’t speak any English and I don’t need any more trouble. than it’s already going to be.
[00:06:52] Diego: That’s, yeah, no, like that was such a struggle. I have like I remember I would, I think Mrs. Strong got me a dictionary and I would walk around with it, like trying to figure stuff out. I also like had a ESL English as a second language teacher, , who like during the day would pull me aside and like just help me out with that. Um, and I like, so that was a big challenge. Obviously the speaking, I remember we had, we had Character day and I remember I went up to my ESL teacher and I was like, what’s Chira Day or, so I literally couldn’t pronounce it. She’s like, what? And then I was like, I saw a Charra day. And like I literally walk to the poster and showed her and she’s like, ok. I said, But, um, on top of that, like the, the places we were at learning wise were very different.
[00:07:48] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:48] Diego: I think Montessori was very advanced in math. I remember, like, I asked Mrs. Ferrone like, um, do you guys do like long division? And she’s like, what? And then she had me like, go up on the board and do a long division problem, like in front of everyone.
[00:08:07] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:08] Diego: And everyone was. like what?
[00:08:10] Ryan: I can guarantee any class you in with me was not, because of it was advanced math, I can promise you that .
[00:08:15] Diego: Oh yeah. And, um, do you remember the sheets with like addition subtraction problems?
[00:08:21] Ryan: Yep.
[00:08:22] Diego: Um, I never understood that you had to move up the level. So I would like, I think we had to grab the level where you were at and once you got a hundred, you get to move up.
[00:08:31] Ryan: Mm-hmm. ,
[00:08:31] Diego: I just like kept grabbing different ones and Mrs. Ferrone tried to explain like four times.
[00:08:37] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:37] Diego: But yeah. So overall like language was a barrier. The start of our education or level of education was different. Many levels. Um, And um, finally like, just understanding procedures stuff was often very complicated, I guess.
[00:08:55] Ryan: Yeah. I know this is kinda like a benefit of hindsight type thing, but do you think you got, like, would you consider yourself a little lucky that you were moved here so young to try and grasp the language? Like English is notoriously an incredibly difficult language to learn versus the other, like the romance languages say. Would you say, like, moving here in the third grade and being able to learn at a third grade level, as opposed to if you were to come here as like a sophomore in high school and not know any English, that’s obviously kinda like a, a hypothetical, but do you think you got, you know, were a little fortunate in that sense like?
[00:09:24] Diego: Yeah, I definitely think so. Like, like if we compare like high school to third grade that it, it was a good, a better spot, but…
[00:09:31] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:32] Diego: in a way. I, I kind of, my brother was, uh, two years ahead of me and I think that’s a little more of the sweet spot. Cause, um, even though I did, I like fully got English and like got ingrained into the culture and, and everything, I did kind of lose a lot of like my Spanish roots and like, And for example, one thing that we are horrible at here in the US is teaching geography.
[00:09:57] Ryan: Yes we are
[00:09:58] Diego: And in Mexico, we, I knew so much, I, I knew so much more than I know now about geography when I was like eight years old. So all that just like went out the window when I came here cuz it wasn’t solidified in my brain. So even though it did help, I feel like a little later, um, would’ve been, uh, better to retain more of the Spanish aspects, I guess.
[00:10:23] Ryan: And how long, how long would you say would you say it took you to like, fully feel comfortable, like, you know, having a casual conversation in Spanish? Cause I feel like, I remember, I don’t remember you speaking exclusively Spanish very long.
[00:10:34] Diego: Yeah.
[00:10:34] Ryan: I feel like you, you got, I talked to you when we were very young. I feel like.
[00:10:39] Diego: I don’t remember the exact time, but like it was pretty short timing.
[00:10:44] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:45] Diego: I think maybe like a year. I was comfortable having conversations.
[00:10:50] Ryan: That’s crazy.
[00:10:51] Diego: Yeah. My parents say that it was funny, they would have us. Um, basically like they would help us with Spanish and they just said that one day all of a sudden it switched and we were not asking for help, but even correcting them on their English so.
