Interview with Martinha Plonka
Introduction
From the simple life in Brazil to the American Dream with all it has to offer, this is the story of Martinha Plonka. I first met Mrs. Plonka in the 6th grade as my teacher the first year I was homeschooled. She has been my teacher for many years and was my first choice when I heard we had to interview an individual who immigrated to the United States. I have always known that Mrs. Plonka was not from the United States and wanted to find out the full story of what influenced her journey here.
Early Life
Life in Brazil was very different from the life most people live here. In Brazil life was simple, they rode horses, played in the river, and stayed up late just talking to each other. There was no going to Starbucks to get a latte and then going shopping at the mall. It was quite refreshing to here about a much simpler life that would be impossible to have here in the United States. Mrs. Plonka also spent much of her time with her family as in Brazil families do not leave each other as soon as they turned eighteen. She had the support of constantly being around family as many of her mothers friends were her mothers siblings and other family members. Many of our best friends are not people we are related to but for Mrs. Plonka her cousins were her best friends because of the deep relationships that are fostered in this type of culture. This was the only life she knew for all of her childhood and teenage years but things changed when it came time for college.
Coming to the U.S.
As great as her upbringing was college life was not as easy. The college Mrs. Plonka was attending in Brazil was experiencing strikes by faculty and students due to a lack of funding. Thankfully Mrs. Plonka was given the opportunity to come study at the University of New Hampshire and have an American family sponsor her. Initially the plan was to just get a degree and then go back to Brazil as having a degree makes finding a job in Brazil much easer, especially from an American university. This was a major push factor for Mrs. Plonka, especially as other family members had gone outside of Brazil for their degrees and had good experiences There was a perception in Brazil that Americans were stuck up snobs and Mrs. Plonka personally had bad experiences with American citizens. But meeting her future husband greatly changed those plans. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire and getting married, they both applied to the University of Illinois and were accepted.
Citizenship
After having being married for about five years and having children it was finally time to start thinking about citizenship. Having citizenship was very important for things like voting and doing different activities with their kids.
One important thing that was preventing Mrs. Plonka from starting the process was not wanting to renounce her Brazilian citizenship. Finding out a new law had been put in place that would allow for duel citizenship made the process be able to start happening. Thankfully Mrs. Plonka had many friends that could give her advice on how to study for the citizenship exam. This is because of the networks she made while being around others that also had to go through this process of becoming a citizen. She had many books given to her by friends and spent a great amount of time studying. Mrs. Plonka was extremely stressed about taking the exam as it covered many topics from Civics to American history. But once Mrs. Plonka took the exam and passed it she was beyond excited. She then pledged allegiance to the flag for the first time as an American citizen.
Barriers and Hardships
Even though Mrs. Plonka has had a very prosperous time while being in the U.S. there has been many challenges and adjustments during since arriving here.
There was nobody from Brazil other than PhD students, which made it hard to connect with as they were much older than Mrs. Plonka. The University of New Hampshire and the American family that sponsored Mrs. Plonka were extremely supportive institutions that provided resources and clubs for Mrs. Plonka to join even if they could not provide her with individuals from Brazil that were around her age. What really helped was making friends with individuals from other Latin and South American countries and also with people from Spain. Even though these individuals were not from the same country these cultures were very similar to Brazil’s. This provided the ability for her to also learn better Spanish as Portuguese was primarily spoken in Brazil, but her father made sure his children also knew French. Mrs. Plonka got used to being the only individual like herself at the University of New Hampshire over time as she got more comfortable being in the United States. When she moved to the University of Illinois the was nobody similar to her. There was individuals from many different states but very few individuals that were from outside the country. Because of this Mrs. Plonka’s Portuguese and Spanish started to decline because she was not given the ability to speak these languages with anyone.
Speaking of language another hardship Mrs. Plonka faced was not understanding English as well as she wishes she did. While at the University of New Hampshire her linguistics professor had to help her because the way of speaking in the United States is very different and we have sounds that are not in Spanish. It was a struggle to want to talk to people in English because she spoke much slower than everyone and had a hard time pronouncing words. So what Mrs. Plonka would do is record her lectures with a tape recorder and listen to the lecture so she could write down any notes she missed while also having the pronunciations of the words that were being written down. At the University of Illinois it was a bit easier because the note from the classes were sold at the bookstore.
