Diego Fernando Interview
Conducted by Abby Basse
HIST 150 Spring 2017
March 26, 2017
A. This interview was done over a phone call, which did require some editing to the beginning and the end because it was just casual conversation that was not necessary for the overall interview. I conducted this interview by renting a yeti microphone from the library, and putting the phone call on speaker, having audacity record. I did this interview in my dorm room and tried to make it as quiet as possible doing it in the middle of the day, in the middle of a class period. I then downloaded the file as a mp3. I do apologize for the minute long alarm from the door right next to my dorm room.
B. Diego is the oldest of three kids, all boys, and has 2 younger brothers. He lives with his mom and Dad. All of his family was born in El Salvador. He was born in 1996 and his youngest brother was born in 1999 and they lived in El Salvador until November of 2001. Diego’s dad he came over first to the U.S. to get situated and pick a place but started off living with relatives. Eventually, the rest of the family came over including Diego, living with his dad and the relatives, and then after a bit my parents started working. They have been here ever since.
C. Many people flee from El Salvador because it is one of the most violent countries. El Salvador is considered a part of the “Northern Triangle” region that was characterized by President Obama as a “humanitarian crisis.” It all began in 1979 and lasted until 1992, the El Salvadorian Civil War, started a wave of violence and has not stopped. Today, El Salvador has some of the highest murder rates in Latin America. It is also considered a focal point of the gang crisis in the northern triangle region. El Salvador’s murder rate is twenty-two times the rate of the United States as of 2016.
Works Cited:
Harris, Dan, Adam Desiderio, Jenna Millman, and Lauren Effron. “In El Salvador, the Murder Capital of the World, Gang Violence Becomes a Way of Life.” ABC News. ABC News Network, 17 May 2016. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
Hiskey, Johnathan T., Abby Cordova, Diana Orces, and Mary Fran Malone. “Understanding the Central American Refugee Crisis.” American Immigration Council. N.p., 16 Aug. 2016. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
D. Translation:
*Skip to 7 seconds for Audio*
AB: Okay so this is Diego Fernando, do you consent to this interview?
DF: Yes.
AB: Okay great. What are some of the struggles you have faced growing up as an immigrant?
DF: Uh so I guess one of the struggles was um that the language barrier was the first hurdle to cross I mean I was five years old when I came here and I started half way through the school semester, my school year, In a public school. Um living in a place where like Mechanicsville, Virginia, which is a large community [couple seconds unintelligible] So like learning English was definitely hard, um there were a lot of like instances like miscommunications or misunderstandings or just sometimes I would just like freeze up because I didn’t know what was being asked of me or what I was supposed to do. I didn’t have to tools to be able to ask for help or verification. Um but you know you emerge into a great way to learn and so with the help of my teachers, the ESL program, um my mom, and how PBS shows like Arthur and Cyber Chase, that all just really helped kick start English for me and by the time I started the first grade I was completely fluent and could carry on without any problems. But then you know and some other problems or things that I really didn’t start facing until I was much older, like I’ve always like heard of like discrimination against like immigrants, uh I guess one of those microaggressions I guess you could call it is when people call me Mexican and assume I was Mexican, even though I’m from El Salvador. So from a young age I have been educating people about the diversity of Latin America and South America and uh you know representing my country here in the United States uh and after I became fully aware of my undocumentation immigration status I uh threw myself on the front line, and that’s when I began to see some stuff on Facebook you know “Send the immigrants home” you know “illegals don’t belong here” that type of stuff. But you know I always try to talk it – I have thick skin so I really just try to not mind it and then focus on educating and advocating for myself and other people like me.
AB: Yeah definitely. Well, have your parents experienced some of the same difficulties or different?
DF: Yeah definitely. My parents also had to struggle with learning uh English eh but when you’re an adult a language – a second language – it’s gonna be harder but now both my parents are fully fluent; they have accents which you know piss people off that they’re not you know the weren’t born here. [chuckles] But yeah my dad’s has like a nice office for a landscaping company and my mom recently began working with a um property management company, and um they’re both like so smart and articulate you know they just had these accents that piss people off but they have also encountered their fair share of discrimination. There was one time where my mom was in the store and was speaking on the phone with my dad in Spanish and uh you know a man asked her to speak English and so that was kind of just like, that’s the kind of stuff we grew up with and like had stuff happen, um but thankfully there hasn’t ever been any violence or you know – really shaking violence or discrimination we face. Uh a lot of this stuff can kind of be based kinda like institutional, just trying to get names like or access to things and getting access to some resources is a bit harder for us, um than other people.
AB: Okay so did your parents ever isolate you from knowing certain things about being an immigrant as a child?