[00:11:08] Ryan: That’s awesome. .
[00:11:09] Diego: Yeah. I think that also speaks to the fact that we moved there so young, um…
[00:11:13] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:14] Diego: So quickly and I mean, it was all around us, like there was no escaping so.
[00:11:20] Ryan: Yeah. That’s another thing I wanna ask you. I. You know, we, we grew up in maybe the whitest area in the United States of America. Uh, so there, there was not, like, you know, I’m in Harrisonburg, Virginia’s a pretty Latin, pretty big Latin American community, so there’s a lot of, a lot of things, at least if you go to, you seek it out. You can find Spanish versions or Spanish language versions of things. That was not the case where we grew up, like how. Did you feel like you talked about like a loss of culture a little bit. Like how much did you feel like you were kind of like being shoved into an area where there was like almost no common ground for what you had come from?
[00:11:52] Diego: I mean, yeah, I like definitely felt like that in school because. Actually, my opening line in interviews is, or one of my lines when I talk about moving to Connecticut is that I was one out of three people in our school who spoke Spanish. The other two being my brother and my sister .
[00:12:12] Ryan: I was about to say, I couldn’t even name the other two.
[00:12:13] Diego: Yeah. So it was like, there was no one who spoke Spanish, so that was pretty tough, I think. Um, but then I also, um, in a way feel like that really forced me to be more outgoing cuz like, imagine if, if there had been like a group of like people who spoke Spanish as well, maybe I would’ve just become really close type friends with them and not expand my horizons as much.
[00:12:35] Ryan: True. Yeah.
[00:12:36] Diego: So I credit like not having, like being in that fully, uh, like English speaking environment mm-hmm. into like, wanting me to spread out and like, like even later leading to like, becoming class president and stuff. I think I just like really wanted to expand and get to know people and, and yeah. So I guess it was like, like we’re saying, a lot of things relating to this, a blessing in disguise.
[00:13:04] Ryan: Yeah. And you, you, you mean you could see the impact. I don’t know how directly, like the impact of you coming over would be, but I, my sister is about five years older than me, and when she started high school, I don’t know if we didn’t have one or if it was in like its infancy as far as the Spanish language program.
[00:13:19] Diego: Yeah.
[00:13:19] Ryan: Uh, at the high school and then she ended up finishing at like honors level Spanish. And then when she graduated, that was the introduction of like the AP Spanish program into Canton. It’s hard to even imagine now like any, any high school level schooling, not having any sort of foreign language, much less the second most common spoken language in the United States like.
[00:13:39] Diego: No. Yeah, and that one’s actually pretty funny because I think there were like rumors that French was gonna be added…
[00:13:46] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:46] Diego: …as one of the languages. And I was so excited. But then they didn’t have it .
[00:13:50] Ryan: We had a French, we had a French native speaker who taught Spanish. I remember it. Ms. Subrizi,
It was so annoying.
[00:13:56] Diego: But I like ended up having to take Spanish for the language requirement was
[00:14:01] Ryan: I remember that ,you cake walked it
[00:14:04] Diego: Yeah. But also another blessing in disguise. I think that helped me like be able to focus on all my other classes and like probably helped me keep higher grades than I otherwise would’ve if I was learning French. So
[00:14:19] Ryan: Yeah that’s true. So obviously you were, like I said, incredibly young when you came over, but like, I guess there wasn’t, you wouldn’t have been as aware of it as, as young would like. Do you remember or could you think of if there were any like feelings where you didn’t feel welcomed in certain contexts at all? Like you know, the United. It’s kind of one of the greatest hypocrisies of it is, you know, open arms, you know, what’s written on the Statue of Liberty and then our notorious not great treatment of immigrants.
[00:14:46] Diego: Yeah.
[00:14:47] Ryan: Did you feel any of that or?
[00:14:48] Diego: Honestly, I was, I never really felt anything big like that. I don’t think I ever experienced like any racism in the school.
