Sandra Gomez is a Colombian who made the decision to migrate to the United States about 20 years ago. After meeting an American citizen in Colombia, they decided to get married and settle completely in the American country. In this interview, Sandra tells how her migration process was and, mainly, how she adapted to a new country.
You were telling us that you came to this country because you married an American, you were excited about this new life. What was your idea of the United States?
I am a social worker. I studied at the Pontifical Bolivarian University in Colombia. I graduated and then I started working. A year after I was working, I was already working with the government at the Comptroller General's Office in the social area. While there I met my husband, who is an American who came and went from Colombia, because all his family lives in Colombia, he is a Colombian-American. He became an American about 45 years ago, he is sixty and a half years old. When I met him, he was on vacation in his family home. We met and about 6 months later he was telling me that he wanted to marry me, that he wanted to have a family with me and I was telling him that to have a family we have to meet first and to have a child we have to get married first. He was telling me that it doesn't matter if I get married, and I eat so I get married, I don't understand.
Our relationship was very short but very nice, so we got married and since he doesn't live there permanently, we stayed temporarily at his mother's house. After 6 or 7 months he says "I have to go back to the United States, I can't stay here, my job is in the United States". I looked at him and I said "we're going to the United States" and he said "we're going" and I was very calm.
In college I had always known that the United States was not like very good and that people only thought about work and work, there was no time for family relationships, there was no time for anything and that was what I was afraid to come to the United States. I never wanted this country before I came here. It was not my goal, I never had that American dream. So for me it was a spectacular experience, it was very nice, it was very exciting because I was the first woman from my house to go live abroad, in my house everyone was perplexed.
I am the youngest in the house, so I have been protected a lot. Oh! But how that Sandra leaves, "but is that Sandra is also very strong she can go to that country. Besides, "she doesn't go alone, she goes with her husband so what's the problem". Obviously, for an American citizen to bring his wife we had to do some paperwork. I came by the legal way. He did some paperwork in Bogotá and we filled out an application and brought it with all the required papers, because I was asked to do so by my husband. In that sense it is very easy for one to travel. I entered the United States with my passport and visa and with my social security number ready, after two or three months I got my social security at home and with that I could start working.
Obviously the first jobs you get here as an immigrant, as a person who does not speak English, were in a hotel: cleaning bathrooms and making beds as a maid. That was what I started to do and little by little with all the knowledge that I acquired in my profession, here they are realizing that I was a person with a lot of potential and they are giving me higher positions like supervisor, assistant to the boss in the office, handling the computers, giving the schedule to other people. So I was climbing in position and as that happened I adapted more here and also started to study English. I had the basics of my country, I studied English at the university, but I didn't know how to speak it. So I worked during the day and at night I studied, at 12 or 1 am I did my homework, of course after doing the housework, taking care of my husband, the food.
We had a normal life, and after being here when I got off the plane I saw everything very nice, the city very organized, everything very nice and everyone speaking English. Since I arrived, I had the idea of being able to practice my profession here, but time passed and I could not do anything. I met people who gave me interviews, others who told me that they would help me, but nothing happened. Obviously there comes a point where that is frustrating, and there came a point where I said I was going to do something else. I know that I like to work with old people very much, because I am going to study to take care of sick old people in their homes and that is how I started to study and it went very well and with their contact and other contacts they tell me "Sandra there is a position available as a social worker in such a company". Nobody knew me there, but I went and introduced myself and they told me that as a social worker they could not give me anything because I did not have a license, but to take care of old people there is no problem.
They gave me the job to take care of old people and I was happy with my work, and then the same thing happened to me, an efficient professional person is very different from a person who is not so skilled. So I was climbing up the ladder and then they gave me a full-time job and then there was a management position. It's the same as social work, only you don't have a degree in social work and I applied and got a quick transfer. For me that was a great achievement and it's like I assume the position I have now, I'm not taking care of the old people directly anymore, but I'm helping the families of these sick people to do all the social work we do with them. We make classifications for the help that the government gives and I collaborate with all this. At the moment I am in a good position, after 20 years I managed to be in a position similar to that of social work and I cannot be happier.
That is the story of my life here. In all this course I had a boy, he is 18 years old, obviously he is American, but he loves to go to Colombia, so I decided that Daniel must be taught Spanish too because he cannot stay only with English. Being bilingual is very important. When he would come home from school and they would give him homework, I would study with him and we would do it in English and in another notebook we would do the same thing, but in Spanish. Then he learned both languages at the same time. When he went to visit my country I would send him alone, he was very small and I would send him recommendations.
Where does your son go to Medellín?
My son goes to my mother's house, but in his father's house he is also very welcome, he stays directly with my mother. But my mom is in charge of transporting him since he was little and the aunts on my dad's side are very cheerful, they are very jovial, they are very "chichincheras", they like to be with the children and play and get excited. So they took Daniel because my sisters at that time did not have time, they worked all day, they had office hours and they had their homes. My husband's aunts, on the other hand, were more of those things, so they were the ones who took care of getting him out and everything.
How is it at home living with the duality of American and Colombian culture, that is, you still cook Colombian food, you still celebrate the day of the candles?
