GLST 201 Immigrant Interview Elena Thomson

Emira Ibrahimpasic 10/17/2020

Reinaldo grew up in a town in western Venezuela, located in the Andes Mountains.

When he was eighteen years old, he realized he had the opportunity to come to the United States
for school. Several of his friends were already studying in the US, and these sent him
information about the schools they attended. One friend, who was studying at a university in
Lincoln, Nebraska, told Reinaldo about his experiences, and from this, Reinaldo obtained an
ambition to come to Nebraska to study. This ambition to come to college here was the reason for
which he became an immigrant.
The initial trip to the United States was very quick and efficient. Reinaldo received a
scholarship from the Venezuelan government, since at the time, the government encouraged
people to get a good education and come back to benefit Venezuela. He then obtained a letter
from the US college he wanted to attend – Doane University in Crete, NE – to present to the US
embassy as evidence of his reasons for wanting to go. After applying for a student visa, he only
had to wait about four and a half months before receiving it, which seemed very speedy to him.
Subsequently, he made arrangements to travel to the US, boarded a plane, and arrived in Florida.
The year was 1980.
At first, the language barrier was easily overcome. Many Floridians speak Spanish, so
Reinaldo felt comfortable in that Southern state. But when he moved to Nebraska, he suddenly
found out that it was completely different here. He had taken three years of English in high
school, so he had felt that he was pretty well prepared for life in the States. Yet, the challenge of
the language barrier soon presented itself to him in the Midwest. This challenge took form in the
English-proficiency test he was required to take before entering college-level courses, a test
which he prepared for with rigorous, intensive English classes.
As Reinaldo settled into his new life, and after overcoming that first hurdle of language,
he found, surprisingly, that life in the US was not really all that different from life in Venezuela.
Of course, at the time, Venezuela was a beautiful, prosperous, oil-rich country with many natural
resources, and it had a solid relationship with the United States. In fact, Reinaldo recollects that
his quality of life actually declined when he came to the US. In Venezuela, he was part of a high-
class family, and in the United States, he had access to fewer amenities than back home.
Venezuela used to be a highly chauvinistic society – the man is the one who takes care of the
family and is in charge – although this is changing. In the US, Reinaldo at first though that
Americans were not like that at all. However, as he began meeting American families personally,
like his host family and farmers around Crete, he realized that, though this may be true on the
surface, in reality, male-dominated patterns still persist in US households, just as in Venezuela.
Nevertheless, there were differences. The language and the food, naturally, were
prominent differences between the two countries. Driving in the United States was surprising, as
in Latin America, people are “crazy drivers” compared to those in the US, who obey the laws of
the road. When Reinaldo was in college, he was very perplexed as to the reason for college
students’ drinking habits. It seemed as if they would get to college and immediately start
drinking. They would get drunk extremely quickly, having usually never had alcohol before in
their lives. In Venezuela, however, drinking alcohol for all ages is normalized; even when
children are very little, their parents would let them drink a bit of alcohol. College students in
Venezuela, therefore, won’t have the same problems with drinking. Reinaldo concluded that
people in the United States are very different from Venezuelans; yet he reflects that we are all
still human beings.
Crete in the 1980s was not a town known for its ethnic diversity (although today it is very
internationally diverse) as it really only encountered people from foreign countries who came as
students. Despite this, Reinaldo always felt like he belonged. He took it upon himself to immerse
himself and embrace the culture so that he could be a part of it. He achieved his goal: he met his
wife in college, got married, and had kids. He found success in eventually going to work, with
my father, at Olsson in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. He considered moving back to Venezuela
after several years, but when he saw how war-torn and desperate his native country had become
after being devastated by its socialist regime, he decided to remain in America.
The experiences of Reinaldo’s kids’ growing up is not very different from how he grew
up. They have friends who come over and spend the night and hang out. In his kids’ eyes, he is
no different from any other human being. In fact, they barely register that he has an accent. They
are aware of both the American and Venezuelan cultures they are a part of, but they don’t feel
any different because of this. People always will ask whether Reinaldo has ever been
discriminated against. In his eyes, discrimination is how you take it. It’s the problem of the
offender if they call him something derogatory. For himself, he has decided that he will never let
himself feel that way. In the end, it’s his own attitude and outlook that determines his place in the
United States.