By: Clara Khalsa
It has been 12 years since I first came to the United States. I had never come here before and was very naïve to think this was going to be a two-month trip and heading home to Brazil. The idea of traveling here was never something I imagined it would happen, to think I would be here this many years later is an understatement.
To better understand why I had these thoughts I need to explain my upbringing. I come from a middle-class Brazilian family that allowed me to explore many sectors of society, including attending a bilingual high school in my hometown. At a very young age, about 12 or 13 years old, I decided I needed something more than just regular school. I decided I wanted to go to a bilingual school and there, I found my place in the world. It was an Italian school, full immersion of culture, language, and habits. The school, being sponsored by FIAT, had connections with the Italian government to bring licensed teachers to Brazil to work at the school. This was a full immersion experience, my entire high school education was done in Italian, writing, speaking, and reading. My world was consumed by European ideals and way of living.
Once I finished high school, I decided to move to Italy to attend college. I wanted to experience the life of the culture that I had studied and embedded in my life for so long. To me my life was in a perfect motion from everything I ever wanted, to live in Italy and be able to be part of that culture. If you have ever been outside the US, you would know that Americans are not considered the coolest people and therefore my idea of coming to the US was not something I aimed for, living here was never going to happen.
But it did happen. My husband is from Santa Fe, we met in Brazil some years back before I moved to Italy, and I came to visit him here and spend time with my sister that was going to get married in a couple of months in New Mexico. We both ended getting married and staying on the same year.
I knew English as a business language, not as my everyday language and I did not care for American culture. After years in here my idea has changed even though there are many things I still don’t agree with.
I moved to Santa Fe so young, hopeful, and full of optimism that this culture would embrace me as I had embraced them by coming here, staying, and speaking their language. Girl, I was wrong about that! Immigration changes everything, and while I was in the process of discovering myself there were things I started to notice as a Latin American woman immigrant.
My perspectives are constantly changing about life in here, but I underestimated the amount of work and struggle that I was going to go through when I first came to the land of enchantment. One of the things I noticed right away and still perceives today was the cultural shock of the meaning of family and selfishness.
In Brazil we have large families with grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, and sister, we might not always get along however, indifferent of the disparities, we come together, we care for each other, we are there as a family. In fact, the biggest circle is your family, you go above and beyond for them. You take care of them, you be together, you know that is your family and how important they are into the life of Brazilian society. Indifferent of your mistakes (of course to a certain degree), you know they will be there for you. Life does not revolve around my own life and my own problems. Us is a big part of our lives.
By moving here in the United States one thing I noticed right away was the egocentricity of life. Life should revolve in what I want, my problems, my goals and only myself. Families are broken apart all over the country with barely any communication or care in between them. Of course, not everyone is like that, and there are the different ones to every norm. However, in the ones I could be present and see around me, American society is a selfish society. Seems like the only importance is me and those with whom I live and love, the other is less important. If I can’t have it, the other can’t either.
Through my outside perspective this self-centered idea was and still is so clear and apparent in the American society that I live in. It embraces so many different aspects of life, not only personal with family, but the health care approach, educational scope, politics division, immigration issues, gun control debate, minimum wage increase, student loan debt relief, and many others more.
This makes me think so much and debate why this society cannot care for the other and see the other in themselves, how we as humans are supposed to evolve and do better for the world if we can’t even be for the neighbor across the street? With the resources and power America has, we should be doing better not only to us but to all of those around us, and be taking care of every human being here present instead of choosing just a few to care about.