Culture Differences
The United States is very different culturally from Brazil and this was very hard for Mrs. Plonka in the beginning. We have a culture that is very individualistic where in Brazil everyone stays together and knows each other. There is a warmth that people give off in Brazil that we do not have in the Northeastern United States and is not comparable in the South, even with the supposed “southern hospitality.” Mrs. Plonka has lived in the same neighborhood for quite a few years but has only spoken to her neighbors a handful of times. In Brazil, everyone knows each other and spends time together even if it is just being around each other not doing anything in particular. What helped Mrs. Plonka get used to the culture difference is understanding that this is not Brazil and she should not expect it to be like Brazil. Once she realized she needed to assimilate into U.S. culture and try her best to embrace this new way of living she began to appreciate our culture and differences much more.
Conclusion
I could go on and on about what we spoke about during our interview but this is not the time for that. It has been very eyeopening to see the someone else’s perspective of the United States from an individual that did not come here until they were eighteen. This allowed Mrs. Plonka to have a great understanding of where she came from but also be allowed to grow as an individual in a new country. It greatly cost her to not live with her family in Brazil after moving to the U.S. but the benefits greatly outweighed those costs. With a husband that has served our country, Mrs. Plonka has a firsthand understanding of what sacrifices are made to keep this country safe. In our last few minutes together she spoke about even though the United States is not perfect she has a deep respect and appreciation for this country and the flag for which it stands. Mrs. Plonka loves this country and has made it her home.
William Gibson: [00:00:00] Hello, this is William Gibson and I’m speaking to,
Martinha Plonka: This is, uh, Martinha Plonka .
William Gibson: Okay. So where are you from?
Martinha Plonka: I’m originally from Brazil.
William Gibson: Okay. And then what has been your journey to the U. S.?
Martinha Plonka: Hmm. Well, I started with, uh, when I was in college in Brazil, my school was in a lot of strikes because of the funding.
Martinha Plonka: And I had an opportunity to come here to study with an American family in New Hampshire. So she was my sponsor. So that’s how I came. And I started school at University of New Hampshire.
William Gibson: Sounds great. So, okay, so that, so that’s mainly what motivated you to come here?
Martinha Plonka: Yes.
William Gibson: Why did you decide to stay in the U.S.?
Martinha Plonka: Well, I stay, well, I met my husband, so that was not a, that was not a reason I did not want to, my goal was always to come here [00:01:00] and go back home with the knowledge that you have here and a degree from the United States. Uh, it gives you a better chance to get a better job when you get there. So that was my goal, go home after I have my degree and get a better job.
Martinha Plonka: But then I met my husband and, um, here I am.
William Gibson: That makes sense. So what would you say your experience was like immigrating to the U. S. and like the process, the legal process?
Martinha Plonka: Well, I have to show a lot of, um, that I, I could stay here. I have to have a school ready to term for me. I came here with a student visa, um, and I did it.
Martinha Plonka: A TOEFL, which is like a test for foreign students to make sure that you have a proficiency in English. Um, and I had to have a sponsor to make sure that I was here legally, that I didn’t came here just to stay [00:02:00] here, that I have someone that was responsible for me. So they’re like my American family. So I have to.
Martinha Plonka: Prove a lot of things that I was have enough money that I was able to, uh, I have someone that would take care of me and sponsor me. Otherwise, it’s very strict. When you come with a student visa, you have to. No, the immigration, um, they need to make sure, okay, do you, where are you going to do that? So you have to have your school all set up, like, you got accepted to this school, you have to have documentation, a lot of things for them to see that, yes, you are here as a student and have someone that is going, is basically vouching for what I’m saying.
Martinha Plonka: So that’s what, um, the, the family in New Hampshire was. It was vouching for me staying here, that, yeah, she’s legal, she’s labeled as, and she’s up there in the University of New Hampshire.
William Gibson: And then what was the process of, say, getting your green card and then eventually becoming a citizen?
Martinha Plonka: Well, I did not get my green card for a [00:03:00] long time because I did not, I didn’t want to come to the United States to live here. I had, I don’t know, I had bad experience with Americans back home. They were kind of stuck up and I, I just wanted to come here, take advantage of the opportunity and go home.
