Common Threads

Estefania Zea, Project Coordinator, Office of Diversity & Inclusion

May 2018 will mark 30 years since my mom, sister and two uncles and I left our home country of Colombia. However, we now call America our home. I still remember the day we arrived. I was almost five years old. I specifically remember the sandwiches we were given on the flight and the excitement of being on a plane. We were greeted at JFK by family members who were already residing in New York for a few years. My grandfather who had been living in America for a few years working to provide for us back in Colombia was a legal resident and completed the necessary paper work to bring us over. To this day my mother thanks my grandfather for bringing our family to America.

My mother (pictured above with me before we left Colombia) was a 27-year-old, single mother of two when we arrived. She spoke no English, didn’t know how to drive and did not have a high school degree. America offered her opportunities that she was not exposed to back home. My mother worked multiple jobs but after being in New York for almost a year, hit the jack pot and landed a job in the housekeeping department at a hospital. This job provided her with a steady pay check, paid time off and health insurance. The hospital was not close to where we were living at the time so she was taught how to drive by a family friend. Not only did she learn how to drive but she learned how to drive in a stick shift car. She passed the road test on the very first try. It took her oldest daughter (me) who grew up in America three times to pass the road test. In an automatic car at that! My mother’s resilience and strength was unmatched. She was determined to finish high school and enrolled herself in a GED Program. She completed this and didn’t want to stop there. The language barrier was evident so first line of action was to take English classes. I remember her determination and persistence. This is what I witnessed my mother struggle with the most. It took several classes over many years to give her the confidence to communicate in public. Through her experience I realized how difficult it was to learn the English language and all of its complexities. Back then it was not really accepted to honor your culture and language. You had to assimilate as fast and as much as you could to survive and be acknowledged as any other being, living in America.  No matter how hard she tried, her accent would turn people off and it only made the transition to a new life that much harder. Even so, she continued pushing through and advanced at the hospital where she started, and to this day still works. Only now she is a bilingual Nursing Assistant.

Although Spanish is my first language, English now feels like it is. I don’t necessarily remember learning the English language in school but like magic, it just happened. In school I was in the ESL program and it helped me learn and adjust. Looking back now I realize that not having anyone who spoke the language to assist with homework and other school related activities was not simple but at the time it was all I knew and understood. From an early age being a translator inside and outside the home was just a way of life. We moved around a lot as kids so I attended a few different schools. I was often the only or one of very few Hispanic students in class. I remember taking Spanish classes and having a teacher tell me to speak Spanish without an accent so my peers can understand me better, in another class we all got to choose a “Spanish” name and I was thrilled to choose the name Sofia so people could actually pronounce my name correctly. I also used to get asked if I came from Spain because I spoke Spanish fluently.

There was a shift however when main stream media introduced artists like Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Marc Anthony in the late 90’s. It was called the Latin explosion. The artists I mention happen to be of Puerto Rican decent so all of sudden I was Puerto Rican to the students around me. The only Colombia people around me knew about was District of Columbia and Columbia University. In the predominantly white high school I went to, there happened to be one Hispanic counselor who mentored me and to whom I owe many thanks. It was her guidance and confidence in me that got me into college. Her name was Maria. She not only helped me apply for colleges without having to pay for the applications but took the time to sit with me and talk to me about the importance of college, explain how the finances work, and how the process works. This may have been her job but because up to that very moment I had always sort of figured things out on my own, her direction and support meant everything. I was the first person in my family to attend and graduate from college.

Once I went to college it was a total culture shock. This was the very first time I was in an academic setting with a diverse student body. I felt an overwhelming feeling of belonging and enthusiasm. One of the perks of being in a diverse environment is that you learn from each other’s differences and similarities. I met students who knew the difference between Colombia and Columbia and that there are more Spanish speaking countries in the world besides Spain and Puerto Rico. Diversity is a beautiful thing!