ARTIFACT #1

Culture Investigation

            I interviewed a student in my class named Karla Grijalva.  She arrived in this country last year from Guatemala, and it was very interesting to hear her story of the dangerous and brave immigration across the border.  She is nine years old and lives with her family in Arlington.  Her brother, Jairo, is also in her class, but he has been in the United States for his entire life.  I was able to ask him some of the questions for my interview also, so that I could get clarification and a way to compare their experiences.

            Karla was happy to share her life’s information, and was happy to spend time with the teacher during lunch and recess in our classroom.  Her brother was willing to meet with us once, but he wanted to spend more time at lunch and recess with his friends for the remaining four days that it took for us to complete the interview.  I decided to interview Karla because I knew that she had a true immigrant experience, having completed three years of school in Guatemala, and she would be able to explain some of the differences between the educational setting she grew up with and the one she was in currently.  Having a brother who has lived here his whole life was also another reason that I thought she would be an interesting student to interview, because the siblings have had such different school experiences, and I wanted to explore them further. 

            Karla was born in Esquintla, Guatemala.  She started off by saying that even though she came in April of last year (third grade,) she is already starting to forget some of what her life was like in Guatemala.  I asked her about the town she was from to begin the interview.  She remembered that the houses are different shapes (more like triangles than the rectangles we have here) and that the lighting in the streets is different (darker there.)  She said that people walk to school, and her mom used to walk to the store to buy food.  Here, the car is a much more important part of life.  When walking on the street, people often greeted each other as they passed by.

In her house, there were three bedrooms (1 bedroom for her aunt, 1 for her, and one for her two male cousins to share.)   There also was a kitchen, a bathroom, living room, and dining room.  The family always ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner together in the dining room.  This was an important place in their house because the family gathered there together so often.

I asked her about religion and if it was significant to her family and she replied that it wasn’t.  They went to church much more in Guatemala, but after arriving in the U.S., they don’t go to church much at all anymore. 

I asked about gender roles in Guatemala.  She said that women generally do the cooking at home, and if she wanted to do something, she would always ask her aunt because her uncle would be out working.  I asked her what a typical job would be for a man and she said they would sell things like food in the streets.  She commented that there was a woman president in Guatemala. 

In Guatemala, her uncle used to live apart from her aunt and family in a house in a bigger city called Jutiapa.  This city is close to her town of Esquintla but she didn’t like it in Jutiapa because it was very hot and there were too many cows (she says that she is scared of cows.)  Also, her uncle used to kill a cow sometimes on Friday nights to use for food.  She said he had to do it because he was hungry. 

Her aunt and her cousins lived with her in Esquintla, and her uncle and female cousin lived in Jutiapa.  They all lived in houses, not in apartments like they do here.  Immediately after Karla was born, her mother came to the United States with her father, brother, and sister, and because she was a baby, she stayed back and grew up with her aunt and uncle.  Her brother Jairo was born very soon after her mother arrived in America, which resulted Karla acquiring siblings that she never knew.  Jairo talked to me about how much their mother missed Karla, and how she went to Guatemala to visit her a lot. 

With Karla, her aunt and uncle came to the U.S., because her uncle wanted to find work.  He is blind, and therefore, couldn’t get a good job in Guatemala.  He now works at McDonalds.  A lot of the money he earns is sent back to family in Guatemala.

Karla went through Kindergarten, first, second, and half of third grade in Guatemala.  The school system calls K-6 elementary there, and 7-12^th grade is considered Academia (high school.)  Classes are held in the afternoon.  There is a college in Guatemala City that Karla knows about.  She does not know anyone who goes to college.  When asked what would be considered a good education for people in Guatemala, she said that trying your best is more important than anything else. 

