Vivian Gamboa Interview

Conducted by Manuel Gamboa

HIST 150 Spring 2017

March 25, 2017

A. This interview was done over a FaceTime audio call and required no edits. I used Garage Band on my Macbook Pro to record the conversation, and had my mother on speaker phone.  My family currently lives in Italy which is why I was unable to conduct this interview in person.  The phone laid on the table between the laptop and myself. The space was quiet, I was alone in my dorm room.

B. My mother, Vivian Gamboa was born October 29th 1981 in Los Angeles, California at USC Medical Center. She lived with her grandmother from then Till the age of 5 while my grandmother worked as a migrant worker and gained citizenship. After that, she grew up all over southern California before finally settling in Riverside. There she met my father, Had me and married my father. When my mother was 22 my father joined the United States Air Force and we’ve been moving around ever since. By the age 24 she had 3 children. The places my family has lived are: Riverside, California, Las Vegas, Nevada, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and currently reside in Aviano, Italy.

C. My mother was born to immigrants/ migrant workers and talked about the Mexican Posadas, so i went and did research on both of those subjects. what i found was that in most other christian countries the 12 days are recognized but in Mexico, Las Posadas or 9 days leading up to christmas are recognized. These festivities continue past christmas till January 6th or the day of the 3 kings. Actually growing up my family celebrated 3 kings day but not Las Posados. So i had no knowledge of this holiday till the interview which was really cool to look up and hear bout from my mother. The research I did for Migrant workers and immigration showed my that in the 1970’s-80’s time period was actually communism. In 1979 when Nicaragua elected a socialist leader, President Regan made central america his top priority to stomp the communist expansion in the western hemisphere. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan reframed the issue of immigration as one of national security. “The U.S.,” he asserted to members of Congress, “had lost control” of its borders to an “invasion of illegal immigrants.” Congress passed the Immigrant Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986. This led to increased patrols along the U.S.-Mexican border, sanctions on employers of undocumented workers, and an amnesty program for long-term undocumented residents.More than 2.3 million foreign-born Latino residents in the U.S. took advantage of this program, leading to naturalization and green-card status. However, most foreign-born laborers did not want to give up their Mexican citizenship, preferring to work in California on a temporary basis and then return home. The IRCA required people to make a choice. Most choose to stay in the U.S. and sent for their family to join them. Under Reagan’s leadership, Congress had tried to limit Latino immigration, but instead, they created incentives that would lead to its increase. By 1989 Los angeles had the largest urban population of Mexicans second only to Mexico city.

D.  Translation: For the interview i used our initials VG(Vivian Gamboa) and MG(Manuel Gamboa).

MG: Hi so do you consent to this public interview?

VG: Yes…I do.

MG: OK, what is your first…or full name?

VG: My full name is Vivian Gamboa.

MG: where were you born?

VG: Los Angeles, California.

MG where did you grow up?

VG: Ummm I grew up mostly in Palm Springs/Palm Desert, California then, when i was about 12 years old  i moved to Orange County and then my freshman year of high school I moved to Riverside, California…so a little bit of everywhere.

VG: I went to 7 elementary schools, 1 middle school, and 2 high schools

MG: I understand you lived with your grandmother till the age of 5… what was it like to live in another country? Mexico to be specific.

VG: I don’t remember a lot but i was sent every summer to stay with her so…I was there almost every summer until I was 15.

VG: The last time i went to Mexico i was 15 and it definitely makes you appreciate first world stulff uh.. like running water and uh … not having to go out uh across the court yard to go to the bathroom, instead of down the hall.

MG: what about the gender roles in Mexico do you noticed the difference?

VG: Majorly, so in Mexico..I mean from what I remember, I don’t know how it is now ,you know 19 years later umm since I’ve been there. I just remember most women would get married really young…or did get married very young, then just have kids and tend to the house. Men from where my grandmother is from were mostly farm workers. there was a lot of sugar cane, they make rum, its tropical so a lot of coconut, and its mostly a lot of farm workers. I never really went to the city a lot, my grandmother is from a very small town.

MG: Where specifically?

