Background
Laura Gomez is from Bogotá, Colombia. She makes a solo flight to Philadelphia to join her father at the age of ten.
Laura Gomez es de Bogotá, Colombia. Viaja sola a Filadelfia para reunirse con su padre a la edad de diez años.
Laura discusses the excitement around moving to a city in the United States, and the sadness of leaving Colombia behind. The “American Dream” is how she describes her father’s dedication to achieve what he can for his family, eventually through opening a small restaurant in Chester County. Gomez will work hard to make her family proud. She discusses the challenges she faces and the organizations at West Chester that help her grow.
Immigrant Perspective
Laura discusses the American dream; what is the expectation (below) and what is the reality (later):
“The American dream is something that everyone wants. Everyone has this American dream, you know, you come to the United States and you get your education because the education here is good. Then you get your dream job and then you get your dream house, your dream family, and then you become rich. You know, that’s like everyone’s mentality.
“Everyone thinks of the United States as this kingdom. You know, like ‘I’m going to the U.S.A.’ and they can’t really pronounce it and they go ‘ooh-sa.’ ‘I’m gonna go to ooh-sa and I’m gonna get this job and I’m gonna get paid in dollars. And so my impression, I imagined everything beautiful. I didn’t think there was going to be anything bad. All the houses- I didn’t think there were going to be townhouses. Which is funny. My dad lived in a townhouse, he owned a townhouse. And I remember the first day I got out of the plane and I was like, I want to see your house! Because I’ve never seen a house, like not touching other houses. You know, like a single house with a bunch of space outside for the own house. And he was like ‘no, actually my house is stuck together with other houses like a townhouse’ and I was pretty, you know, sad. But, it did meet some of the expectations I had, not all of them.
Everything was big! It was so funny because I went back to Colombia a few years ago and I saw everything so small. I was used to being in a big house. I went to my old grandparent’s apartment and I was like ‘oh my gosh I feel like it’s squeezing me. I don’t know, it’s weird. People were different. In Colombia you only see Colombians. You don’t see people from Mexico, you don’t see people from Vietnam, you don’t see people from anywhere. But you come here and I’m like that’s so cool, they look so different! It’s amazing how your brain is like oh my god- people, they look like aliens but it’s so cool because I’ve never seen someone like that. Everything was very pretty, not dirty, most of the places here are not dirty and in Colombia most of them are. You see trash everywhere, people don’t respect. Traffic! That’s the other thing, traffic! In Colombia what takes you here twenty minutes over there would take you an hour and a half. So, it did meet some of those expectations I had, that everything is going to be so much better
Challenge of Leaning English
Laura talks about what American school was like for her at age ten in Philadelphia and her experiences learning the English language.
I would just write down what’s on the board because I would have no idea what anyone said. Because I did to Philly there was a few people who spoke Spanish like Puerto Ricans or Dominicans but their Spanish was not the same and/or they were born here so their Spanish wasn’t as good as mine. We could communicate in some way, but it was’t perfect. So I would come home with homework and my mom would say alright, sit down, open the homework, here is your dictionary, translate every single word to Spanish. Once you have it in Spanish, do it in Spanish, if you need help, let me know. I would do it in Spanish. Once I finished it in Spanish, I would translate it back to English. That was one thing that really, really helped me because after a year I was like ‘alright, I understand what it says now .’ Except for math- math was another story because math are mostly numbers. But still, I didn’t know anything about math because I wasn’t taught in Colombia. I should have, but I don’t remember learning anything in Colombia so I had to teach myself or my mom had to teach me. I also would read books, like regular books and the same thing with the homework- I would to translate them from English to Spanish or, I would listen to music. I would listen to Pink, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, a lot of those pop singers– they were awesome. I would put the lyrics in youtube and them translate them to Spanish and see what they meant and sing along. That was the fun way to do it, the homework was terrible I would cry every night, ‘I don’t understand it.’
Role Model
Laura’s dad was a model for her that hard work paid off. Why did Laura’s family chose Philadelphia? What are the differences for driving? Why did her father immigrate?
“He moved to Philly because we have a lot of family who were already here. He moved to Philly without knowing anything. He knew people. I believe he didn’t even know how to drive. He learned here how to drive. Over here everyone learns how to drive when they are 16 but over there (in Colombia) it’s like if you don’t have money for a car you might as well not learn.”
My dad came here because he was a young father. He thought that we was going to be more responsible by coming here, because my future would be here if he is here. I came here to live with him. He became a resident and he asked for me and I came here and I became a resident. That’s why- the future; because of the ‘American dream.’
School/Education
Laura explains how school often took her extra steps of work.
“So for me to come here, to a new country not knowing the language, not knowing anything, with a bad education in my own language, it was extremely hard to adjust to the new education system. I not only had to learn the language, but I also had to learn the content because I didn’t know it. They had me write an essay in English and I barely knew how to write a paragraph in Spanish. I had to work in my own language, then translate it into English and understand how that paragraph would work in English. It was really, really hard. But that helped me a lot to do what I am doing now in college.”
Cultural Traditions
Laura explains the difference in calendar, the difference in Christmas, and the changes from her move from Philadelphia to Malvern, Pennsylvania.
“Our calendars are completely different. We start school school in February and then we finish in November. That was kind of hard to adjust to. We had the whole two or three months off. It was awesome and Christmas was off! We celebrate Christmas so much– we’re a Catholic country.” (See video below)
“Also classes were different. we had mandatory classes such as religion. But from Colombia to Philly and then from Philly to Malvern it was a mess. From Colombia to Philly the whole Hispanic culture and American culture is different. But then from Philly to Malvern, it’s like Malvern is ‘up there’ and Philly- I love Philly, I really do because it is very diverse and everything but the education system is not as good as Malvern’s. Great Valley was such a good school. It bothered me because I went from Colombia and I adjusted to the Philly education system and I had to adjust again to the Great Valley education system, which was even harder. “
Challenges
Laura discusses the difficult decision of choosing which college to attend.
“I think picking colleges was the hardest part of life. Especially for me, because not knowing the language, even though I was really young, that really affected my whole life. I came here and I was behind. Because I was behind, I did try to get caught up with other people. For example, I went to Great Valley and because I didn’t speak as much English as other people, instead of giving me a math test and being like ‘hey, let me test you and see how good you are at math,’ they just said ‘no, you’re not going to take that math class because of your English‘ which I found really unfair.”
Laura explains how she joins a student organization at university to help with the adjustment to college life.
“I joined LASO; it’s the Latino Student Association. Most of the Hispanics are in there and I joined their dance team! That I liked. We would put dances together and then we would perform in front of people. I feel like that helped me adjust to West Chester.”
Check out the West Chester University Latin American Student Organization on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laso_wcu/?hl=en
While she sees West Chester as “home” her heart will always be in Colombia!
