Change of plans
My mother had a friend who was kind of a wild girl. She had five kids and was constantly separating from her husband; they were both pretty wacked! Sometime before December, my mother told my sisters and I that she had a major announcement: what did we think about going to the United States. Us [yes, intentional] said: “YES!!!” Again we had no clue what moving to the US meant but that didn’t matter; we wanted to move because… no idea.
Mom told us that she and her friend, whom we called Aunt Gina [we called all of Mom’s friends Aunt] had decided to come to the United States to seek a new life. Aunt Gina was not going to take her kids. Not surprisingly, Aunt Gina abandoned Mom and us [she was sharing expenses with Mom] not more than two months after we arrived in Los Angeles. She shacked up with some guy: goodbye to Mom and her litter [us].
So, no more new home in Alcantara; we were going to Los Angeles, California, EEUU [the Spanish abbreviation for United States]. The trip was scheduled for January as I would be out of school by then. I was in the third grade.
Mom auctioned all of her family heirlooms, furniture, expensive stuff and managed to raise enough money for our new journey and support; though she cried over giving up all of her treasured possessions, like my grandmother’s ruby cross, Mom’s blue opal ring, and her treasured Ming vases.
I was 8-years old when it was time to leave Chile. I got a little sad when I thought about leaving my friends, but the excitement of the move and that I was going to get to fly had an energy all of its own.
On a late afternoon in January, we took off from Santiago, Chile on an Aereolinas Peruanas (Peruvian Airlines) DC-6, a four-engine propeller aircraft. Our destination was Mexico City. After about an hour, it became dark, and as I couldn’t see anything out of the window—we were flying over the ocean along the coast of Chile—I asked my mother if we were there already. No, not yet, only about 18 hours more to go.
After landing and taking off from just about every capital city in the west coast of South and Central America, we finally arrived in Mexico City. We were to spend the night in Mexico City as we were scheduled to fly via Western Airlines to Los Angeles the following evening.
We had been warned not to drink the local water, and us kids just drank bottled mineral water. I don’t know how or why, but Mom drank some local tap water (probably trying to save the bottles of mineral water for us) and almost died of dysentery. She had a horrible attack of colitis when we got Mexico City International Airport; and it was flowing from both ends. The doctor at the Airport clinic kept giving her shots of some medicine or other trying to control her diarrhea and nausea. She was at the airport clinic most of the day while us little kids waited in the … waiting room. My sisters and I were pretty oblivious to her condition, and just prayed she would get better—in between jumping up and down while watching the airplanes land and takeoff.
Finally, that afternoon the doctor, bless him wherever he is, got Mom stabilized enough and cleared her to fly. We barely managed to make it to the Western Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The airplane was completely booked and, as we had arrived late to check in, we were scattered a bit. Mom and my sisters were on one side and I was on the other side, though not too far from them.
LOS ANGELES
My mother’s eyes were shining and glowing as she looked at the night lights of Los Angeles from our plane which was in final descent to Los Angeles International Airport.
“Do you eat turkey on St. John’s?” I asked the elderly couple sitting next to me. They looked at me without understanding. That was the only English phrase I knew. I learned it from a board game of English phrases, from England, that my Mother had bought me so I could start learning English; I practiced with it after my mother told us kids that we were going to move to the United States.
We lived in Los Angeles for two years. Mom spoke English, French, Italian, and, of course, Spanish. The day before I started school, Mom taught me my first real words in English: “May I go to the bathroom?”; very useful words for a kid in the third grade.
My third-grade teacher, Ms. Blow introduced me to the class. I didn’t speak or understand English (other than “May I go to the bathroom”) but I still remember her saying “…far, far away.” Guess she was referring to where I came from… When you’re a kid, you learn language fast. Within six months of arriving in the United States, I could actually speak and understand basic English. I could talk to all the kids at the school, so it was really great. I remember how proud I was when Ms. Blow called upon me to give an answer to a problem. Of course, it helped my pride that I got the answer right.
Mom had been a Red Cross volunteer nurse in Chile. She assisted with handling the injured in the various earthquakes and tidal waves that Chile experiences. She promptly got a job at Los Angeles General Hospital as an orderly. Then she got a job as an insurance claims processor with Prudential Insurance. She never quite fully understood the process but worked well enough there for almost two years. Everybody loved her. Much later in life, the reality of what the job entailed dawned on her and she told me how easy it really was. She hated higher mathematics especially common logarithms, to say nothing of natural logarithms.
In the military, I moved at least 14 times in my almost 28 years of service; 10 of them with My Girl and our family. In looking back, it took a lot of courage (more courage than most people I know including me) for Mom to uproot us from the life she had always known to the uncertainty of a new life, in a new country, with a different language. That she did so all by herself with three small children in tow, is a tribute to her courage and adventurous spirit.
Mom, I salute you!
Mom met an American man in the summer of the same year we arrived; they married shortly after.
By: Homeless With a Laptop, That is My Name
Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя
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