The most obvious difference in Karla’s school here (Key Elementary in Arlington) and the one she attended in Guatemala is of course the Spanish language in Guatemala (although she attends a Spanish immersion school here in Arlington where half of her school day is taught in Spanish.)  She says that school here is hard, as is talking to people in English on the phone.  She has trouble speaking in restaurants a lot, because often, she does not know which language to use to order the food (there is a large Latino community in her area.)  It seems that she is unsure of how much of her native culture to hold onto and continue using. 

In her Guatemalan school, the teacher would read the roll call each morning.  There was no cafeteria, but students just brought food from home and ate outside at recess.  The playground was different from the one she uses here in Arlington, too, because there was no playground equipment, but students normally played games like basketball and soccer.  Teachers went out to recess with their students, instead of having recess aides go out, like we do here.  There was a school marching band, and all girls played the trumpet while boys played the drums.  They got into a line and played marching band music while parading around school grounds. 

Karla found several aspects of schooling in Arlington surprising.  She had never seen an overhead projector, and her old school didn’t have water fountains, TVs, or computers.  In our classroom, we have three student computers, one for the teacher, and then in the pod outside our classrooms, there are eight more new computers for student use.  She thought the school was very beautiful and looked so new when she arrived.  She was amazed by all of the resources the school had for students here.  Discipline surprised her here, also.  She said that in Guatemala, if a student was playing in class or misbehaved in any way, they were sent directly to the principal’s office.  She was surprised that discipline was more relaxed here.  She says that school is still harder for her here because half of her homework is in English, and she is still at a basic level of English proficiency.  However, she commented that there was much more homework given to students in Guatemala.

When asked about health conditions she or other peers commonly experienced in Guatemala, she said that usually, students had the same types of ailments as Americans have (stomachache, fever, cold, etc.) but she commented that she was never absent from school.  They had P.E. class just like we have here, and they taught the students about hand washing, but there were not any lessons taught about nutrition or exercise.  There also was a health class that students took, where they studied parts of the body such as the heart and other organs. 

Her story of the immigration was very interesting and I was amazed by her bravery.  She said that she came from Guatemala to Mexico on a bus with her aunt, uncle, and their baby.  On the bus, they sat in separate seats and pretended not to know each other.  She sat next to a lady who said that Karla should call her “mamá” during the trip.  She was told that the family should not make eye contact with each other.  After crossing into Mexico, the family had to travel down and cross a river by boarding a makeshift raft.  A man (the coyote) was under the raft with just his face out of water and was pushing the raft down the river.  As they were on the raft, they were told to remain silent, but Karla said they all became afraid when the baby started crying.  The river crossing took them to Arizona, where they then walked for two hours through the desert.  They had no food or water, and she said that she was very thirsty.  They slept in a hole that had been dug out of the ground and prepared for immigrants like them with blankets and some dogs to keep watch.  They had to be very careful around the dogs because if they barked, her family might be discovered inside the hole.  The next morning, another man came to pick them up in a car, and they drove from Arizona all the way to Arlington, VA.  It took three days and they arrived in the middle of the night.  When they arrived, she met her siblings, got reacquainted with her mother and father, and she said that she ate a lot of the pizza that her family had waiting for them.

Here in the United States, Karla has mostly partnered with ESOL students to do projects with in class, but she is accepted and well liked by all students, including the American born children.  She said it is sometimes helpful when she works with American students in class, but also, they sometimes play instead of working, and she likes to focus on her work.  Her best friends in school are Jessica because she is funny, Gloria because they like to play together, and Kasey because she is very funny and helps with English sometimes.  Jessica and Gloria are HILT B students, and Kasey is a completely bilingual student who was born in the United States. 

When asked if she would rather live here or in Guatemala, she said that since her family is here, she wants to be here with them.  Her mom likes this house better, too.  Her mom likes her job, which is selling fruit on the streets, and her dad is also happy with his job (he works at the Army Navy golf course cutting the grass on the course.)  Her mom, dad, and Karla all have an appointment scheduled to get their visas soon, so they are all very excited.