Did growing up with two home cultures prepare Alison Maciejewski expat life? S11E2

How much do our immigrant parents impact our adult expat experiences? This is what we're exploring in this conversation with return guest Alison. 

Alison and I dig into growing up with two unequal cultures in one household,  the racial struggles she's seen in many countries during her years living outside of her passport country of the U.S. and her coming to terms with the differences between her mother's immigrant experience and her own expat life. 

Original publication date: August 26, 2022

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Transcript

Stephanie
 Welcome to a new season of Geopats. This is Steph Fuccio and I am back for another micro season. This season we are talking to expats.
 Who grew up with one or more.
 Immigrant parents in their household. And the central question that runs through all four of these episodes is did that immigrant perspective, that immigrant in their household, did they impact how our guest maneuvered their expat life later on.
 Like years and years later?
 People, like decades later, did that impact them? And if so, how? And that's what we're investigating this season. I'm so glad to bring back Allison Maczewski. She has been on the podcast twice already and talking about different things, and now she's going to help us dig into this. Alison studied some things in her master's program that also dipped into this area, so I can't wait for you to hear the information that she's going to share with us on that as well. Look, we go into all kinds of things from her Chilean mother and the impact that the cultures, the two cultures that she grew up in, in the household had on her during and after her time at home in the US and all the places that she has been to, all of the racial bullshit she's dealt with and seen happen around her, even in academia and what she thinks of all of this and what we're capable of being and doing as human beings that we might not be living up to yet.
 Allison, welcome back.
 This is your third time on Geopaths, but with different themed conversations that we've had over the years.

Alison
 Yeah, everything on your podcast applies to me, so I keep showing up again.

Stephanie
 Fantastic. Well, that's a good sign that I'm hitting on some very needed expedie kind of, or something like that, which is my lame excuse to keep talking to you in video version because I adore speaking to you.

Alison
 It is nice to chat, but last time.

Stephanie
 Let's see.

Alison
 Okay, wait.

Stephanie
 Last time we were talking about Thailand, but you were not in Thailand. You were in.

Alison
 I was in Prague last time we spoke.

Stephanie
 That's right.

Alison
 I was in Prague starting grad school at Charles University, and I think I was starting to learn Czech. I think I was settling in and sort of comparing my life in Prague to my life of the five years previous in Thailand. So congratulations to me. I have a degree.

Stephanie
 Congratulations to you.

Alison
 I finished grad school, so now I've got my master's in International Economics and geopolitics. Wow. And so on topic. And then I moved to Mexico. Well, sort of fell into Mexico pandemic. And the hope was to go somewhere further into South America. But for the time being, I'm here in Mexico. I've been here for over a year, and this is the plan. Gonna stick around.

Stephanie
 That's amazing. And last time we talked, I was in China still, I think.
 And then I went to Germany a few different places. And right now I'm digitally nomad. Rome, Italy. Which countries outside of the U.S. have you lived in?

Alison
 So I grew up in California. I studied abroad during university in Madrid, Spain. I lived in Ireland for a year in Dublin. I lived in Bangkok, Thailand for four and a half years. I had some short stints in the Philippines, in China, in Turkey, and I lived for two and a half years in Prague, Czech Republic, and now I've been over a year in Mexico.

Stephanie
 You grew up speaking Spanish, right, in a Chilean American household?

Alison
 Yes and no. I spoke Spanish my family. But we didn't speak it a lot at home because my mom, as an immigrant from Chile, was discriminated against when she went to the U.S. in 1970. And so we spoke English 100% in our house, and she obviously spoke 100% English at work. So the idea was that us kids, my older brother and I, would be as American as possible as blending into, you know, assimilating to the majority culture as much as possible.
 So I spoke Spanish with my family, understood Spanish, but it took me a lot of years of linguistic study all the way through middle school, high school, university, and beyond. I've always been studying. I'm still learning. But yes, this is the first time I've been in a country in nine years where I arrived and was able to speak and understand upon arrival. And it is such a huge difference as far as arriving feeling comfortable knowing how to get the things that you need. And I'm learning a lot of Mexican slang.

Stephanie
 Oh, okay. Okay. I'm making a note to ask you that later. Was one of your parents immigrant? Because I'm not sure when to call. I might actually then in there. Because I'm not sure when to stop calling someone an immigrant. Like are they an immigrant for the first 20 years and then suddenly they're a citizen? Is it when they actually get their documentation?

