On growing up an immigrant
By hola | Published | No Comments
One is a teacher, another a college student, two work today as organizers, and another is a government official. But all five have one very important thing in common: they are immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and have made their homes here in the Washington area.
Last weekend these local residents came together with Hola Cultura and the D.C. Oral History Collaborative to share their stories with the community. It was a celebration of their lives and the mark immigrant youth make our society. The May 28 online event also launched our new oral history project, “Dreamers: Our Voices, Our Stories” — now partly available online with a new podcast on the way!
While the five oral history narrators came from different Latin American realities—some hailing from small towns and others from megacities—several discussed culture shock experienced on arrival in Washington. But while some things passed quickly, navigating their place in their new homes led to longer and more complicated journeys. They talked about the challenges of fitting in and learning English, the pressure some felt to live up to their parents’ dreams for them, and overcoming bullying and discrimination.
While several have a legal immigration status today through the federal government’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy and have identified at times as “Dreamers,” they also ruminated on the growing backlash against the notion of the “exemplary immigrant” in the Dreamer Movement’s framing and their discomfort with being labeled the “good” immigrants.
“… this (notion of the) perfect student. It’s just that it excludes others and excludes many immigrant youth that are not identifying themselves as that,” Gerson Quinteros, who came to Washington, D.C., in 2005 and is today an organizer with United We Dream, told our interviewers.
Many of the narrators said they decided to participate in the project because of the importance of including their experiences in the official history of Washington, D.C., and the “story” we tell ourselves about our Nation at this moment in history. Eventually the audio recordings of their interviews will do just that once they are uploaded to the D.C. Public Libraries’ Oral History Collections—adding their voices to the public record of our times. A video of last Saturday’s online discussion with the narrators and Hola Cultura’s story team is up now on Humanities DC’s YouTube channel, as well. Over the summer, meanwhile, Hola Cultura’s SPEL storytellers will use the interviews as the foundation of a new podcast series coming in the fall.
But no need to wait to learn more about the vibrant lives, opinions and reflections of these five young Washington area residents. Hola Cultura has just published transcripts in both English and Spanish of these oral history interviews. You can find out more about the narrators and read their stories here.
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