[00:14:56] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:57] Diego: Or anything like that. Um, yeah, whatsoever, like everyone was pretty welcoming. But I think it was also partially because I assimilated so fast and like,
[00:15:07] Ryan: Yeah,
[00:15:08] Diego: …and also we. My family physically doesn’t look too Mexican because we’re like very Spanish. I actually recently, like more recently received some, like I went to renovate my, renew my global entry, and the cop like doing the updating was so racist. He was like, Why do you have Mexican in Spanish? You don’t look Mexican. And I was like, bro, chill out. I have Spanish roots. But yeah, thankfully back then, nothing at all. Um, I mean, I don’t think, yeah, I think everyone was pretty welcoming even though the town hadn’t seen a random immigrant come.
[00:15:48] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:15:49] Diego: Everyone was like, yeah, nice. I guess.
It’s kind
[00:15:52] Ryan: of the thing with small town politics too. I mean, everybody knows everybody. You know, there’s almost no way to hide as far as like people knowing who you are. So it kinda goes the same way. Like you’re gonna be rude or outwardly racist to somebody. Like you’re gonna be labeled.
[00:16:06] Diego: Yeah.
[00:16:08] Ryan: And then like, could you think of like, you know how, I don’t know how you would know what, how well he would know, but like, were your family, like, were there ever any times where like they were feeling any, like sort of any like os, feeling ostracized at all or anything like that? Or like, could you think of any times where like some sort of like, uh, what’s the term I’m looking for here? Like, I dunno, just a little bit of like uneasiness or anything like that, or kinda the same sort of thing?
[00:16:33] Diego: Um, not as, not really that much. I think we get really lucky with not feeling like that too much, but most of those feelings came from like, not from people doing stuff, but from our, just general difficulties. Like I remember my dad once, so he does come in, he did commentating in for ESPN in Spanish.
[00:16:55] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:55] Diego: And one day he tried it in English and he just says that it was like one of the hardest days in his career, like watching it back. He’s like, it was so, and he never tried it again. . So maybe opportunity wise, and then my mom would sometimes get frustrated with, Just like having to learn it and all that
[00:17:15] Ryan: Yeah
[00:17:15] Diego: …but we never, we were really lucky I guess in that way, um, with not experiencing anything like outwardly racist.
[00:17:23] Ryan: I will say I have grown to have appreciated much more than I ever thought I would growing up in Connecticut. There far worse places we could have grown up, that’s for sure
[00:17:32] Diego: I agrees . We always like hated on it. But now I’m like, when I go back I’m like,
[00:17:38] Ryan: I find myself enjoying breaks so much more than I ever thought I would
[00:17:41] Diego: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a nice place to be. So we got lucky.
[00:17:46] Ryan: So kinda like the elephant in the room. And I remember, I remember there being, you know, jokes about it, but I always used jokes to cover my own insecurities. I always use like, you know, comedy to cover any sort of insecurities. I remember jokes being made in 2016 when, you know, the elephant in the room. Trump being elected happened. There were jokes made obviously, and you were pretty well assimilated into the country. Were there any sort of feelings of like, like an oh shit moment type thing? Like?
[00:18:13] Diego: I mean, I remember, um, like waking up to, I, I try to stay up to see who, uh, was the president, but then I like fell asleep. I woke up and saw Trump and I thought I was like dreaming. I was like, there’s no way. But like, um, I was like, I honestly, I’m very respectful of people’s like, Political orientations. Like I know some people are, like, if you’re Republican, they label you as racist instantly. Mm-hmm. , I’m not like that at all. Um, but I did like with some friends who, I have a really close friend group back home, um, who, who are uh, more Trump supporters and it is just funny sometimes seeing them like saying, like borderline racist things.
[00:19:03] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:19:03] Diego: But like, I catch a lot of people who say stuff like that, like kind of like filter themselves when I’m around, like,
[00:19:11] Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:11] Diego: Maybe not filter, but like, they’re like, maybe internally they know that it’s not right, so they don’t say it. Um,
[00:19:16] Ryan: Yeah it’s, it’s like they’re repeating like ideas they’ve heard based off of like a straw man versus like you’re the living proof of why that is a straw man. You know? That’s not the truth of immigration, truth of migrants.