VG: Uh she is from the smallest state in Mexico; Colima, Colima its literally the smallest state in Mexico ummm the closes port is Manzanilo, thats mostly where a lot of the trade goods come to Mexico from other countries I believe.

MG: Ok, so growing up was english your first language?

VG:No! actually English was my second language, but growing up in Palm Springs/ Palm Dessert there wasn’t….there were a lot of retired Jewish people from what I remember, so there was no ESL, I started kindergarten in 1987 and I remember not being able to understand a word but being fulling integrated, by the time I was in first grade i could pretty much speak but i had an accent.

VG: Then i was pretty much put into speech therapy till 7th grade and back then they could help you with your accent, so obviously i have no accent but english is my second language.

MG: ok so ummm did you ever think in english or Spanish?

VG: so up until I was 14 or 15 ummm no more like 13 or 14 I  thought in Spanish. After that I remember thinking just purely in english, and even now ummm when I think or do… everything is in English now and I’ve actually forgotten some of the Spanish wording because i don’t speak it very much anymore.

MG: Ok going off of that are there any customs you would bring to the states that we don’t have?

VG: Customs? …..hmm let me see other than um food… well food isn’t really a custom haha, I would say I like the mariachi  culture umm, the festivals I believe certain celebrations during Christmas time ummm ah from what I remember we do what is called Posadas. They actually do them in LA, downtown LA still um and it’s just pretty much um more of a festival fro the kids. There are pinatas, and they’re full of candy and um little toys and you sing songs it’s kinda like caroling in Spanish. Gathering and lots of food

MG: Ok then after growing up in Riverside, California and everything, I understand that you had a child and were married to my father correct?

VG: Correct, yes.

MG: and you’ve been moving around since

VG: yes

MG: can you explain to us what it’s like to be a military spouse and some of the challenges that come with it?

VG: So, your dad ended up joining the military after college, so I was about 22 when he joined and i guess it was more of a shock because we lived in the real world for…I wanna say, well we bought our first house when we were really young, I was 19 and he was 21 and um going into the military a lot of people join out of high school so they…. like your dad and I had already paid like insurance. Going into the military and meeting people who  had never, well not so much had never, but the military obviously provides a lot of safety. Um it was a major culture shock for me especially since we never had any family members who were in the military besides your dad’s grandfather who we never met who was in the Air Force. It was a big culture shock it was the first time we ever moved away from our family,  and um your dad and I had both grown up around our grand parents and realizing that you guys, you, your brother, and your sister weren’t going to get the same opportunity. I think it was ah nostalgia….culture shock….nostalgia, a lot of different emotions I guess haha.

VG: Moving around….actually I don’t mind it, I like fresh starts i think we’re going to have a tough time when your dad has to retire actually haha. Living here in Italy the longest now has kinda prepared me. The hardest part for me is having to start over, obviously with your dad being active duty it’s back into his role, gets back into his job just a different office, then with you guys… you start at a different school, you guys get back into a routine. I think if anything its been a little bit harder for me because I’ve had too just find the jobs I can find and adapt. where as with you guys and your dad go back to the same routine….well not so much…I guess kinda the same routine just in a different location. If that makes sense sorry

MG: Totally understandable, you mentioned living in Italy can you like explain to the audience what that is like?

VG:So, I always wanted to move to Europe, and I wanna say… well obviously we’ve lived in Nevada. Las Vegas, Nevada was our first duty station, that was a culture shock in the city that never sleeps haha. Umm but it was still beautiful as Las Vegas is ummm then we were in Oklahoma city and that was our first time in the mid west. Even then the culture there is a lot different….obviously people there were a lot more friendlier.