Martinha Plonka: So after I married my husband, I really did not. I didn’t become an American citizen until, like, five years after that, and he’s like, how come you don’t become an American citizen? I said, well, I don’t want to lose my citizenship back home. And at that time, I wasn’t sure if I had to renounce my citizenship, and I didn’t want to do that.
Martinha Plonka: So then we find out that a new law was introduced where I didn’t have to.
Martinha Plonka: I didn’t have to renounce my Brazilian citizenship. I could actually keep both citizenship. And then my husband said, look, we have kids now and you may want to vote. But if you’re not an American citizen, you really don’t have a lot of rights. You can vote and things that I think you [00:04:00] wanted to be involved with, especially for our kids.
Martinha Plonka: So I said, okay, I decided to. Go ahead and get my green card and then go ahead and study to become, you know, you have to have a test, uh, lots of questions have to go through. So I prepare myself at that time. I was, um, going to University of New, um, Illinois. Um, I started with the University of New Hampshire and after my husband and I, we got married.
Martinha Plonka: He’s from Illinois and being in the Navy, he got accepted to the program so he could go to school and still be in the Navy and it’s like an officer program. So I applied for the school and I got accepted to the school, so we went to school together. Um, so, um, I was, I had to do a lot of pastas and prepare myself.
Martinha Plonka: So some of the Uh, told me this is the thing that I think you should study. And some other friends of mine who are Americans said, [00:05:00] okay, there’s books for you to study that help you to prepare for the test. So you go there and like questions about the, many American doesn’t even know, like, what does the coin, the quarter, what is the press that is in the quarter?
Martinha Plonka: What is the, What is this? What is that? So it was intense. For me, it was, I was very scared because I was like, Oh my gosh, there’s so many questions how I’m going to know about American history, how I’m going to know all this. So I study a lot before I took the test and it was like, it was exciting once I got my, my green card, especially after I got my American citizenship because you go to in front of a judge and then he calls your name and you pledge the legion and all that, you swear.
Martinha Plonka: So it was an exciting time. So that was hard for me to study for that test. It was very hard. Yeah.
William Gibson: Oh, I bet, I bet. So do you still have much family outside of the US?
Martinha Plonka: Uh, yes, I have my family, uh, is all over, um, I have, my family is in England, I have another family in France, I have another brother that [00:06:00] is in Portugal, and I have, um, my family that are in Brazil, so they are all over the place, and, um, at that time, and now I have my son, my third son is actually in Japan, but my family is everywhere in the, in the world, they’re not just in Brazil, they just migrate to other parts of the world.
Martinha Plonka: So
William Gibson: Were you, were you kind of the first member of your family to kind of go outside of Brazil or to the us?
Martinha Plonka: Um, yes, I was the first one and soon after that, um, my father, uh, his wife had a, uh, she got, I don’t know what you call in English. It’s like a, it’s not a scholarship, it’s a. It’s something to do, like she went to do her PhD, so she got a grant to go to study in Oxford.
Martinha Plonka: So, I was already here, so my father and his wife and my other brothers, they moved to England, to [00:07:00] Oxford, for her to finish her, uh, thesis. But then they were there, she got a, offer a job. So, but I was the first one. And then, um, I have other family members that not necessarily wanted to come to nine states or to any other place.
Martinha Plonka: They just like to travel, but they, they’re the only one. My three older, younger brothers are the only ones that decided to stay. Um, in Europe, everybody else decided to stay. They did not want to go leave Brazil. So those are the only, my three brothers, the only one to live, um, outside of night, outside of Brazil, but I was the first one.
Martinha Plonka: Yes.
William Gibson: Okay. So what would you say it was like in Brazil versus being in the U S like how was the transition, what was your early life growing up?
Martinha Plonka: It’s hard to transition to the United States. It’s very hard because the culture is [00:08:00] very different. Um, I grew up where. There is, we know people like my neighbors, we know each other.
Martinha Plonka: Um, we know each other on a first name basis. Uh, my mom’s friends are my uncles, my, my aunt. So not just because of blood related. So growing up in Brazil, it was, we did a lot of things. That’s very simple. We. stay up late, we go to the river, we rode horses, we, we did like very simple things, um, and I felt like we know each other, and it is, everybody talked to each other, hello, hello, hello, um, and when I came here, I felt like shocked because you can have a neighbor but you don’t even know their names.