[00:19:28] Diego: Yeah. So I mean, I guess I was never like, I like too scared of the Trump election. Mm-hmm. . Um, now I’m more because, uh, of all the, like he recently had dinner with white supremacist .
[00:19:45] Ryan: I know Twitter’s insane right now. Him and Kanye and oh my god.
[00:19:50] Diego: Yeah. But yeah, I guess, um, al also with that, I was pretty lucky. I, I’ve been pretty lucky waiting anything back.
[00:19:59] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Diego: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Ryan: And again, this is a pure hypothetical, but you, you came over through what most people, most people who look like me consider to be the “good” way to immigrate.
[00:20:11] Diego: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:11] Ryan: You know, you came through a legal pathway. It’s purely hypothetical. Do you think any of that would’ve changed coming over illegally through even a refugee stats, which is of course legal, but we see how much refugees get demonized nowadays like.
[00:20:24] Diego: Yeah, no, I think for sure like. Um, like to be fully honest, um, my mom knew some friends who had come that way and lived in Connecticut.
[00:20:36] Ryan: Okay.
[00:20:37] Diego: And they helped us. Um, we gave them like jobs and helped them out, um, because they’re people too. Um, but like general things like literally just going to get, like medical aid can be like impossible when you come in that way. Um, I don’t know how if we, how we would’ve been able to go to school or whatever, but I definitely think that would’ve been much more difficult and definitely probably experienced way more of the negatives if that had been the case.
[00:21:09] Ryan: Mm-hmm. and how much do you. When you think about, like you came over with your full family, like how much were you able to kinda lean on them as far as like, you know, the process of like, you know, at least you’re going home just to people with your same background and culture and people you know, can speak the same language as you and all that. Like, was there kinda like a feeling of like at least having even in a place that’s overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly different versus where you came from having that kinda like safe haven to go.
[00:21:36] Diego: Yeah, no, it was always helpful. Like I always looked forward to going home and like getting to speak Spanish.
[00:21:42] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:42] Diego: Back then, because it, speaking English all day was stressful and even later when I start, when I got the English down, I looked forward to going home and speaking Spanish. To keep practicing it.
[00:21:54] Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:55] Diego: Um, it was actually like, My dad tried to make us do a weekly national English day where we would all the family speak English and it was the worst thing in the world, everyone. So yeah, I think that was like a moment where I was almost like, oh God, are we losing who we are? My dad’s going psycho. We calmed him down. And like even to this day, it’s just nice like having that, um, even if it wasn’t like. Uh, like grandparents or like cousins, anything even with just each other was, um, yeah, like you said, a good thing to go home to.
[00:22:35] Ryan: And then as far as back in Mexico, do you still have a good amount of family there? And do you still travel back and forth fairly often?
[00:22:42] Diego: I actually…
[00:22:43] Ryan: Covid kinda messed that up,
[00:22:44] Diego: but yeah, no, I haven’t been back since Covid, which like literally sucks so much. But
[00:22:50] Ryan: It, it feels like 2019 is simultaneously yesterday and also 7,000 years ago.
[00:22:54] Diego: Exactly. Literally. So since then, like, I don’t know, 3, 5, 4, 4 or five years I haven’t been back, which is horrible. But when we were little, we would go back every year, like I said, to renew.
[00:23:06] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:23:07] Diego: Um, And then when that ended, we didn’t really go back and I haven’t gone back, but, um, my parents just recently moved back over there. Actually, my dad now get a job over there, so I’m pretty excited. They were waiting for us to like finish college. That was a big reason for the move over here for the educational opportunities. Um, so once we, all the kids got into college, they’re going back.
