1 Maria Murillo. TRANSCRIPT of OH 2002V This Interview Was Recorded
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Maria Murillo. TRANSCRIPT of OH 2002V This interview was recorded on October 16, 2014, for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program. The interviewer is Maria Semprum. The interview also is available in video format, filmed by Semprum. The interview was transcribed by Susan Becker. ABSTRACT: Maria Murillo immigrated to the United States from Venezuela eighteen years before this interview was conducted. Initially, she came to Colorado with her husband and two children so that her husband could go to graduate school at the Colorado School of Mines. Eventually, she moved to Boulder and attended the University of Colorado as a graduate student herself and now teaches high school math. She describes the great beauty of Venezuela and talks about things that she misses from her country of origin, but also comments on the safety, cleanliness and sense of welcome that she has experienced in Boulder, which she now considers her home. She discusses friendships she has made—although she finds Americans to be welcoming, as for many immigrants, her long-term friendships have mainly been with other foreigners. NOTE: This interview is part of a series in which immigrants who were members of the Boulder Public Library’s English conversation class interviewed each other about their home countries and their experiences since arriving in Boulder. The interviewer and narrator are identified by their initials whenever there is a change in speaker. Added material appears in brackets. 00:00 MS: Hola. Hi. My name is Maria Eugenia Semprum, y voy a—pero _____ en español. Hi. My name is Maria Eugenia Semprum, and I am going to interview Maria Murillo. She is from Venezuela. Hi Maria. How are you? MM: Hi, Maria. MS: Maria, where were you born? MM: I was born in Venezuela. MS: In what city? MM: Oh, in what city? In Cumaná. It’s small city on the east side of Venezuela, on the coast. MS: Okay. And how long have you been living here in the United States—in Boulder? MM: Well, I got to Colorado about 18 years ago. And most of the time in Boulder. MS: In Boulder. Okay. Can you tell me about your country of origin, please? 1 MM: Well, first, it’s in South American, the northern part of South America. Right on the Caribbean. So we have a lot of coastal area. We speak Spanish. It’s got a very diverse—as far as areas. I don’t know how much you want to know. [chuckles] MS: What about the climate and the landscape? Can you tell us about the climate and the landscape and your—what’s in Cumaná, which is in the coast—you can tell about this city if you want. MM: Right. Compared to Colorado, we have a very different climate. It’s very mild all year. We don’t really have seasons— except like maybe a rainy season and a dry season. So the climate is kind of stable. We don’t have the snow and _____ or summer. But it’s kind of in-between summer and spring all year round. The landscape, it’s a lot of diversity. We have very high mountains in the Andes. We have the coastal areas, like my hometown is right on the beach. One thing I miss here in Colorado is we’re so far from the coast. We have the plains. We have jungle in the Amazon near Brazil. We have big rivers. We have sand dunes—big ones. We have an area called La Gran Sabana, which is flattened mountains called tapuis. It’s a very pretty area. We have a big city, Caracas, which is now probably seven million people in it, so it’s pretty big. And we have some other, smaller cities, most of them are on the coastal areas. Population—I’m not sure what it is now, but about thirty million, maybe—twenty-five, thirty million? 03:11 MS: And for you, which is the most beautiful place in your country? For you. MM: That’s a very hard question, because we have so many beautiful areas. So like, I mentioned before, we have La Gran Sabana, which is a beautiful area—it’s very untouched. It’s mostly just inhabited by the indigenous people. So there’s no cities or anything of that sort. It’s very pretty. Green. Lots of waterfalls. So you just go there and camp. There’s the mountains. Some of them have a little bit of snow, but they are very high. The highest is about 5,000 meters [16,404 feet]. Five kilometers. That’s in the Andes area, with beautiful small town on the mountains, on the hillsides. Then we have beautiful beaches, like Marguerita Island and _____. It’s blue waters , white sand, really nice. A lot of marine life. So, yeah, it’s hard to pick one area— [laughs] MS: It’s like a paradise. MM: Right! 2 04:20 MS: And about the customs? Would you please describe a custom that you think is most representative of your culture? MM: So for me, growing up there, because I did grow up there, is the time of December, when we have Christmas and we have New Year’s and it’s a big celebration both days, and it’s a family tradition. So families get together on New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve, and we eat special food that is not typical of the rest of the year, but it’s typical of us. One is hallacas, which is something sort of similar to tamales, but it’s a little more involved. So we all gather together, eat hallacas, and ham and pork and salad, and drink ponche crema, which is a native drink from Venezuela. And then we share toys or gifts with the family and listen to special music that is typical of that time of the year. 05:22 MS: And can you tell a little bit about the hallaca—which is the difference with tamales? MM: So, I guess the dough is a lot thinner than the tamales—it’s a very thin kind of a shell around it and then inside it’s stuffed with a lot of things, and it’s kind of heavy. I mean, an hallaca, you could eat like all week. And people put inside, depending on the families and the area of the country, but differences are usually pork and chicken and meat and a lot of different vegetable things—tomato, pepper, things like that. And it takes a lot of effort to put it all together. And then they wrap it with plantain leaves and then you can keep it in the fridge for quite a few—even weeks. And then you just boil it in water and then eat it. 06:18 MS: Okay. And when you were in Venezuela, [did] you work? MM: Yeah, I actually start, which is not very—well, it depends, I guess on where you grow up _____. I moved to Caracas, which is the capital, during my last year of high school, or the last—I think the last year of high school and maybe the year after also. I work in a toy store just during Christmas time. It was a very short period, but some kind of student work. And then after that, when I started going to school there, like college, I worked for the subway company—not the Subway sandwich—the actual Metro we call it there. Helping them with data, manipulating data and putting it in the computer and things like that. And then I moved to Margarita Island, which I really enjoyed, and I worked for an agency that’s related to the Secretary of Agriculture—that would be the relation—also kind of helping them keep the bookkeeping and things like that. Then after I graduated from college I worked for a research institute for the oil companies, for the government. 3 MS: I understand that you are a teacher, no? MM: Now, here, yes. Here in Boulder, but not there. 07:47 MS: Ah, okay. When and why did you decide to come to the United States? MM: When I was working in this government, I guess, research center, at that time I got married, I had my two children. I just had them and then my—which is now my ex-husband—but at that time, when we were married, he got a scholarship from the government to come and study here. So he was going to Colorado School of Mines in Golden. Then a very short time after we got here, since we were already kind of falling apart, so we got separated. And I applied to the University of Colorado here in Boulder, and I got admitted to one of their graduate programs. So I moved to Boulder with my two kids at that time. MS: And this is the reason that you chose Boulder, hmm? MM: Right. And then I live in family housing—CU family housing—and it was a great experience for the kids and for myself. MS: What were your first impressions of Boulder? MM: Well, being in the university, so I got to know a lot of people that mostly were Americans at that time, but I thought they were all very welcoming. The town looked really clean and safe. I could let me kids go out and play and bike around the family housing, and I didn’t worry too much about it, which I could never do like that in Caracas.