Martinha Plonka: It’s a very different culture, um, and, The food and the language barrier is also very different, like, the way that we treat, [00:09:00] we greet people, for example, you always greet with, uh, three kisses on the cheek, it doesn’t mean that you are flirting with someone, it’s just part of the culture, you meet someone, you give three cheeks and you hug them, uh, nice to meet you, and over here, it was like, You just shake somebody’s hand.
Martinha Plonka: So I’m nice to meet you, nice to meet you. So that was a little bit different too. But the fact that nobody’s outside, everybody’s kind of inside the whole world. And I don’t know if it’s because I was in a, in a very cold States. You know, I spent most of the time in New England and in the Middle West. But I just think it’s a culture because even in Georgia, it was like this.
Martinha Plonka: I did not really know a lot of my neighbors. So that was a shock because I’m used to have everybody outside. You know your neighbors, you talk to everybody, hello, hello, and it’s a more reserved culture. So that was like a shock because I’m a people person. So for me, it was really different to adapt to that.[00:10:00]
William Gibson: Yeah, I definitely, I can agree with that when you’re very much a people person.
Martinha Plonka: Yeah, I like to talk to people and then it’s, it’s, it’s not even now I’m here for, you know, so many years and still I really, I hardly know my neighbors. I know the neighbor on my left, I say hello to her, but I think I may have gone to her house.
Martinha Plonka: I lived here 15 years. I, maybe three times I have gone to her house. The neighbor across the street, we just say, hi, hi. Sometimes I said, a nice dog. That was it. And my neighbors on the right, I, I just say hello and that’s it. I never actually spent time with her. So it, it is very different culture. I love the country.
Martinha Plonka: I’m not saying it is just a very different environment, what I grew up with.
William Gibson: No, I totally understand that. Would you say Would there be anything you’d do like differently moving to the U. S. now or anything at all you’d consider in hindsight? [00:11:00]
Martinha Plonka: I would probably prepare myself better for English because I took English in high school and I also took English in Brazil.
Martinha Plonka: You have what you call linguistic schools where you can learn whatever language you wanted to learn. So after You have a choice in school, okay? You can learn French, or you can learn English. So, Spanish is not taught in Brazil, even though we’re bordered with all the Spanish countries, but we don’t, we’re not taught anything about the culture from, um, Spanish countries.
Martinha Plonka: Uh, we’re taught about, um, French, German, or English. So you have a choice to learn after school. You pay and you go to this school, just like you go into music and have a conservatory, I think that’s what you call. You can do the same as a linguistic school. And I chose to do English because my dad wanted everybody to learn English.
Martinha Plonka: So I thought I knew English enough to communicate, [00:12:00] but. When I came here, it was very different because I also went to New Hampshire, which is very different. My, I saw my American mom. She is half Italian. Her parents came from New York. Her husband’s from Tennessee, it was like a very different, like they call supper dinner, which that’s now how I learned, you say dinner, dinner, and they call supper.
Martinha Plonka: So it was like a shock of culture between the United States. So I think if I had a, you know, if I could go back home, I would have, Make sure that I was in a more intense English class and have a chance to be, uh, involved and have a chance to speak the language more, watch more videos, or watch more shows, anything that could expose me to the language, because I thought I knew English, I have [00:13:00] no idea.
Martinha Plonka: I did not really understand. I could read, When I saw the words, I could understand, but when people talked to me, I was extremely lost. So, yeah, definitely I would prepare my English much better. And learn a little bit about the culture, too, because I did not learn. I thought everybody’s going to be like, hi, hi, hi, and it’s not.
Martinha Plonka: I should have learned a little bit about how the culture is very different coming here. So, even if you are in New England, going to Florida, for example, is a very different culture. So, I should have learned a little bit about. What is the difference between people in Miami and people in New Hampshire, for example, so I could understand a little bit more and not to be, I think I was a little bit critical because I thought everybody in the whole world was like us back home and it’s not.
Martinha Plonka: So it would help me not to feel like Not take things personally, because at first I took things personally, well they don’t care about us, but it’s, it’s not. They’re very nice people, it’s just a [00:14:00] different culture, so I should have studied a little bit more about the culture.
William Gibson: That makes a lot of sense. I mean, even state by state, I mean, I have family in New Hampshire, and it’s very different up there than in Virginia.
Martinha Plonka: Oh yes, definitely very different, very different.