[00:23:35] Ryan: Mm-hmm
[00:23:35] Diego: And I’m just excited to go visit them now cause
[00:23:38] Ryan: Yeah. So, so what’s your status as far as citizenship? Do you hold dual citizenship? Do you have, are you still just on the visa? Like?
[00:23:47] Diego: Yeah, so we, it took a long time, but we transferred to the green card like 2017, 18, and just this year finally got citizenship. Um.
[00:23:59] Ryan: That’s crazy.
[00:24:00] Diego: Yeah. Like, that’s crazy. And like
[00:24:03] Ryan: You went through an entire primary, middle and high school.
[00:24:06] Diego: Yeah.
[00:24:07] Ryan: And I would like, if I had never known where you had come from…
[00:24:10] Diego: Yeah.
[00:24:10] Ryan: …you would’ve been the, you were as American as everybody else.
[00:24:13] Diego: Yeah.
[00:24:13] Ryan: As far as how you acted and how you, how you integrated into the school. Like That’s crazy. It took you 13 years.
[00:24:20] Diego: Yeah. And, and with help from a huge corporation, ESPN who was like helping with all the paperwork and all that, like, I can’t imagine having done it without that. Um, so now I have US citizenship, Spanish and Mexican, so.
[00:24:37] Ryan: Wow. Yeah. That’s crazy. How mu, how much did it take you to, like, obviously officially you were American as of this year as far as like feeling American and having an American identity. Could you say like, when you started to really feel like a part of American culture, American society?
[00:24:54] Diego: Honestly, like, like within a year. I just like, as soon as I started speaking it and made friends, I was just like, yeah, I mean, I’m here .
[00:25:03] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:04] Diego: Yeah.
[00:25:04] Ryan: Like it or not .
[00:25:06] Diego: Yeah. I didn’t have like a big like existential, like, oh, what is my identity type moment? I was just like going with the flow.
[00:25:14] Ryan: And you’re still able to strongly identify with both.
[00:25:17] Diego: Yeah.
[00:25:17] Ryan: America and, and Mexico and, well, I guess you also have, uh, Spanish as well.
[00:25:22] Diego: Yeah. So yeah. Now it’s a little more to like kind. Lean on the Latino side, um, because now I’ve been like really Americanized and like all that. Um, so I sometimes now look more to try to lean back to being, to like find more Latino friends speak, find more opportunities to speak Spanish.
[00:25:43] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:44] Diego: Um, watch shows in Spanish even. I should do that more, but .
[00:25:49] Ryan: And like, so obviously going from Canton, which I don’t even remember, five, not even 500 people in the school when we graduated, I think we grad, we graduated with a class of less than 100. And then you moved to Philly to go to school. How, how different, as far as like, are you able to find more Latino culture, Spanish speaking culture in a city like Philadelphia? A school like Penn versus where we grew up?
[00:26:13] Diego: Yeah. No, here there’s way more like after. going from Canton with nothing. And in Penn there’s quite a lot of diversity.
[00:26:23] Ryan: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:23] Diego: It’s pretty great. Like I said, I, I could always like, like there’s so many friends from every single like Spanish speaking country that you can, uh, find here. There’s clubs, like Wharton Latino, uh, which I was actually like marketing chair for, for a bit. Um, there’s MexiPenn, which is like more specific like for the Mexican. People. So I’m thankful that now I have a lot more of that exposure and availability. Um, and after college I’m going to California, San Fran actually. So there’s way more, since it’s closer to Mexico, way more like Mexican roots and aspects down there. So I’m really excited for that
[00:27:05] Ryan: Getting around, man.
[00:27:06] Diego: Yeah. I know.
[00:27:08] Ryan: You have anything lined up that you’re looking to do?
[00:27:10] Diego: Yeah, I’m actually going to consulting. So already got the gig, um, ready and now I’m just finishing schoolwork,
[00:27:20] Ryan: That’s awesome, man.
[00:27:21] Diego: Yeah, I’m excited.
[00:27:23] Ryan: I think that should be sufficient. Uh, so I’m gonna stop the recording here and thank you so much again for doing this.
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