Dreaming in English
Local Latinos Share their Stories
Clashing metal rings like a Samurai swordfight through the dining room at Kobe Japanese Steakhouse. A chef launches knives and utensils into the air and catches them behind his back, flashing the confident smile of a man in his 20s. His black hat and uniform accommodate a skull-shaped belt buckle winking with rhinestones. “Watch your eyebrow!” he exclaims, as flames scamper across a stainless cooktop and leap up, licking the edge of a humming exhaust hood. Nearby walls, aglow in firelight, create a backdrop for this unique form of entertainment dining, known in Japanese as a Teppanyaki.
“It’s better than working at Taco Bell,” said the young chef who, like many of the employees of the steakhouse, hails not from Japan but from Mexico. Miguel Ceballos, another Mexican Teppanyaki chef, explains this somewhat curious phenomenon.
“The Japanese train you the best — no matter where you come from,” said Miguel, a middle-aged man whose gentle demeanor softens the creases that intersect his face. “All over you can find a chef job, but this kind of job you have to study. The Japanese are very smart and strict.” Miguel learned Teppanyaki cooking in Colorado in what he described as an apprenticeship. Recently he moved to Columbia for its relatively strong economy and reasonable cost of living.
“In the beginning you need to have a couple of jobs at least,” Miguel said. He speaks of the typical arrangement of workers sending money to their families in Mexico and of the isolation that leads some to take comfort in alcohol and drugs. His words belie a wisdom born of necessity from a life of hard work, adaptability and sheer will.
“I was lucky. I came here in 1986. In 1988, there was the amnesty program.” Miguel became an American citizen in 1995 after applying and waiting the requisite five years before citizenship. His family reflects the cultural divide: His older two children were born in Mexico, his younger two here. Miguel’s eyes brighten when he speaks of his youngest son, who received a scholarship to the University of New Mexico, and of his other children who have established themselves as a nurse, realtor and electrician. During their teenage years, his children questioned why they were in the U.S., he said. “Later they understood.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Missouri’s Latino population increased by 92.2 percent between 1990 and 2000. Officially, they make up roughly 1.7 percent of Boone County citizens though activists say their numbers grow daily. “In 2000, there were 268 Latinos enrolled in the Columbia Public Schools out of 2,415 in Boone County,” said Eduardo Crespi, director of Columbia’s Centro Latino. “Today there are 800 Latinos in the school system. You do the math.”
Centro Latino is a not-for-profit agency offering services and guidance for Latinos and their families, a cultural shelter of sorts. It holds after-school ESL and homework sessions for students on Monday and Thursday afternoons, English classes on Monday and Thursday evenings and Spanish classes on Wednesday evenings.
“We have a new generation of Latino kids who are U.S. citizens,” Eduardo said. “We target that population. They have a chance to succeed in life.” Most of their families are Mexican and working class, and their parents have instilled in them a sense of pride, he said. “When you have to work really hard, learn a new language and culture, laugh at racism, harassment on the job, you become a very strong person. Nothing can stop you.”
Unstoppable determination aside, Latinos, like all immigrants, face a sense of displacement. You are uprootedness and foreignness, not being completely in any place, not sharing the certainty of belonging that seems so natural and easy to others, taking it for granted like the firm ground beneath their feet. These are the words of Antonio Munoz Molina’s Sepharad and one of Marcela Chavez’s favorite novels.
“I recommended it to my book club,” Marcela said of the book that weaves together memoirs and fictional accounts of displaced people over many centuries. Unlike the club’s other members, who read Columbia’s Margaret Sayers Paden’s English translation, Marcela read the original text.
Marcela is a Mexican who moved to Columbia in 1998, when her husband Oscar was accepted into a Ph.D. program in mathematics education at the University of Missouri. Seeking promising careers and the tranquility of a college town, they left Mexico City and their teaching jobs for what Marcela calls a better life for themselves and their two young children. “We didn’t know if we were going to stay,” Marcela said. “But we saw an opportunity. We wanted change.”
Her family has experienced much change over 10 years, and just as reading Sepharad in Spanish allowed Marcela to capture the nuance and subtleties of her mother tongue, her experience in Columbia as a Mexican has given her a unique perspective on American life. When they first arrived, she was perplexed by her neighbors. “I wondered if nobody liked me,” she said. “In Mexico, people come by just to say hi. Maybe a neighbor will call and ask if you’ll watch their child. If you say no you have to explain why. In Mexico you have to explain everything.”
