Constantino Diaz-Duran is a fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University. He is chronicling his walk from New York to Los Angeles to celebrate his eligibility for American citizenship. Follow Constantino’s progress.

I can’t remember the last time I got nostalgic about Guatemala. But a home-cooked meal is always welcome, no matter where the recipe’s origin. And there is one thing about Guatemalan food I love: tortillas. Guatemalan tortillas are different from the Mexican tortillas we are used to in the U.S. They are smaller, thicker, and way tastier. I was thrilled, Thursday night, to have some for the first time in years.

I had my Guatemalan tortillas at the home of Nery and Laura, whose daughter, Rosa, found out about my walk through Facebook. She read that I would be in the area, and that I didn’t have a place to stay, so she offered to let me stay with them. It was the first night I have spent with strangers, but as a friend of mine reminded me, no one is a stranger after you’ve dined together. I should say, then, that I spent the night in the company of new friends.

Chatting with them about the “old country” was interesting. Rosa still yearns for it. The family came to the U.S. ten years ago, when she was 14. She finished high school here and has a green card, a job, and a plan to go to med school. Yet she misses Guatemala dearly, and would love to go back. Her sister, Priscilla, who is only one year younger, is the opposite. She has no intention of ever going back.
Priscilla doesn’t see the U.S. through pink-colored glasses. “Being American means you work, and work, and work, until you’re old, and then you die,” she said. She works at a bank, and told me about one of her co-workers, a 94-year-old woman who needs the job in order to support herself. In spite of all of this, she believes that this country affords opportunities that she would never find in Guatemala. She appreciates the fact that even though you have to work very hard to get ahead in America, it is still possible here to improve your life and that of your family. And when her dad and I started talking about Guatemalan corruption and politics (the two go hand-in-hand), she kept shaking her head and asking things like “but don’t they have people who do audits?” Priscilla, I concluded, is thoroughly Americanized. Good for her.

Rosa herself is much more American than she would care to admit. She spent all of last year in Guatemala, an experience that both renewed her desire to move back, and highlighted the differences between her and her childhood friends. “I’ve worked since I was 15,” she told me. “I’ve helped my parents out with household expenses for as long as I’ve been able to, and my things, I buy myself, with my own money.” Her friends in Guatemala by and large depend on their parents even though they are in their 20s. She told me about a friend of hers, a 28-year-old whose parents won’t let her out of the house after 5:00 PM, because it gets dark. “I couldn’t even begin to get it,” said Rosa. “She is older than me, and she has to ask permission to go out? I’ve always been respectful and have told my parents where I am, and where I’m going, but I am very independent. I couldn’t believe that at her age her parents treated her like a baby.” It seems, then, that the importance we give to hard work in America has its reward: independence.

Nery, Laura, and their three daughters (the youngest one is 16) are a tight knit family. Nery’s love for his family keeps him going in spite of hardships and setbacks. He is a CPA, and worked in upper management for a large company in Guatemala. “I had 120 employees in five different countries under my supervision,” he said. “I traveled all over Central America, and people knew that I called the shots. I was the boss.” In 2001, he got laid off, and realized that the only way he’d be able to give his daughters a good education would be by emigrating. His first job in the US was with a flooring company. “It was hard work,” he says, “on you knees all day, installing the floor.”

After the flooring company, he got a job as a busboy at a cafeteria, and a second job in the stocking department of a pharmaceutical company. He has held at least two jobs at a time since then, often three. His day starts at 5:00 AM, and he says he has sometimes worked up to 15- or 16-hour days. And yet his spirits don’t falter. He is a man of faith, and he trusts that God will help them get ahead. So far, things seem to be going well. The family is looking to buy a house, for which they would all help pay.

I took the day off Friday, and stayed at a hotel just a few miles away from my Guatemalan friends’ home. The assistant manager, a fellow immigrant, was excited about my project, and gave me a highly discounted rate, which included breakfast Saturday morning. I am bound to meet more than one unpleasant person, I am sure, but so far, I have met extremely kind people. I’m beginning to wonder if being kind, and helpful to strangers, is part of what it means to be an American.

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*Photo by Constantino Diaz-Duran.