Culture Collage

What is your full name?
-Camila Perez-Albert Castillo

Where were you born?
-Guatemala, I lived in Guatemala City.

When did you move to the US and for what reason?
-I moved here in August of 1999. My parents arrived in February of 1999 and my brother and I came later. We chose Chapel Hill, North Carolina because of my dad’s job. We also had family here. My mom’s brother is a doctor at UNC. We still had our house in Guatemala so for the first three years my dad would spend three weeks in Guatemala and then one week in the US.

Where do your parents live now?
-They moved back to Guatemala in the summer of 2007. Since I have graduated high school I have spent my summers back home. My family comes to visit once a semester. It is were not having a house in the United States but I have gotten use to not having them around.

How did you learn English?
-I went to a private school in Guatemala. In preschool and during elementary school everything was taught in both English and Spanish, so I learned both. Guatemala is a 3rd world county so the public schools are very poor, over 70% of the population is poor. Some public schools don’t even have desks. The private schools have waiting lists and my parents put me on a waiting list since I was born because there is not a lot of space in the schools. My mom had gone to school there so that is why we chose that one.

Do you speak English or Spanish with your family?
-We speak Spanish. I only use my Spanish when I talk with them on the phone so I am not practicing it very much. It is hard if I spend time at home and then return here and the same goes when I return home. After a short time though I catch back up and it is not so rough.

So did your parents grow up in Guatemala?
-My dad is from Spain and my mom’s family is from Spain but she grew up in Guatemala.

How did schooling work?
-We went to school from January to October. In Guatemala there is a rainy season. From October to December there is not a lot of rain so that is when our break is. In the mountains of Guatemala City it is usually 70-80 degrees and the beach is warm year round, usually in the 90s. It is weird for me to think that it snows at the beach here in the winter because we are use to spending New Years at the beach.

Describe the differences of culture between Guatemala and the US.
-The main difference is in the way people interact. Instead of just saying “hi” we would greet each other with a kiss. Family is also very important and we take family very seriously. Most people stay in Guatemala all their life. Everyone knows everyone and stay close throughout their lives. It is not uncommon to live with your parents until marriage. I know all of my friends’ family including their grandparents, parents and siblings. I still keep in touch with my group of friends. There are 31 of us and out of that only 8 live in Guatemala now. Many students go out of the country for college. It’s common for people to go outside of the country to get experience for 4-5 years and then return. Since so many students are going to college outside of the country, they have slowly started to change the school year to be same as it is in the US. My friends who graduated back home were in the first graduating class to graduate in June. They did that so students would not miss a year of school since they would graduate in October and start back till August.

What did you and your friends do for fun?
-A lot of my friends had beach houses or houses on the river. We would go to relax sometimes just with friends and sometimes with their families. The city is not safe. We would go out because there is a zone where the clubs and bars are. Here everything shuts down at 2:30am where there it was 1 am. Drinking is much more of a social thing. The age is 18 and many of my friends do it with their family, it’s not wired like it is here.

What was your idea of the US before you arrived?
-I had been here before. We use to come two times a year. There are not many stores in Guatemala so we would come to Miami where we had family usually between October and December when there was no school. We came sometimes in June or July for 2-3 weeks and we would go to Disney World or California.

What are some of your goals for your future?
-I pan to return to Guatemala. Right now I am an ESS major and there is a great need for physical therapists back home. I would be a nurse but they are not considered a great job. You can’t make a living wage being one. I plan to go to grad school after UNCG for physical therapy for 3 years and work for another year in the US. My mom always taught me to pick something that would give back to the community to help the poor and be some kind of social work.