William Gibson: So, would you say you knew like anyone of your culture coming to the U. S. or were you pretty much the only like individual from Central, South America? around you at the time.
Martinha Plonka: Okay, say one more time because I don’t know if I understood the question.
William Gibson: That’s okay. So is there anyone similar to you when you came to the U.S. in college? So was there anyone of similar like ethnicity or background?
Martinha Plonka: No, not really. I didn’t have anybody. So after I was in school, my American family, she actually called the principal, not the principal, the president or somebody, the counselor, and said, I have someone from [00:15:00] Brazil. She, uh, doesn’t really have anybody, uh, from her culture, from her country.
Martinha Plonka: Do you have any club, anything that she could, so after six or seven months, Um, they gave her some, some places where like a club. So then I start to talk to, but most of the people that from Brazil that I met, they were older than me. They were married doing PhD and I was a freshman in school. So I didn’t really have a connection with them just because the age gap, it was kind of, some of them have kids and I’m, I’m just new, I’m, I’m young.
Martinha Plonka: So they have some, but then, What I did, I started to find out who else from other countries my age I could hang out with. And then I started to hang out with people from, uh, other Hispanic countries. And what I did is actually starting to learn, uh, more Spanish. There’s [00:16:00] a girl from, uh, Uh, Barcelona, there’s other kids from Spain and people from, um, South America.
Martinha Plonka: So I started to hang out because the culture was close to my culture. So I ended up actually learning how to speak Spanish, you know, from Spain by hanging out with them. Because it was much more, the, the, the language is closer because it’s based on Latin, but also because the culture is so much closer to my culture.
Martinha Plonka: So it was easy for me to feel much more comfortable around them. So those are the people that I, I hang out and I feel. People from Brazil that I later on found it was my age. I was able to, but then my husband moved because, not moved, we have to, he was stationed in a different place. He got orders. So we went to Illinois.
Martinha Plonka: So in Illinois, there was nobody. There was nobody at all. So all my classes, everybody was just [00:17:00] Americans. And I tried to find different people from my country. There was, so I did not have anybody. That I knew that was from Brazil when I was in, uh, University of Illinois, there was nobody there, it was all Americans, different, you know, different states, Florida, uh, different people from California, there was a girl from India, there was my lab partner, different countries, Asia, but not anybody from, uh, Brazil at all, so I was just, you know, So my Portuguese kind of, my Portuguese and Spanish for a while kind of slide a little bit because I was hanging out with people that I have no choice.
Martinha Plonka: Everybody that was in school with me were just Americans. My partner was Americans. Everybody that I studied with were Americans. So it was no choice for me but to hang out with whoever was available for me to talk to.
William Gibson: That makes sense. So would you say there’s, so were [00:18:00] there any like barriers you faced being from another country or maybe?
William Gibson: How your accent impacted things, or just in general?
Martinha Plonka: Yeah, the accent definitely, because it’s, uh, my linguistic professor, when I was at the University of New Hampshire, he was helping me when I was taking some English classes. He knew about, what, he, Study Portuguese and all the Romance language, so he will help me when I pronounce some words so he will help me speak a little slower than you would speak a language because America doesn’t speak as fast as any country in Latin America or in Spain So just speak a little slowly and pronounce So he gave us a little tricks like some tips not trick but tips to help us like with the th sound the rl I don’t know Some of the sounds that is not phonetically.
Martinha Plonka: So we don’t have that in our language, but definitely the language was very hard. It was [00:19:00] a barrier for me to communicate because you at the first time, even though I was there for a while, you don’t really want to speak because you are embarrassed that if you speak, people are not going to understand. So.
Martinha Plonka: When we are learning another language, it’s easy for us to read because you can see the words in a piece of paper than for us to speak and to listen to because you’re going to speak like my friends will speak or the professor will speak. For example, I had a tape record, like tiny, tiny, just With a little tape cassette that was very small.
Martinha Plonka: In every class, I’ll have my professor, Do you mind if you have this tape record and you will have it with you in your lecture? And he said, No, no, no. So I would give it to them. So he will carry with them through the whole lecture. After we’re done, he will give it to me. I’ll go to the library and I’ll listen again.[00:20:00]
Martinha Plonka: And then I will write down what I Whatever I miss because I could not write fast enough and pay attention. So I thought myself, I’m going to just listen to them. And then when they give back the tape record, I’ll go to the library and I’ll listen again and, and, and take notes like this, that worked for a while.