Well, here it is a little complex because the culture is very different, the important festivities are December 24, 25, "thanksgiving" day, which is Thanksgiving and December 31 and Halloween, for the rest, Colombians do party for everything, we gather as a family for everything, any birthday is a big party. Here, I still find it difficult to get used to the culture, I am very adapted, but the same in December where there is so much noise, they do celebrate the candles here, but it is more at home, the Latinos, the Americans do not celebrate anything, here this is dead.
Americans generally don't celebrate anything else. We still preserve our cultures here, we cook a lot like we do in Medellín, a bandeja paisa, a sancocho, mondongo, things like that and once in a while, why not, a hamburger, a pizza. In my house my husband is the one who cooks, he is a cook, he works as a cook, he comes to the house and he is the one who cooks, I fix the dishes, sometimes I put them in the machine and that's it.
My family was very upset when they saw that I, a professional woman, was coming to the United States to wash bathrooms and I, but if that's what I do here, that's what I live on. In Colombia, going to wash toilets or working in a hotel is a job that is not valued. Here they value the minimum that you do to earn an honest living, here they value everything, everything, from the one who sweeps the floor, to the one who cleans the mirrors. Here all jobs are valued, in Colombia we know it, a person of 40 years in Colombia does not get a job, here of 40 years come here that you have a lot of experience, it is very interesting.
In Colombia we do celebrate Christmas, but here they are very reluctant to be inviting strangers into the house. Coworkers are only coworkers, they are not your friends, they do not open the doors of their house to you, so that you go and have an extra relationship outside your work, on the other hand we Latinos are very informal. "Come on, let's go over there and have a beer, a schnapps. No, here it's very different, here people are very reluctant, they are not so open. Besides, here families hardly ever get together, because here everybody works and works. The more extra time they have, the better, but there is no time for the family, so I didn't like the United States from the beginning, because there is no time for the family. When I'm here I say, "Well, but time is what you make for your family," and we do have time for everything.
Being my husband a little disabled, (let's say it), we do meetings in the house. I am the only one of my family in this country. So it's my husband, my son and me. When I was studying English, I met a lady who had arrived in the same condition as me, so we became very close, she from Barranquilla and I from here. To this day, she is the only family that comes to my house and we sit down to eat, celebrate Thanksgiving, which is not celebrated there, but here.
How long has it been since you've been to Colombia?
A year ago, I go every two years, it all depends. I come and go very easily. My husband does too, but I haven't been for a while. On the other hand, my family comes to my house and visits me. Last year I had my mother and a sister-in-law. They stayed at my house for six months. One thing is different from Americans, here, for example, families are in the way, to say the least. That is a difference between Colombia and the United States, at least the people, the Americans who go to visit their American families do not stay more than two or three weeks after the month. They say that people are already in the way, and they already stink. On the other hand, if they come from my house to visit me, the longer they stay, the better. Here they begin to think that they have to spend more on water, on electricity, spend more on food and the visitors don't work and don't contribute. So, after three weeks, goodbye.
On the other hand, we here in my house are not like that. I receive my people, I don't charge them because they are in my house, what problem is that, the culture. If there is something else here and I have been a little harsh about it, because here any Colombian who comes to this country is considered a drug dealer, especially if he comes from Medellín. Once I was telling a group of Americans what a shame it is that you only think of Colombia as a drug killer. Maybe it is the drug lord, but whoever is using all those drugs, isn't it the Americans and the rest of the world? It is because of you that we have fame and there if you stay quiet and have a little more respect.
Ah! Are you a Latino? What about Mexico? And I am, I am Latino but not from Mexico, do you know how many Latin countries there are?
One number, which I mention is not only Mexico, they believe that all Latinos are Mexicans, without having anything against Mexicans. Obviously Mexicans are very hard-working and there is everything, like in all countries, like here, here there are also beggars, here there are also poor people and here they live a lot from the government without need. They abuse the system a lot. In our countries at least we don't have that system. Everyone says if you want to eat, work. Because no one will give you anything. Here, on the other hand, if you don't want to, have three children and pretend you have nothing and go, ask, ask and everything will be granted.
There are people who abuse the system. That bothers me. I don't like that they abuse the system because the one who needs it will not be able to, because there are no more resources and really the resources that there are, thank God this country has them. Our countries don't have those resources, that's the beauty of it, being here. When I came here I adapted, I got comfortable and I knew what the system was and how it was. You learn to love it and learn to live and have your differences with the country. We have differences in the same house, with which we live we can have differences with other people, it is true, but in reality it is a very nice country.
In any case, it's very complicated, but with music, I love music. In my house we listen to a lot of music in Spanish, but when Daniel was little and at first I just got here I did not listen to Latin music, I did not watch television in Spanish, nothing, because I had to be with English, English had to get into my pores in order to have the job I have today. And have the ability to master English and talk to them.
Then you taught your son Spanish?
Yes, I taught Daniel Spanish and when he went to Medellín, obviously he learned Spanish, he also spoke to everyone in Spanish. But in Colombia, in Medellín, they called him the gringo. So he got many little friends too, because he's the same personality as me, he got many little friends, very easy. So they called him the gringo, "speak to us in English". So a little boy of five didn't even know what to say.