Interview with the Eldest Daughter of a Colombian Family

Material Information

Title:
Interview with the Eldest Daughter of a Colombian Family
Series Title:
Immigrant Voices: New to Middlesex County
Creator:
Estrada, Alejandra (Interviewer)
Villegas, Amanda (Interviewee)
Espinoza-Wulach, Cristóbal (Advisor)
Place of Publication:
Edison, NJ
Publisher:
Middlesex College
Publication Date:
Copyright Date:
2025
Language:
Spanish
Physical Description:
1 recording, 1 transcription, 1 translation

Notes

Abstract:
This is a 30 minute long interview with a Colombian immigrant about her fun but stressful childhood of basically raising her siblings as her own and growing up as an introverted adolescent without the opportunity to go to school like some of her peers did. Her cousin loaned her enough money to travel to the United States, where she would not be able to develop a social life for many years due to all the work she was doing to save money for her family. She ended up saving enough to fly out three of her siblings, and watch them grow in New Jersey with children of her own. She encourages people not to fear immigrants as criminals or as taking up tax-payer money because she thinks a lot of immigrant stories resemble hers: she just wants to survive and provide for family. ( ,,,,,,,,,,,,, )
Abstract:
This is a transcript and recording of an oral history interview that took place as part of the class projects for Middlesex College's History 221H class in the Spring of 2025. Since the interview was conducted in Spanish, there is also an English translation attached. The transcript is written by TurboScribe, and translated with DeepL. Interview is recorded with the Voice Memos application.
Venue:
Recorded on May 7th, 2025 in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
Biographical:
Amanda was the first of all of her mother’s 6 children. Before all her little siblings were born, she also shared the house with her two older cousins and their grandmother. The house was on the top of the hill, and it hadn’t been finished the entire 25 years that Amanda lived there. She remembers that there weren’t any tiles on the floor of the kitchen, so the open soil would attract a lot of bugs and rats to infest the little food that the family had. She felt the pressure to be quick and protective from a very young age. She barely got to see her mom, who was always working at a bar and staying at the houses of clients on the other side of the city. Because of all the time she spent working, cooking, and being a second mother for her younger siblings, Amanda never had even a primary education. She taught herself how to read Spanish and English in her late 20s at an American night school. When Amanda got word that her aunt and cousin, who her siblings had always referred to as “the rich cousin” because of her high-paying job in the center of the city, had moved to the United States in the 70s, she was eager to follow them. She knew that every day she stayed in Colombia was another day she was stuck in poverty. So, at some point in 1980, Amanda’s cousin lent her some money, and a few months later, she had made her way to her aunt’s house in New Jersey. This cost her all the little savings she had, and she left that night with nothing but the clothes on her back. The transition was challenging because of the culture shock and the language barrier, but she was finally able to find stable work, something that had been unattainable in Colombia for her. She had worked in a Tommy Hilfiger factory as a seamstress and was biweekly on Saturdays in cash, just enough to keep the apartment and feed herself a full meal every day. At 6 in the morning, for 6 days a week, she would wake up and walk half a mile in the east coast’s cold winter streets to the bus stop, where the bus would drive her 20 minutes to a stop another half a mile away from the factory. Once a month, Amanda got off on the next stop to send a part of her paycheck to her mother back at home. She was eternally grateful knowing that she never would have been able to help this much if she was still at that house. Slowly but surely, Amanda was able to work her way up to the point where she could fly her siblings and her mother out to live peacefully in Middlesex County, fulfilling her role as a provider.
Biographical:
"Amanda Villegas" is a pseudonym for the interviewee's real name who has chosen to keep her identity private.

Record Information

Source Institution:
Middlesex College
Holding Location:
Middlesex College
Rights Management:
This item is licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative License. This license allows others to download this work and share them with others as long as they mention the author and link back to the author, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.