Martinha Plonka: And then I find out that. My school has at the library, bookstore, excuse me, the bookstore has what they call I notes, I for Illinois, notes. So what I have is a, a student teacher who goes, usually, uh, uh, one of the students I have, I’m working with a professor, okay, he will go to the lecture and he will take notes and then they will give it to the bookstore and they charge.
Martinha Plonka: So I’ll go there, I said, okay, I need biochemistry 350 notes. So they will give it to me for that day and I’ll pay for them. So I’ll take that notes and I’ll study through those notes [00:21:00]because otherwise it’ll be too difficult for me. So I did, I have to use this in order for me to understand the subject.
Martinha Plonka: So it was. The tape record and buy for I notes for me to listen to the lecture and follow along with the notes from the student teacher that they did. So that was one of the barriers that I found it was hard to.
William Gibson: That makes sense.
William Gibson: Was there anything that like, were you impacted at all by not having individuals like you at the University of Illinois? Or were you kind of acclimated to like the culture of U. S. by then where it wasn’t like as bad not having people like you there?
Martinha Plonka: After a while, you just learn to, I can’t, I can’t be waiting or I can just [00:22:00]complain.
Martinha Plonka: So what I did is like, I’m going to do the best I can. And I just trying to assimilate the culture and learn about a respect because I also thought myself I’m living in a different country. So I need to assimilate, I can expect everybody to just be the way we are back home. So I just dive into the culture and I just learned to adapt myself.
Martinha Plonka: Because if you don’t. then you become, because this is what happened in the beginning, I’ll be complaining, sometimes I’ll be crying because I couldn’t understand what’s happening, but then I realized They cannot be, you cannot change, and you are in a different country. If people went to Brazil or went to Spain, whatever they went to, they will have to adapt to the culture.
Martinha Plonka: So you need to adapt to this culture. The easier, the faster you adapt to the culture, how, the way that they lived here, the easier will be the transition, the easier will be for you to make friends, the easier for you to understand the language. and easy for you to do that. So I chose [00:23:00]not to complain too much, expect too much.
Martinha Plonka: It’s like, no, I am in a different country. I need to be the one that need to embrace the culture. And I felt like I was very lucky to be part of, you know, to be in a very good university and have the chance for me to finish my, you know, school to attend school. And I felt like I was blessed to do that. So I just decided to embrace and not to worry if I found a Brazilian or find someone that speaks Spanish.
Martinha Plonka: Great. If not, it doesn’t matter because I need to learn and I need to embrace myself. I can’t just complain about things. So that’s how things got much better when I decided to embrace and involve myself with the culture and learn. I took an American history. I took all the classes so I can learn about the history of the country to appreciate what the country has to
William Gibson: Oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense. Um, I had a [00:24:00] question. Is there anything you miss about Brazil that you’d want to have in the U. S.?
Martinha Plonka: Yes, I think the, the warmth of the people, I think the culture, we’re very close as far as family. Um, Like the university, for example, it’s not common for us to finish high school and then we leave to go to another state to go to school.
Martinha Plonka: That’s not, it’s common for us, you know, to go to school in our state because first of all, we don’t have room and board like you have here. So I would like to remind everybody that if you like seeing Virginia, you do a test. So if you’re in Florida, you would do tests for this, uh, university in Florida, so there’s no room in board.
Martinha Plonka: So you stay in your house with your family, you finish your school there, and you get a [00:25:00] job there, unless you’re going to go to another country, right? But the majority of people, they stay in Florida. with their families. They go to school in their state. Once they graduate, if you don’t marry, you’re still with your family.
Martinha Plonka: You work, but you live with your parents. And when you get married, then you leave your parents house. Um, so that is, like, the We always get together every weekend because we don’t move out of the state. We always in the same state, maybe in a different neighborhood or different city, but we all in the same state.
Martinha Plonka: So we are always getting together for birthdays. The family get together on the weekends. We do like a barbecue. We are together. So we just have that closeness. And that’s what I missed the most. It’s like being able to see my family in a regular basis, like every weekend, like when I go visit home [00:26:00] every weekend, I’m always doing something throughout the week.