The American preference for independence and personal space might explain why families seem less attached here than in Mexico, said Marcela. For example, Latinos generally don’t support the idea that children and parents are ready to separate at age 18. “That independence starts very early … in comparison with Hispanic traditions,” she said. “ I think that here, many parents feel that their job is done once their children go to college, and I think that in my country, the parents consider themselves somehow relieved from parenthood when their children graduate from college and get a job or when they get married.”
Luisa Fuhlage, who grew up in Zaragoza, Spain, and moved to the U.S. after marriage, observes that Latinos and Americans hold different expectations for young adulthood. The concept of selecting a college away from home for its reputation or in hopes of “finding oneself” is one difference because in Spain, students choose schools that are nearby. They also tend to live at home. “You would think something is really wrong if you go to university in your hometown and don’t live at home,” Luisa said. “Your circle of friends would wonder if there’s a falling out in the family because it’s silly to pay extra when home is right there.” Even after college, people in Spain generally settle near home, where they can enjoy the structure and support of their families, she said.
According to both Luisa and Marcela, support extends beyond the nuclear family in Spain and Mexico. Mothers and fathers choose godparents with care because they, rather than foster parents, take in children whose parents can’t. Some families also host grandparents in their later years, or they hire a nurse, so that their elderly relatives can stay at home rather than in assisted living facilities. In spite of these cultural differences, Marcela doesn’t particularly feel a part of a Latino community here perhaps because there were so few in Columbia when she arrived. “I try to make friends with people I like — not only people who come from my country,” she said. She has become friends with a close-knit group of Indian families who get together regularly, and she admires their success in holding on to their traditions while embracing American culture. Above all, she savors the company of her husband, son and daughter. “I spend time with my children over the weekend. They’re not crazy about going somewhere else. We’re very, very close.”
Regarding immigration, Marcela speaks her mind. “How can you live not being legal?” she asked. “Why jeopardize your life, the lives of your kids?” Although she recognizes that it must be very difficult to come to the U.S. illegally, she believes that immigrants have a responsibility to assimilate. Marcela tells of two Mexican boys who asked her family for a ride home from Cosmo Park. It was apparent that neither the boys nor their mother spoke English. “If the kids don’t speak the language, the parents have no control.”
As in many immigrant families, Rosario Chico’s fluency has been her parents’ life blood. The 19-year-old Stephens College student has been interpeting for her parents since her family moved from Chihuahua, Mexico, to Kansas 13 years ago. “They were integrated into the community through me,” she said. Whether through birthday parties or school sporting events, Rosario introduced her parents to the American way of life. And in return, intperpreting initiated her into the adult world. She recalls paying extra attention in economics class in order to help her parents with their taxes. “I never felt the need to rebel,” she said. “I knew their struggles.”
She also knew their sacrifices. “I don’t know any parents like them,” Rosario said. “They see work as a privilege, often taking on three jobs at a time. My parents aren’t in debt, but my school consumes most of their costs.” When tuition increases exceeded what they had originally committed to pay, Rosario made up the difference with scholarships, working as a resident assistant and taking on additional jobs. “It’s humbling,” she said. “It makes me want to work harder. Sometimes I feel guilty, but my teachers tell me my parents want to do it.” It’s a favor she hopes to return to them.
“In Mexico, my dad worked for the government, had a good job, was set up,” Rosario said. “He’s smart and was well-respected in the old country.” Here, that respect has been lost to a cultural barrier, she said, describing how a man at her father’s construction job amplified the problem by speaking to her father in a loud voice.
Now she’s developing her own voice through the power of film. Identifying herself as an activist who defends the underdog, Rosario said: “All of us are given a struggle — immigration is mine. I’ve known since I was 16 years old that I wanted to make a film about it.” She plans to produce, direct and edit a documentary titled Illegally Made for a senior project in Digital Filmmaking. The film will explore escalating tensions over illegal immigration and the reintroduction of the DREAM act, a bill that would allow certain immigrant students conditional permanent residency.
“For people who fall under the umbrella of illegal immigrants, what separates us is a social security number,” Rosario said. “I try to look at commonalities rather than differences. Parents all want a future for their children.”
