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 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!

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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 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 , 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 , but it’s a little more involved. So we all gather together, eat hallacas, and ham and and salad, and drink , 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.

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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. And that was all really nice. And just like everything seemed to work. [chuckles]

MS: And how do you feel about Boulder now?

MM: I still feel the same. I think in these many years the traffic has gotten worse, but it’s nothing compared to the traffic in Caracas—so it’s still not too bad. But it has changed, and the city has grown a little bit in all these years. But I still feel the same—I feel very safe, the people are welcoming and friendly, and I just wish there were a little more diversity, but other than that, I’m happy.

10:04

MS: What are your favorite things to do in Boulder?

MM: I love Chautauqua. I love to go hiking. I try to go hiking a few times a week if I can, when I have time. I just love to hike in that area. I love that we have the sun most days in the year. I

4 like Pearl Street Mall. I like to go to the St. Julian and listen to the music and dance. I guess those are my favorites. And meet my friends too.

MS: And about your friends: can you tell me something about your friends here in Boulder?

MM: Yeah. It has changed a little bit. When I was at CU, then I had friends that were going to school with me, and a few people that lived in family housing. But for the most part, the long- lasting relationship has been mainly—surprisingly—foreigners. And mainly people that speak Spanish also. But I do have a few American friends. But the large majority, I would say, more are like foreigners than Americans. Some of them I got to know because of my kids, and then they were parents of their friends while they were going to school, and so we kind of grew together, pretty much. Also our children grow together. So that lasted for a few years, and I still stay in touch with some of them.

And the same with my some of my friends from CU and all the friends that I met along the way. And sometimes just because we know that [about] each other—“Oh, you are from Venezuela, you are from Mexico,” and then we start talking and become friends.

11:45

MS: And when you are not in Boulder, do you miss Boulder?

MM: Yeah, for me, I have my home here now, my job, and my kids are very established here. They are already college age, and they have jobs here, and so this is sort of home. In that sense, this is home for us now. But we’re still a little bit attached to Venezuela anyway.

MS: What do you miss about Venezuela?

MM: The food—I’m not a very—a terrible cook, so I liked that. [chuckles] There it was easy to find somebody to sometimes make a meal for you or invite you over or something. It’s different for American people, American food. So that’s one thing.

I miss the water, the ocean, the Caribbean a lot, because I love to go—I mean, I was going to the beach almost every vacation I had. Spring break, which was more like holy week, and summer and Christmas, all the time we were going to the beach, so I miss that very much. The food and some of the places. But mostly that—the food and the water, the ocean.

MS: The smell of the ocean.

MM: Yeah.

13:05

MS: How did you know about the library? And what does it mean for you?

5 MM: Well, I actually had been—particularly to this library since this is one close to CU, since my kids were little, and I used to take—or bring them—here to sometimes read books or check out books or some of the activities sometimes that they offer mainly for children. I used to bring them over here, and then we got used to coming here. And we just keep coming every now and then.

Now it’s more like I come for myself. I like to borrow books that are printed in Spanish. It’s just easier for me to read in Spanish. I wish the collection would be a little bigger, but every now and then I find a book that I haven’t read, so I try to borrow it.

14:03

MS: Do you feel that Boulder is a home to you? And why? You told me about that.

MM: Yeah. I mean, pretty much, it’s sort of like a mixed feeling. You feel, like I said before, very welcoming. But it’s funny, you still feel like a foreigner, even though you’ve been here for many years. It’s interesting that every time I meet somebody new that doesn’t know me, when they hear my accent, the first thing they think, I’m European. They never think I’m Latin American, and it’s like—that tells me like sometimes people are—I don’t want to use the word ignorant, because it doesn’t sound good, but it’s sort of like they don’t know what diversity that we have in South America too. They feel like everybody is the same there, but we’re not. We’re all different kind of people everywhere. So that’s what makes me feel like people here are very friendly and very welcoming, but don’t know what is the world outside here sometimes.

MS: But has this been a home for you?

MM: But definitely home, yeah. I have my job here, and I’ve been here all these years and I don’t—I had opportunities to move out and I didn’t want to.

15:13

MS: Is there anything else you want to talk about?

MM: Yeah, well—like I was just saying, I finished school at CU, and then I got job offers elsewhere, like some were in New Mexico and California. I took the children with me, we went to visit. I love to travel, so that was an opportunity to see other places. But we just decided, no, we don’t want to move out of Boulder. My kids went to—now that they are college age, they both left Boulder—“I want to be far away, and I want to be away from my mom.” And not even a year later, they wanted to come back, and they’re here now. So Boulder has a big attraction that is hard to leave.

MS: And right now, are you working here in Boulder?

MM: So I’ve been working in Boulder for a few years now. I’m now a teacher in high school—a math teacher. Math has always been my strength. I started working in Longmont, the St. Vrain School District, for like five years. And then I moved to the Boulder Valley School District, and

6 I’ve been working here for a few years now, and I really enjoy it. I love working with the students, and also with the parents. Like if I get a chance to talk to the parents.

MS: Well, thank you very much Maria. We’re finished.

MM: Thank you for inviting me.

MS: Thank you.

16:47

[End of interview]

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