Spencer Watts
Fall 2022
“I lived in Chile. In Santiago my parents had a ranch home on a street called Avenida Tovalaba, across from the canal, which was the river Maipo I believe. We had a dog and a housekeeper and her son lived in our home. And we had chickens that my grandmother had given me as a gift.”
Auriel Gonzalez was born in Santiago, Chile in 1959. Auriel moved between Santiago and Mexico City as a child until her parents ultimately decided to move to the United States.
“The final move? I was five.”
Auriel being so young when they arrived leaves her with specific memories but few and far between. She recalls her house across from the river Maipo in Santiago and her parents packing up their things before the move.
“I lived in Chile. In Santiago my parents had a ranch home on a street called Avenida Tovalaba, across from the canal, which was the river Maipo I believe. We had a dog and a housekeeper and her son lived in our home. And we had chickens that my grandmother had given me as a gift.”
To come to the United States Auriel’s parents reached out to previous teachers and friends to act as sponsors on their behalf. Her father had gone to school in the United States which gave them better resources to find the right sponsor.
“My father had studied in the United States and had always wanted to move back. I believe what precipitated the move was my grandmother’s untimely death. My father thought that moving to the United States was a good move for them and good move for his three daughters. He thought that women had a better chance of doing what they wanted to do in the United States than Chile.”
With difficulty remembering certain parts of the move she recalled what she had been told as a child.
“Some of this is my core memories and some of this is what I have been told. I remember we came over on a freight ship with a few other families through the Panama Canal. I have vivid memories of rough seas and crossing the equator and a big party on the boat as we crossed. I remember my parents packing up my house and determining what things we could take on a ship and not. We left behind some antiques and some things that meant a lot to my mother like a grandfather clock from my grandfather that couldn’t be moved.”
“Some of this is my core memories and some of this is what I have been told. I remember we came over on a freight ship with a few other families through the Panama Canal. I have vivid memories of rough seas and crossing the equator and a big party on the boat as we crossed.“
Some more emotional things she remembers.
“I remember my grandfather coming to the ship to say goodbye. It was very difficult because I think he realized my father wasn’t coming back this time. I remember landing in Pensacola, Florida, and staying at a hotel with television. Which was a big deal. A big TV in the room and we were all very excited. There weren’t many programs at the time. It was 1965. So television was a huge deal anywhere, but we didn’t have it in Chile. I didn’t have it so it was a big deal. From there we went to Kansas where my uncle and aunt had already moved and were living and after that, we went to New Jersey to find our permanent spot.”
Auriel moved to a small town in New Jersey to attend middle school.
“I was too young to understand how difficult it was for my parents… not to have work until they got here. I do remember riding on buses in NJ from the hotel where we stayed to try to find a permanent place to live and find a car and all the things that we needed. We had to start from scratch. Waiting for furniture in an empty house. It felt like a complete do-over. We didn’t start from nothing because my parents had saved money but we had no things.”
As a child, it was difficult to understand the extent her parents were upheaving their lives.
“When we got to the United States we were in New Jersey in a two-family home, so we lived in the bottom half and the owner and his family lived upstairs. It was on a very busy avenue near the city [New York City] so my parents could commute to work. We had to be much more carefully watched as we were three kids under six and there was a lot of traffic. It felt more industrial than where we were at first.”
Auriel recalls the feeling of safety and privilege she had in the final move they took before settling down.
“Where we ended up, when my parents bought their first house when I was twelve was a bucolic town in New Jersey with a main street. It was extremely safe with good schools and we felt very privileged.”
Her parents saved money and helped them move to a white suburban town but her parents could not buy a white last name. This soon became apparent as she recounts the trouble and internal turmoil that began to take over.
“When I came here with my parents, my last name being Gonzalez was not highly regarded because people lumped all Hispanic and Latino immigrants in one and didn’t differentiate people at all. The fact that my father had a PhD and the fact that my mother was an executive in New York at that time didn’t matter. It was non-differentiated- so I always felt like they looked down on people like us, especially because we lived in a very WASPy town in New Jersey.