Alison
 So my mom was from Chile and my dad was from the US and he came from a Polish American background, Chicago area. My mom was from Copiapo Vina del Mar, Chile, and she married my dad and they moved to the US in 1970.
 My mom was an immigrant. She didn't become a citizen until shortly before she passed away. So she was a green card holder for 35 plus years. She called herself an immigrant. But her idea was to leave Chile, move to the United States with her husband, my dad, and have a life there.

Stephanie
 Did you just say she called herself an immigrant the whole time or did she stop when she got that documentation?

Alison
 I think she referred to herself as an immigrant, but I do think that the rhetoric around being an immigrant or migrant worker, I don't think she would have identified with that. Growing up, we didn't use those terms. In her case, she was a resident. She had a green card. She mostly referred to herself by that title.

Stephanie
 Gotcha. Gotcha.

Alison
 She was still very proud to have her Chilean passport. She was always excited to go home and visit family. We were on the phone with family every weekend. I think she really clung to her identity as a person from Chile and in the United States. She always felt a bit of an outsider.

Stephanie
 That's interesting because my parents moved. My dad moved to the US from Italy when he was 12, my mom when she was 21. I never really thought of them as immigrants or as Americans because they were so adamant about being Italian. I only started thinking about it after I moved abroad.

Alison
 Because I grew up across the street from an Italian immigrant family, and my best friend growing up was from that family. I didn't find it weird until I was in school with more mainstream white American families. Then I started to realize I was different.

Stephanie
 But when you say you realized you were different, what does that mean?

Alison
 I assumed I was white growing up. It took me until high school and college to realize that I'm not white and people don't treat me as if I'm white.

Stephanie
 Yeah. I had that experience too when I moved to California.

Alison
 This happens every time I move countries.

Stephanie
 And when I moved to Asia, forget about it.

Alison
 In Ireland, during the census, there was no box for me. None of them fit. In Asia I was perceived as white or Middle Eastern. In Prague as non white. In Mexico as a white gringa. It changes everywhere based on local politics around race and ethnicity.

Stephanie
 I have such a knee jerk reaction to the word white.

Alison
 Caucasian is especially inaccurate.

Stephanie
 Especially for southern Italians.

Alison
 And Southern Europeans are treated very differently.

Stephanie
 The east coast is such an interesting mesh of prejudice.

Alison
 Completely different from California.

Stephanie
 People in California said some awful racial things to me, assuming I was on their side.

Alison
 Did your mom want you to assimilate fully?

Stephanie
 Did you feel early on that there were other ways to live?

Alison
 I grew up with tension between two cultures. My parents disagreed on nearly everything. US culture was seen as normal. Chilean culture was seen as inferior.

Stephanie
 When did you realize that had shaped you?

Alison
 In my teen years, largely through learning Spanish. That was the first time culture was presented as neutral, not right or wrong.

Stephanie
 Were you able to tell those teachers?

Alison
 No, it was cumulative over years.

Stephanie
 That is powerful.

Alison
 It took a lot of my adult life to reverse those ideas.

Stephanie
 I have been teasing this out my entire adult life too.

Alison
 Having multiple cultures inside you is extremely difficult.

Stephanie
 What was your first expat place?

Alison
 Spain. And it made it easier. I loved it from day one.

Stephanie
 Was there a place where it became harder?

Alison
 The Czech Republic. It was extremely difficult due to xenophobia, even in academia.

Stephanie
 Is there anything specific you feel comfortable sharing?

Alison
 A professor praised Australia's anti immigration policy as the best in the world and treated it as objective truth.

Stephanie
 Yeah.

Alison
 I had issues for the rest of my program after challenging him.

Stephanie
 I started wondering if society is mature enough to live together.

Alison
 Nation states and monolingualism are very recent in human history. Multilingualism used to be normal.

Stephanie
 That reframes a lot.

Alison
 There is no pure culture. That is pseudoscience.

Stephanie
 That is such an important point.

Alison
 Having this upbringing helped me. I was prepared for reverse culture shock.

Stephanie
 Have you experienced it yourself?

Alison
 Yes. Especially noticing mask culture, car dependency, lack of walkability in the US.

Stephanie
 That is why I struggle with the idea of going back.

Alison
 Walkability is non negotiable for me.

Stephanie
 Same.

Alison
 I cannot move back to the US.

Stephanie
 Okay, let’s end on a positive note. Where can people find you?

Alison
 Instagram or Twitter. Alison A Glitter.

Stephanie
 Thank you so much for coming on for the third time.

Alison
 Thank you for having me.

Stephanie
 And boy do I understand. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe or share it with one person. You can reach me @stephfuccio on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Thank you so much. We will be back very soon. Bye.