Early Days: Growing up in D.C.’s “Latin American village”
By hola | Published | 2 Comments
An Interview with Carmen Torruella Quander
Growing up in Washington’s tiny and tight-knit Hispanic community in the 1950s, Carmen Torruella Quander recalls, “We had our own Spanish stores” and nightclubs. And at the frequent house parties, “each country showed off their best.”
“I learned how to tango from a guy from Argentina. Birthday parties, we had fabulous pinatas,” not to mention the tres leches cake and pupusas like none she’s tasted since, she recalls. (Watch the video)
Her mother arrived in October 1940, fleeing the regime of dictator Rafael Trujillo back home in the Dominican Republic. Her father was studying electrical engineering at American University. The two met and married in Washington and settled into an apartment in Adams Morgan.
The D.C. Hispanic community in those days had a distinctly Caribbean accent, with most residents hailing from countries including the Dominican Republic and Cuba. There were also a good number of Latin Americans attached to the embassies that opened in the 16th Street NW area after World War II, as well as Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans working for the federal government at the time, according to historians.
As they started to put down roots, Latin Americans began to form a community in Washington, she recalls. People normally separated by geography and custom mixed and mingled. And Spanish was the language spoken– even at church, after Carmen’s mother, Juana Amparo Campos, successfully petitioned the Roman Catholic Church to assign a Spanish-speaking priest to the nearby Shrine of the Sacred Heart on 16th Street, she recalls. While she spoke English at school, life at home was entirely conducted in Spanish.
“From 3 p.m. on Friday to 9 a.m. on Monday, I would speak Spanish,” she recalls.
– Gabrielle Spencer
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