VG:Its more country, but then moving to Italy, even though I always wanted to move to Europe it was Dif…..It was definitely a culture shock. So, when we arrived you know Europeans and Italians in general are very….. you know… uh very not in a hurry. They’re about taking everything slow and being from California, and coming from a big city that was very difficult for me. We went from having 3G internet, Wifi to having DSL here in Italy haha. Some places you couldn’t even get DSL, they still had dial up. So, even though we moved to Italy in 2011 it felt like we were back in 1987 haha. Um also I’m used to getting things fixed…. you know when somethings broken, normally you call somebody and you can get something fixed right away. In Italy sometimes it’s tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or sometimes a week from today. It literally took us 2 months to get internet hook up back in 2011 which back in the states would never happen haha. They actually just got 4G not to long ago for cellular service, but even then some spots it doesn’t work so you have to change your phone settings down to 3G in order for it to work haha. Overall though living in Europe and living in Italy has shown me how to…..slow down, take a deep breath and just take life slower, things will get fixed when they get fixed….I guess not be so rushed and impatience, it’s definitely taught me a lot of patiences.

MG: Ok then, I understand you speak Italian along with Spanish and English can you talk about what it’s like to be trilingual?

VG: So yeah, so going back to when you asked me how I thought….I took two semesters of Italian through the University of Maryland while living here in Italy and umm my first semester I didn’t do that well. I remember when i got my final grade I was upset, because it was my first C I had ever gotten and i wanted to know where I went wrong. Italian is pretty similar….. obviously it branches off from latin and it’s very similar to Spanish but when i took the first semester of Italian i was still thinking in English. When I started to look back on, ok where did I go wrong. What could I’ve done better? could i have studied more ? then i was like you know what, it’s very similar to Spanish let me start thinking. when I took the second semester of Italian…Italian 2… I started thinking In Spanish when I was studying and doing all of the grammatical homework. The more i thought in Spanish um….the better i did and the more it helped me.

VG:I ended up getting a better grade umm…then after like 3 years of living here of full integration, going out into the town, going to the local bakery,  going to the local um meat market, and just asking like how do you pronounce this, or am I saying It correctly ? If i’m not saying it correctly can you please correct me?  I think when you move to a different country even a different state, its important to emerge and just take in because you know even living in the states, every state is different and guess coming from a family of immigrants thats something my step dad always emphasized. You know what when you move to another country or you come…embrace the culture obviously don’t forget your roots but…..so respect you know, and try to learn about how things are done where you live,  I guess that can go for any community as well.

MG: thats awesome!living in Italy, I understand that you had a lot of  travel opportunities. Can you pick one european country that you visited that might be your favorite ?

VG: Oh my gosh…so,  ever since I was a kid I don’t know why, I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland. I’ve opportunity to go twice already, We’ve gotten the opportunity to go to a lot of different countries and actually this Friday  were actually going to Amsterdam. I remember as a kid reading the Diary Of Anne Frank and thinking like oh wow where is Amsterdam? Oh I’ll probably never go there…. and now that were going there now thats…. just the travel opportunities. As an English major also I’ve gotten to go to England and see the Shakespeare Theater, and just a lot of the history…..I’m very thank full for that, its been a good opportunity um and just also like i said anytime we visit other countries, even when I go to Austria , you know anytime we’ve driven through Austria

MG: um hmm

VG: I’m always asking like do you guys speak Deutsche(Language of the germans)? what do you guys speak? how do i say this? sometimes I speak Italian, sometimes I speak Spanish, Normally….the good thing about in Europe, Europeans always speak either….for sure English,  they all learn a little bit of English but if not some of them speak Spanish or Deutsche. I’m trying to learn Deutsche now, I figure once you learn one or two languages it’s easy to pick up another one. It’s been a great experience umm umm I……definitely appreciate it and it makes me more symp…I guess sympathetic towards other cultures I don’t know how to explain it but its definitely been a great experience and I’m grateful for it.

MG: Alright well thank you for your time.

VG: Alright well thank you, it was a pleasure doing this interview and ummm I will talk to you soon.

MG talk to you soon.

 

Works Cited

“The Posada | A Christmas Tradition in Mexico.” Hacienda Tres Rios. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017. <http://www.haciendatresrios.com/special-occasions/posada-christmas-in-mexico-traditions/>.

“The Reagan Years: 1980s: Mexican American Culture.” The Reagan Years: 1980s: Mexican American Culture | Picture This. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017. <http://picturethis.museumca.org/timeline/reagan-years-1980s/mexican-american-culture/info>.