It now appears to me in retrospect that they were limiting real estate showings to families like mine. We had an advantage because we were very light-skinned and European looking. Aside from our last name we did not really give anything away which is why we ended up buying in this town. It did still however make me the only Gonzalez or Latino in the school so that was interesting.”
She took pride and emphasized the education her father had received. It was important to her to create a distinction between herself and other Latino immigrants so she would be more accepted in her new town.
Auriel spoke about her experience with the children in her school and her reaction to the makeup of her town.
“I think I felt like a fish out of water for a lot of years. It wasn’t harmful but definitely, I didn’t feel like I understood the way things worked, the way kids interacted with each other, the way social situations were and since my parents sheltered us it was an interesting road.
“I bought a fair isle sweater because other people owned fair isle sweaters. You faked a lot of things. Because that was the way to assimilate.”
I tried very hard to assimilate. But they did it in a child-like way. They would ask me to say something in Spanish. My grandmother might speak in Spanish in the grocery store in front of other people and it would embarrass me because it was so unusual in the town we lived in. Minor stuff. There was never any overt ugliness, but you definitely felt different.
I bought a fair isle sweater because other people owned fair isle sweaters. You faked a lot of things. Because that was the way to assimilate, but I didn’t feel comfortable in that 100%. I felt like I was outside like I was having an out-of-body experience a lot of times.”
She reflected on her life as a young adult through comparison with her children.
“Getting a job for me was probably harder than it was for my kids because I didn’t have as many connections. I didn’t have any path to follow. My parents were both in the business world and if that’s not something you want to do that was all they knew. They were connected a little but it is not like what you would expect from a person who was here for several generations. There was no legacy in school, none of that. We were starting from scratch, so what my parents built they did on their own. What my parents save they save on their own. So it’s harder from that standpoint. It was easier for me than for them.”
Auriel’s experience changed as an immigrant as immigrants became more accepted but she was still faced with being ostracized in a different way.
“My husband’s family was much more fascinated with people from other countries who spoke other languages and did other things which was a very welcome change.”
She finished the interview by discussing her current views and hindsight about her immigration story.
“Still in areas like South Carolina where we have our house there is a huge amount of prejudice at face value if you look different, they see you differently, they put you in a different box.”
“I think these days with the political atmosphere people’s fears are magnified. I think people who are afraid pin their fears on other people and have specifically pinned them on immigrants. They’re afraid to lose their job and they need to find a place to pin that threat and it’s always been that way. The political atmosphere we are in right now has put emphasis on this and done a lot of fear-mongering to make it worse.
I think people were hiding for a long time behind closed doors when they thought these things and now they’re on the internet, still hiding, but making comments that are stoking the flames of hate of immigration. And want to close all their borders. As an immigrant myself I understand that you want things to be more organized. You want people to have to go through due process. You want it to be fair but there are times when their countries are causing them such anguish and they are so afraid that I think you have to open your borders. But I do think there needs to be a way to do it in an organized fashion.”
“I think these days with the political atmosphere people’s fears are magnified. I think people who are afraid pin their fears on other people and have specifically pinned them on immigrants.“
She reflected on how Chile and America shared similarities in terms of their views of immigrants and how that impacted her family’s identities.
“The one thing about our family and acknowledging our roots rather than identifying solely as Chilenas is that even in that country there is differentiation between indigenous Latinos and those that came from Europe. There is a level of cache, a level of import to being from a European country and that gets past along. I think that is the case here too.”
Auriel kept referring to feeling different but still American throughout her life. Feeling like she was not Chilean but did not quite fit into the American culture she lived in.
“I feel like the system itself needs change. Do I know the right way to go? I don’t. I am not equipped to answer that question to that extent. As far as society, I would say we have gone a little too far in the lacking empathy road. I think that we are a country of immigrants and we have lost our way a little bit in terms of what other cultures give to this country and the fiber that we are made of. That I would change.”