Martinha Plonka: Everybody works, but on the weekends, we’re always doing something. Doesn’t have to go to a restaurant. We can just, Hey, let’s do something. So somebody else’s house. Okay. My niece will, let’s go to have dinner with us. So everybody would bring something. We do some shoe house school, which is like a barbecue.
Martinha Plonka: Everybody stay there. The next Saturday or next Sunday, we may go to a restaurant or may not go to a restaurant. We’ll go to somebody else’s house. So, but we’re always with a family. So we’re always doing something together. Even if it’s just like 10 of us. Sometimes it’s a lot bigger because I have the aunts and uncles and then the sometimes your grandpa will be there too.
Martinha Plonka: So that’s what I miss the most is the warm and the family closeness and the things that we do together. Best friends growing up was my cousins and my, you know, of course my brothers and sister, but [00:27:00] my cousins too were my best friends because we did everything together. Every weekend we go to the beach, we go to a club, uh, to swimming, or we go to, uh, get together.
Martinha Plonka: Always, always together. So that’s what I miss that I could be different here.
William Gibson: I totally understand that. I mean, I know the U. S. is one of very few countries where it’s very customary to, you turn 18 and then you leave.
Martinha Plonka: Yeah.
William Gibson: You might talk to them once a week.
Martinha Plonka: Yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s, it’s just a culture. So for us, it’s, it’s not like this. And in the, I don’t know, the, the kids, you can talk to anyone from my country and they would know, Oh, I cannot wait to leave home.
Martinha Plonka: That’s not, that’s not our, we don’t want it to, I cannot wait to leave home because I think because we do so many things together as a family, we enjoy being with each other. We have a lot of respect for [00:28:00] our parents. We also have a lot of respect for our grandparents. As a matter of fact, your grandparents, before you go to bed, they always bless you.
Martinha Plonka: They will, you know, you go to them, you know, like, especially like if I am around on the weekend and my grandma is there. I will have, she will come, or my grandfather, I’ll come to them, they take my hands, they kiss my hands, and then, bless you, good night, you know, they touch my head, and then they kiss my head, and I kiss their hands.
Martinha Plonka: So there’s the respect for the elders. So we don’t have this, oh my gosh, I cannot wait to go, to get out of here. We don’t have that. We enjoy being with our parents. I mean, we’re very independent. We do work, we go to school, we go to college, we get our jobs, but. For our parents, like, you can stay here, you’re getting a job, you’re working, not just sitting around the house doing nothing.
Martinha Plonka: We do have our jobs, but we spend time on the family. When we are ready to get married, then [00:29:00] we leave the house. But it’s not like you’re living in your basement doing nothing. It’s not like that at all. We finish our college, we have a job, and we help around the house. We pay for groceries, we help around.
Martinha Plonka: We pay for gas, help around, you know, with the money if we need gas. Yeah, I’m gonna get my my dad’s car, for example. I will pay for the gas. So it’s not like I am living off him and don’t do anything. We get a job. So we are very responsible adults. We just leave home until we’re ready to get married. Then we go and have our own life, like a different apartment or house, whatever.
Martinha Plonka: That’s a little bit different than here.
William Gibson: Okay, that makes sense. You touched on education on the main reason for coming to the U. S. Why did you choose a U. S. education over, say, a European or a university in your home country?
Martinha Plonka: Just because I have friends of mine that have done the same thing, the same student [00:30:00] exchange.
Martinha Plonka: And they really told me that it’s a great opportunity to go to United States. In Brazil has, if you go, you can go to any country, but because some of my friend has already come here and have very good experience, and besides, I did not know how, like, even if I go to Great Britain, I don’t have anybody, none of my friends had gone to Great Britain and to say, Oh yeah, I’d love to go to school there.
Martinha Plonka: Most of my friends. Not my friends, but my friend’s older brother or sister had gone to the United States. And they’re like, it’s a very good opportunity for you. There’s a sponsorship. So this is the reason why, besides I was already speaking English. So for me to transition to English. Instead of doing British English, because it’s very different for me, having an opportunity to come here, it was much better for me than going to another country.
Martinha Plonka: It’s like, if somebody says, hey, that restaurant is [00:31:00] really good food, and I think you should try. So somebody, so many people have come to here and done an exchange student. Um, it also has to do with university too, so the university have partnership that you can do that. So for me, it was much better to come here, uh, to United States than go to, let’s say, Europe.