DF: Yes. Um, for the longest time my perception of like my immigration status was a bit skewed, like I knew that like I wasn’t a U.S. Citizen, I knew that my citizenship was with El Salvador, but my whole life I always thought, oh you know whenever I want to get my citizenship I just gotta walk into an office and say, “hey I wanna be a U.S. Citizen” and then um maybe like sign some paper and be like “here you go sir right this way!” But I-I really didn’t understand, and my parents didn’t really want to tell me that I was actually undocumented. I couldn’t have a social security number, and that going to college, getting a drivers license, getting a job would be difficult, if not impossible for me, and the reasons they told me that, you know those things they didn’t tell me about that part of my immigration status was because they always wanted me to try really hard in school and to not feel limited just because of you know some missing documents uh some documents I didn’t have uh I think truly it all worked out in 2012 when President Obama passed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act or uh executive order and uh when I found out I was kind of shocked and a bit angry but it all kind of like made sense and they did it for a good reason uh so that I wouldn’t loose my motivation. But yeah that’s really the only thing I that I uh I at least know they kept for me, and there might be other things that I don’t know about.
AB: Yeah [laughs] definitely, definitely. How is your area, which is Mechanicsville, shaped who you are today?
DF: Yeah! It’s interesting Mechanicsville, I guess it not necessarily I guess the type of place that I guess people might go to for immigration spots, for like anyone, but the reason we moved to like uh that area was because we had family there. After we got started and are on our on for a bit but It was definitely, I would say it’s like a small town… like… suburbey but not super rich it’s like a very middle class area, um you know and there are some farms here and there but it’s outside Richmond so it’s not super rural, it’s like a nice suburban area, like I guess you could say it’s a nice little life of southern life, so in that way I kind of just learned that a lot of like uh I-I say ya’ll a lot like a person in the south would, um, and uh the only thing I didn’t pick up on was like I guess uh like the big trucks and came culture, that didn’t really ever stick with me but I did do boy scouts, and the people that I did boy scouts with were um military veterans like our scout leaders were military veterans, just working class people and um that just helps cause we are all working class, but like having those also role models really emphasized the value of hard work, honesty, it all was kind of put on the program but just really sort of being with, like rural, country, folk kinda people like they just have such an appreciation for um nature and um perseverance, but yeah it was interesting and a nice area to grow up in. I didn’t have to like put on a defense or front because I was welcomed pretty well into the community… It was very accepting
AB: That’s great. Okay so… how has your life been impacted positively growing up as an undocumented immigrant?
DF: Sorry what was that?
AB: How has your life been impacted positively growing up as an undocumented immigrant?
DF: Positively… I think um.. It’s the type of thing where pressure makes diamonds in a way… um I just sorta had this heightened awareness like politics, never when I was younger I thought to be like super involved with politics and like social justice movement, um but sort of like as I was graduating high school and starting college I really understood of what being an undocumented immigrant meant. I just sorta got a heightened awareness of those in like ripples in like views and like culture, um but I also know hot to manage myself with like government forms, you know I’ve filled out so many government forms where I know how to be like very well prepared when I travel, and uh to make sure I have everything right when I go to any sort of appointments, or government like meetings or meetings…for uh Jac card renewals, or even just my drivers license. So I think in my own way I am more aware of my own like personal like legal stuff, even down to like taxes and what not then some of my peers, just because I had to be aware of those as a kid, me and my parents because we were all sorta figuring it out together, and it was the sort of thing that if I let it slip there was like no like no you know nothing to fall back on um so we kind of just as a family really how complex government forms and how to fill those out at the time. I have also learned a lot about using your voice as like as not – not settling and not settling for unjust treatment or
a job you necessarily don’t want, because those are – my dad started out as like uh a landscaper you know he was like cutting grass you know just working with this company, out all day in the sun, but he’s worked his way up to a desk job, and my mom who has been a waitress since we got here basically and she’s moved up so that she has a desk job. So there’s sort of this uh starting from the bottom now we are here type of mentality with us [and that we don’t take where we begin as to end point, and that we are always looking for the next best thing. Also that sort of upward mobility is very uncharacteristic of my undocumented experience
AB: I like that, that’s great. Okay so, What types of traditions did your family bring with you to the states that you guys still practice today?
DF: Oh, um I think the biggest is one is the way we celebrate even when we – yeah we do all the standard like American celebrations: Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, uh you know um, but our gatherings are anything but quiet, and there’s usually a lot of people, and the biggest tradition that we do is on Christmas Eve we open our gifts at midnight, so as soon as it becomes Christmas day at midnight we open all of our gifts um there’s also on birthdays you know a big family party, my parents have this like old CD of um like Spanish uhh birthday music and that’s how everyone’s woken up on their birthday, from our stereo. These I just remember fondly from growing up.
AB: Okay great. That is all I have for you.
D. In conclusion, I think this interview went very well. Diego is a very open and social person which is more than perfect for an interview. If I could’ve done one thing differently it would’ve been to gather more of his background prior to the interview, to ask questions more geared more towards El Salvador’s history and how that affected his immigration. I didn’t go off script because I wouldn’t have necessarily have thought of good types of questions to ask. I think if I went off the quality of the question might have been bad and maybe insensitive towards the person interviewed if I hadn’t done research prior to the question. I liked that Diego went off track because it allowed him to enlighten me with whatever he wanted to disclose and there were no limits to that. I really enjoyed it.