Transcript
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Jennifer Hixson (2:20)
From PRX this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hixson. In this hour we're focusing on the immigrant experience. We hear about it in the news in the abstract, but we'll hear about the experience straight from the people who've made America their home. No agenda, just stories from Mexico, India, Iran, and this first story from a man who was born and raised in Guatemala and came to the US to escape the civil war. We first met Nestor Gomez at our Story Slam in Chicago, where we partner with public radio station WBEZ. Here's Nestor.
Nestor Gomez (3:00)
When I came to the USA with my family, I was 15 years old. And at first we were surprised because everything is so different here in the usa. For example, in Guatemala we have rivers and lakes. But when we went to see the Lake Michigan in Chicago for the first time, we were surprised because it was so huge. It didn't look like a lake, it looked like the ocean. In Guatemala, we had tiny corner stores. But here in the usa, they had huge places where you could get lost for days. And here in the usa, everybody speaks English. My family and I, we could only speak Spanish. Well, my family could speak Spanish because I could barely speak. When I was a child, I used to suffer from a speech impediment. I used to stutter. As I grew older, I was able to overcome my stuttering just a little bit. But when I came to the USA because of the culture shock, I started stuttering again. I remember thinking to myself, great, not only do I stutter in Spanish, now I'm going to stutter in English too. I'm going to be a bilingual stutterer. Another thing that was different here in the USA was that in Guatemala, we went to school during the summertime and we took the winters off. Here in the usa, you guys go to school during the winter and you have the summers off. And we had a ride to the USA at the beginning of the summer, which meant we didn't have to go to school. But instead of spending the time at the lake or at the park, we used to spend our time at our apartment just watching tv. And the reason was that because every time that we went outside, we felt so different, so alien. We felt like we didn't belong. In fact, the only place that we felt like we belonged was at home at our tiny apartment. We could watch TV all day long and we could watch TV Telemundo. We could see people speaking Spanish. We could watch the show that we used to watch in Guatemala. And then when our mother came back from work in the afternoons, she would start watching her novellas. And we start watching the novellas. We heard the soap operas, which is strange because in Guatemala, Megan are not supposed to watch novellas. But here we were like, oh my God, novellas. And the best part, the best part, that it was done in the weekends. After my mother came from work on Friday afternoon, she would send me and my brother to the video store. Remember those? And she would send us to the video store so we could rent three movies from the selection of Latino movies at the movie store. In Guatemala, we were so poor, we could never afford to go to the movie theater. But Here, here we could watch all the classical Mexican movies. It was amazing. So we watched all the classical movies with Armand. And it was really amazing because in Guatemala we were so poor that we couldn't afford to watch the movies. But everything comes to an end. And after a couple of months we had to go to school. And I remember two weeks after the school got started, my brother came back and he was really worried. He had a worried look on his face. And I asked my brother, what's going on? Why are you worried? And he told me, tomorrow I have a test. I told my brother, why are you worried? You're smarter than me. You memorize everything really well. Why are you worried? He told me, because I had to memorize all the names of the states and the capitals and I had to say them in front of the class. It's going to be an oral test. Now, I was worried because as I told you before, I used to stutter. And the idea of an oral test scared me to death. In fact, because I had started going to school and I was the oldest, my mother had decided that I was going to become the official translator. Anybody who is immigrant would tell you that your parents made you that translator. In fact, only days prior we had gone on a sightseeing tour. And when we got lost, my mother told me that I had to go and ask a police officer for directions. Now, I usually argue with my mom about those things, but I always lost because I stuttered so I couldn't really argue. But this time, this time I decided that I wasn't going to argue with her. So I just walked in front of the family and I approached the police officer and I just pretended to be talking to him. And then I went back to my mom and I gave her the made up directions. We kind of got lost really bad that day. We finally managed to find our way. But it wasn't because of me. I didn't help at all. So now that my brother came and asked me for help, I decided that I was going to help my brother. I wanted to help my brother. So I started to write down all the names of the states and the capitals on little cards so I could show them to my brother. So I showed him one card. Iowa. Perfect. I told my brother. He was trying to say Iowa. You see, the problem was that in our time in the usa, the only thing that we have managed to learn was, was the A, B, C, D, E, F, G. The Alphabet song. We only knew how to pronounce each letter. So we were putting all the Letters together to make up the name of that state. So if we messed up Iowa, you see what we did with Kansas or with Mississippi. It was horrible. But my brother studied the name just like we pronounced them. And then he went to school. So the next day, I was waiting for him, and I asked him, how did the test go? How did the test go? And my brother started to cry. They made fun of me. Everybody was laughing. Even the teacher told me that I didn't study. And I felt so sad for my brother because he had studied really hard. And I felt so mad for the teacher and the classmates. But I also felt mad because I wasn't able to help my brother. So I told my brother, that's it. From now on, we are not watching Telemundo or anymore. From now on, when we come back from school, we're going to watch TV in English only. Yes, my brother said. And that's what we started doing when we came back from school. We started to watch the Cosby show before the allegations against him. We started to watch Roxane before we learned that she actually hates undocumented immigrants. We started to watch the Symptoms on Facts before we knew that we shouldn't be watching Fox. And when our mother came from work and started to watch the novellas, we didn't watch the novellas we heard anymore. Instead, we went to our room and we studied and we practiced the words that we had learned, especially the crazy words from Barnes and so eat my church, dude. And sometimes our mom will come into the room and will ask, que tang haciendo sang a blando de mi? Are you guys talking about me? And sometimes we were. But most of the time we were just trying to learn new words. The only time that we allow ourselves to watch movies in Spanish was on the weekends when we went to rent the Mexican movies. But then one day, I decided, I'm going to rent one movie in English. So my mother sent us to the video store, and that's what I did. I rented one movie in English, even without asking her. And that Friday afternoon, first, we watched one of the Mexican movies. And when the movie ended, I put the movie in English that I had rented. It was the Eddie Murphy rogue comedy special. I mean, I thought it was just a regular movie with a beginning, middle, end, a plot. But no, it was this guy that was just telling jokes really fast and we couldn't understand anything. So I fast forward the movie a little bit, and nothing. I fast forward the movie some more, and nothing. I fast forward the movie a third time. And then I saw that Eddie Murphy was moving his leg up and down to the sound of the music. He did this little scream, this little jump. He turned around, he did the moonwalk. He was making fun of Michael Jackson. We knew who Michael Jackson was. It was so freaking funny. So my brother and I, we started to point that a tv. Funny, funny, funny. We point at each other. Funny, funny. I was sitting on the floor in between the TV and the sofa, and I turned around to see my mother, to see she was laughing, but she was looking at us with a strange look on her face. She was looking at us like she didn't know who we were, like we were alien to her, like we were strangers. So I told my brother to go into the kitchen and get some popcorn and some sodas. And my brother didn't like to be bossed around, but he liked popcorn and sodas better. So he ran into the kitchen. And while my brother got the popcorn ready, I took the movie out and I put one of the Mexican movies instead. And by the time my brother came back with the popcorn, he saw that the Mexican movie was playing. He didn't say anything. He just sat next to my mom and my mother hugged him and they collabed together. And I wanted to do the same, but I was 15 years old, so I was too cool to do that. So instead, I got up and I sat on the other side of the sofa and I just looked at my mom and I looked at my brother because I knew that we had to get used to this country, that we had to learn to speak English so we could get better grades and eventually a good job. But in that moment in that tiny apartment, we just needed to be a family. Thank you.