The American Dream

I think we can all agree that the idea of uprooting our life, leaving everything we know behind and moving to a different country where we don’t know the language, the culture, and have no real support; would be understandably difficult to say the least. It wasn’t hard for me to really  imagine how isolating that would be in my grandmother’s position and probably my grandfather’s as well, in different ways. So, I don’t think there is much I need to add to really paint that picture, as she did a wonderful job describing it. The thing that kept coming to mind for me was the weather. 

Yes, the weather. She stated many times how cold it was and that seemed to play a major part in her experience with isolation and depression. Any midwesterner can relate to the long gray winters with the unbearable cold; but imagine experiencing that for the first time on top of everything else. I can only imagine how apocalyptic it must have felt in some way. So, to really drive this point home I looked up the temperature in Champaign-Urbana in the winter of 1957 compared to the average low in Bolivia. 

In Bolivia the average temperature around that time during the winter was 50 degrees fahrenheit while the average in Champaign Urbana during the winter of 1957 was around 30 degrees, with the lowest reaching -6 degrees, with many days seeing the teens and twenties as the highest. This “little” fact really helped me to truly imagine all the obstacles that she faced during those first few months there. 

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Well, the “American Dream” didn’t come very fast for us once we arrived in Champaign-Urbana. We really didn’t realize that to achieve the “American Dream” it would take a lot of years, a lot of work and sacrifices. 

Arriving to Urbana in February was kind of a mental sacrifice. It was a very lonely time for me. The strange thing is with my memory; when it comes to the home I grew up in I remember every single detail; the colors, the furniture…everything. But I can’t really remember the first apartments or houses that we lived in when moving to Urbana, how strange is that? Maybe I tried to erase it out of my mind because they were not very happy times. Henry went to work from 7am in the morning to 11pm at night, he had two jobs. He worked as a draftsman, then he was a busboy at the union where he was able to have his lunch, and then he took classes at the University to learn English. I stayed home with the kids and we didn’t have a telephone or a car. I used to borrow the neighbor’s telephone to order groceries. In Indiana Aunt Florence used to get her groceries delivered and since that was the only experience I had in America I assumed that was how it was done. I didn’t know how far the markets were or how they worked. So I ordered the food. There was a grocery store that was at the corner near Urbana High School, that house is still there today. So I would order from there. I had to wait until my neighbors got home from work and then I would call and order. I especially had to order Teresa’s formula because she couldn’t take my milk so I had to make sure she got that. If I remember correctly, we spent $11 a week on groceries. And of course I had to cook. I had never cooked for myself, let alone a whole family every day of my life. Only on special occasions.

Sometimes I would like to take the kids out for a walk so we would bundle up and go maybe a block or two but I was not prepared for this type of cold. I had a coat that was nice but it was light, it wasn’t heavy. I had white gloves, high heels (no boots), and I only had dresses. And that was it. The only day that Henry was off was on Sundays, so on Sundays I would go to church. I would walk from Lincoln Square, all the way to campus town, which was about 3 ½ miles. How I walked in that weather I don’t know how but I needed to go to church for myself, I needed to pray, a lot. Then I would come back home and cook for us. Oscar was so kind to us as well. I think he loaned Henry money for the first round of groceries and some things for the kids because I don’t think our $1,000 that we came with lasted that long. There is no way, so I think Henry asked him for help. 

 But anyway it was very very hard. I remember there were days it felt just so lonely. I remember one day when Ralph was still so little he was walking around and I looked up and he had chocolate all over his mouth. I only had chocolate ex-lax. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do, who to call, where I should go or how to even get him there. I just remember kneeling down, crying and praying. And my little boy just came up to me and hugged me and said “don’t cry mommy” “mommy don’t cry”; “no llores mommy, no llores.” I thought I couldn’t cry in front of Henry, I couldn’t let him know how hard this was on me because we HAD to make it work. There was no choice. We had burned all our bridges back home but what felt like the  “American Dream” just didn’t happen for a long long time.

 I remember one of the saddest parts was looking at the trees and they had no leaves. I had never in my life seen trees without leaves. In Bolivia we had the four seasons but it is so mild that nothing loses its leaves or changes that drastically. I remember someone had said to me, maybe it was Mrs. Sharp, that there was an Elm tree disease that had killed the trees in Champaign-Urbana. So when I looked at the trees with no leaves I remember telling Henry, ‘you know this is so sad, these trees are just all dead. What are they going to do with them?’ Well… thank God for Spring. Spring came and it got warmer out to explore. We found out that about a block or two blocks away there is a Kroger where we could walk to and also a couple blocks away was St. Patrick's Church so I didn’t have to walk 3 ½ miles to church anymore. And of course the leaves started to come back on the trees. So with Spring came some hope. Things were starting to change and work out, a little at a time.