I am a child of immigrant parents. They moved here not understanding the culture or the language. I guess you could say they had assumptions and I was brought up in this country on those assumptions, with the language and cultural experience of their country--Uruguay, South America. In general, there are nuances, but essentially the cultural upbringing from parents who grew up poor in a country where the opportunity to better oneself was not readily available or easily available to them due to their position in society and due to lack of opportunity or motivation for ambitions. My families culture, speaking stereotypically and generally has a less ambitious culture, with a focus more on having necessities met and being surrounded by family.
My father changed his stereotypical world when he moves my mother and two sisters to the United States.
The story of my family changes dramatically now for our further generations of Santamaria's being brought up now in the United States.
My parents had assumptions about the culture here based on superficial experiences. Experiences that were real, but superficial because the understanding was minimal. For example, my sisters were not allowed to do much outside of being in the home, due to assumptions of what youth in the US could do, but also somewhat built on an understanding of trouble that my parent's youth provided in their time. At least there, it could've been understood more and there might be a better level of control or trust of the people around them or their surroundings, but here, there was unfamiliarity.
They did not know the neighbors due to language barriers. They did not know the capabilities of folks due to just fear and unfamiliarity. Our upbringing was somewhat controlled mostly by fear. We were sheltered and not allowed typical social youth experiences--sports teams, dances, school family functions, etc. My sisters and I were sheltered, controlled, kept safe from others. Encouraged to do well in school and come home immediately. Eat dinner around the table every night, only give our phone number to 2 friends, allowed to only go to those 2 friends houses to play...parents worked hard to take us out to do normal things. We'd go to the nearby tennis courts to play tennis together, to the park to play, swim, but it continued well into our teenage years where normal freedoms provided to our school mates were not provided to us.
My story was different from my sisters only because my family started going through more turmoil as we started the process of moving to Austin, TX because the eldest was going to college. Yes, we all moved to Austin so Claudia could attend St. Edward's. But I still felt the awkward cultural constraints. The move was a turning point for my parents marriage to publicly start falling apart. It had its issues since I was 8 yrs old where I saw it's first ugly head rear (the first time I saw my mother drunk and crying). But unbeknownst to me until later as an adult, I was able to connect the dots. My parents hid a lot from us... but officially my sophomore year in high school, I distinctly remember college requiring too much freedom for my older sisters who could not follow the outdated rules my father set forth for fear of letting go of his 'little girls'. This allowed my latter high school years to be more 'normalized' culturally and I received more freedoms than my sisters did.
Again, not aware of all the turmoil, my mother was left alone to fend for herself with a selfish 15 year old child that was in a complete 'me' phase. Cleaning houses full-time didn't quite make ends meet all the time.
So, long story short, we were a typical immigrant family, probably with a hyper-strict and sensitive father, brought up in a household using one language and culture, living in a society with another set of cultural norms and rules and language. There was little connection between the two worlds my sisters and I lived growing up. And little acknowledgment of one to the other which didn't really allow for much discussion or reflection for what we were living through.
As I got older and got into the world, I realized there were more people like me out there. I realized there were more families that lived even more sheltered lives and almost lived in their own culture along with other families secluded from your typical anglo/English speaking American culture.
This is my story of myself growing up.
My story of where I am now is very different---fueled by my 'growing up' story.