Martinha Plonka: Now, remember that my mom, my, not, I call her my mom, but my step, uh, mom, she went to England, but she went on, I don’t know, I can’t remember the word in English, but, um, it’s when you have a scholarship, but it’s a scholarship as someone that has a PhD. She has, um, she got accepted to a fellowship, I think that’s what they call a fellowship, to go to Oxford.
Martinha Plonka: Now, if I was living at home, I would have probably gone with them because she was there and my brothers did go to school in England and finish high school there and start college in there. I probably [00:32:00] would go there, but I was already, I was older than my boy, my brother, so I was already here. So for me, when my friend said, Hey, there’s a good opportunity for us to go to United States.
Martinha Plonka: No, this person went there. You have to find a, um, a sponsorship. So I have a friend of mine, American, as a matter of fact, that helped me to find, okay, I have someone and you got good grades. And you have, you know, everything, there’s like a list of things and so they accept me. So when I came here, uh, with a student visa, I have to show them all their criteria, what I need to do to come here.
Martinha Plonka: And then when I came here, something that I forgot to tell you, the American family, they have someone, like a tutor, to help me to make sure that I was doing okay, um, and there was a process for you to, you know, you take a TOFA, which is a task. For proficiency in English, I have to take the test to show them that yes, you [00:33:00] are, um, proficient in the language.
Martinha Plonka: So I have to take this test to make sure that I could speak the language. Which the test is all written, which is very easy for us to pass. If it was Orally, I probably would not do as well, but because it was all written. So this is one of the reasons I came here, because it was easier for me to come here, speaking already English, knowing that I have a sponsor, than have to go to another country that I really didn’t know the process of.
Martinha Plonka: Most Brazilians will come to the United States. Sometimes they go to Boston, sometimes they go to Canada. My niece went to Canada. But most of them go to Boston, like big cities, California, you know, someone in New Hampshire. So those are the schools that they have partnerships. That’s one of the reasons that I chose to come here.
William Gibson: Okay, thank you. And is there any Actually, I don’t know. Um, [00:34:00] is there anything else you’d want to add or say just in relation to coming to the US and as an immigrant, anything you’ve learned since being here or just any other thoughts or comments?
Martinha Plonka: I think when we, when I came, when I first came here, I really did not know a lot about the country.
Martinha Plonka: Um, I knew all what my friends have said, they really like that, but also a lot, I feel like the media, um, would not particularly portray the country as right, because I came here thinking that everybody here is very arrogant, they all stuck up, they think they’re the best in the world, and, and once I started to study the history of of nine states.
Martinha Plonka: I understand so many things that the [00:35:00] country have done. This is why we come here. Why do you think a lot of other immigrants want to come here instead of going to France? Because this is the land of opportunity. If you come here and you work hard, you can make something for yourself. There’s opportunity for you and for your family to get a better life.
Martinha Plonka: So I came here with the idea that everybody stuck up and it’s not true. This is a beautiful country. The people are, the Americans are good people. They’re going to have bad people, arrogant people everywhere, even in my country. But coming here, studying the language, and realizing this country has done a lot, it’s not perfect, but I learned to love this country as my own country, that when I look to the American flag, I have deep respect, maybe because my husband have served in the military.
Martinha Plonka: For many years, and he has to sacrifice, I mean, most of my life as a married wife, I have my kids, and I have to [00:36:00] raise them by myself because my husband was gone six months at a time. He’ll be in a submarine. He’ll have to go to Persian Gulf and all that kind of things, you know, be gone all the time. And there’s a lot of sacrifice that people don’t understand how much they sacrifice To give opportunity to the freedom from other people.
Martinha Plonka: So I learned to respect this country and to really love American flag. My flag in American flag has a very important meaning for me. Sometimes when I see the American flag, I bring tears to my eyes because I love this country so much. And I think. After I learn about the country, after I learn about the history, it’s not a perfect country.
Martinha Plonka: There’s many things that we can improve, but I love to learn, and I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity that I have to come here, get an education, and be able to give back to my own family, because of what I have now, [00:37:00] I can help my family financially, and my kids have a better education than they would have if I was living in Brazil.
Martinha Plonka: I have nothing but great gratitude for what this country has done for me.
William Gibson: Thank you so much, Mrs. Plonka.
Martinha Plonka: Absolutely, absolutely.
Recent Comments