When I accepted Peace Corps’ invitation to serve, the unhappiest person in my family was my mother. She told me things like “¡Va a gastar dos años de tu vida!” (You’re gonna waste two years of your life!), “¿Por que va ayudar a los extranjeros? ¡Ayúdanos a nosotros!” (Why are you gonna help the foreigners? Help us!), “¿Que tu va a un país del tercer mundo? ¡Ya nosotros salimos de eso!” (You’re going to a third world country? We already left that [situation]!)

Now, first thing is first. My mom was full of emotions so please don’t take her quotes literally. My mom did not want me to join Peace Corps. Going against the will of my family made my decision even harder, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

I left to Ukraine and about five months later I called my mother. I told her that I was homesick. I missed her, my friends, my social life, and my job. I even missed my job! All the things I was accustomed to were thousands of miles away. I could communicate with my friends and family, but it wasn’t the same: I couldn’t meet or spend time with them.

“Now you know what it’s like to immigrate to another country,” she told me. “Now you know what I went through.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was going through the exact process immigrants go through. Immigrants who pursue the American dream and in turn leave their families, friends, and love ones behind. Many of these immigrants can’t even go back to their country, but they strive anyway by looking forward to a better future.

What is even more remarkable is that at least two people in every American’s family tree has experienced this process,* not only Latinos. Some families might have immigrated as long as 10 generations ago.** Regardless of time, however, we all come to prosper and to improve livelihood.

My Peace Corps service is coming to an end and as I reflect on my experience I realized - through my improved understanding - that my parents’ journey from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey forty years ago is part of the fabric of the person I am today. That’s because I better understand the challenges they faced, everything that they had to learn and everything they had to work for.

This has made my mother incredibly happy. She wasn’t expecting this when I joined Peace Corps. My mom now supports me because of my accomplishments, but also because I’ve learned to value more the plight of immigrants.

Now, I want to conclude my last blog entry of the year with a New Year toast: To every ancestor or parent and immigrant who chose to make the courageous journey to a new country, accept its culture and tradition, and seek a better life for himself and his family — ¡Salud!

¡Y Feliz Año Nuevo!

* Except for Native Americans who were already here and some African-Americans who’s anscentors were brought here as slaves.
**I averaged the span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring to 25 years and began on 1776 – of course, this could go back even further for some families.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 8:57 am and is filed under General, Blogroll, Immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.