Interview with Mari Mujica, April 19, 2017

Diana Lalata: Hi, my name is Diana Lalata. I am conducting an oral history interview with Mari Mujica. Today is April 19, 2017, it's about 11:30am and we are in Shelbyville, Kentucky. So, Mari, the first question I have for you is how did you or your family come to be in Louisville?

Mari Mujica: So, we, my husband took a job with the university, and that's how we got to Kentucky. And we were in Louisville for about 9 years. And then, we decided to move to a farm, and here we are in Shelbyville. Before being in Kentucky, we were in Massachusetts for about fifteen years, where he also was working at the university as a professor and before that, we were in Iowa, that was our first stop in the U.S. and that was over 30 years ago. There, he was doing a postdoc, and I was, I ended up getting into school because that was my best --it was a college town, and I didn't have a working visa. You know, that visa that people are talking about right now--the HB, so that's what he had as an exchange, an exchange, something. Anyways, so yeah. So that's how we got here.

DL: Will you tell me more about your story of maybe why you came to the United States?

MM: Well, the synopsis of my story is that we left Peru newly married. My husband had a scholarship to go to England, and that year was extended--the scholarship was extended. He ended up completing his PHD there, so we stayed two and a half years. And then, after that, in the sciences, it's really recommended that you do a post-doc, and so he had a post-doc in Iowa, and we were--our plan was to go back to Peru and, then, well I got into school, and so we ended up prolonging that. One time, the funding for the research he was doing was stopped, and then he was asked to teach, if he wanted to teach, and it was a temporary-- and then, the second year, he was asked to stay. By then, we had everything in line to go back to Peru, we had already had our first child, and I was finishing the PHD program there in Anthropology. Actually, I had written a grant that was going to give us funding for the whole family, so that the -- because my concern was going back to Peru and having to start working right away, I would never end, finish the PHD, because that happened actually, to my brother, a number of years before. You know, it's very difficult to just come back, get the funds to come back. And so, what happened was, there was a lot of things going on. The situation in Peru was very difficult and as a, especially in the sciences, there wasn't a lot happening, even less if you are in the sciences and an academic, and so, you know, the grant that I had was perfect, because for one year, I had, we had, we were set up, you know, I was going to be able to finish, but then I remember my brothers, one of my brothers wrote to us and sent us like an article that had been published in the paper that the scientific community was having some complaints with the government, at the time, we had Alan Garcia as the president, and at the bottom of the article, he had written "Do not come back."

We, so there was that, we had a Peruvian friend living in Chicago, at the time, who had been looking for work for years, and he couldn't get work. And then, the chair of the Department who was begging my husband to stay teaching for one more year and ultimately, I remember I was preparing for my comps, and I was writing down pros and cons of staying or going, and they were pretty even, but then there were two things that really tipped it towards us staying. The first one was that from here, we were able to send some money to my in-laws, who needed some extra support, and we didn't know if working in Lima or Peru, if we could do that. And the second was the thought that, if we stayed at any point, we could just decide to go back home, but if we went back home, and then wanted to come back, that was going to be a lot more difficult, so we decided, okay, it's, if we stay, we can reverse that at any time, but not the opposite, so we decided to stay, and it was kind of like a temporary decision, but then that's when he applied for tenure track jobs, and so, so our story is one with a lot of privilege because we already left home with a college degree, and that in itself just opened doors for us, in England, and opened doors for us here, and so then, that's when he got the job in Massachusetts. I ended up going to Peru with my son and doing the research there, staying with my mother, and my father had died that year, and so, and then, and so we were away, we were apart for months at a time so I could complete the PHD. But then I also decided not to continue my research because I felt very strongly that I wanted to do research where I lived so I wasn't just researching people, but really collaborating at some level, not being part of the community. So yeah that's our story. So when the job opened here, it was a great opportunity for us to move here. Yeah.

DL: How did your family feel about leaving? Did they come with you to Peru? Was it just you and your husband?MM: We were newly married, so we didn't have, well, my family, I have a large family in Lima. I have seven siblings and they all live there, yeah, in the same city. These siblings have children, who are now having children, very tight knit family. My children are in WhatsApp with all the cousins and, you know, we have a WhatsApp with all the brothers and sisters, and I have one just with the sisters, yeah, so, we are in, it's great, the technology now keeps us in the loop, but it's like oh no, so and so are getting together and we are not there, such and such is having a baby, and we want to be there, yeah.

DL: How did they feel about your decision coming to the United States for your job?

MM: Well, you know, as I said, at the beginning it was temporary. And almost for us, it was like a big adventure because the plan was to go back. So, basically, -- Tango, come here, Tango, come here, she's not crazy about dogs, okay? -- So, basically we were on this big adventure. And newly married, so it was a great experience for us to be away from what we had grown up with, from the family, then when, when we started having a family and I was still a student, actually, when we had my oldest son, that was very difficult, yeah, and well, it was also aggravated by the fact that my father had just died. My father died about two weeks before my son was born. So, yeah, that was a very painful time, I still, when I think about it. And so we didn't have any family or advice, or anything, and then, the breastfeeding problems, I mean, all of that, which sometimes, people prefer not to have family around, because everybody tells you something, especially in our culture, but yeah. It was, when I see my nieces having their babies and their, you know, my brothers or sisters, or in-laws, sisters or brothers in-law, being there, and visiting all the time, I'm like, I didn't have that. So, in a way, it kind of makes a--I think that's, that's when we started becoming immigrants, really. I don't think we really saw ourselves as immigrants at the beginning, and then, once we decided to stay and then once, and then we, again, we had the privilege of having a path to citizenship because we, we were working and earning enough to pay a lawyer to start with the transmit, the paperwork, but also, we had the university saying yeah, this is a full time employee, and they kind of vouched for you, even if they don't do the process, didn't do the process for you at that time. And there were a number of reasons why we wanted to become citizens.

By that time, my daughter had already been born, too, and she was, it's funny, because she was about two, I think, or three, and she was so excited. Because we always told them, this is your country, and you have another country, and you are also Peruvian, but you know, this is your flag, we tried to not create a negative image of you know the country that they are growing up. So, when we were about to become citizens, my daughter says, "Mom, I'm so excited that now we are all going to be MERICAN!" I cannot forget that--MERICAN--and, but for us, it meant a lot of things. It meant my husband could write grants as a citizen, because a lot of grants for funding for doing research in the sciences are only for U.S. citizens. It meant, we were also very interested in participating in the political process. You know, we are here, what is our contribution? And what was an amazing relief was the, the sense of like, like we finally didn't have to feel so insecure every time we went to request a visa, or every time we flew home, which is also a privilege that, you know, money wise, but also status wise, that you can go and visit your family. But I remember when I went for my brother's wedding, my youngest brother's wedding, we were living in Massachusetts already, and I was still writing my dissertation and I had a grant from the University of Iowa, that was paying me my TA money without having to teach, in order to be able to write. So, I could be anywhere and I went to renew the visa, because once you leave the country, you have to go back to the Embassy, and request this, while you stay in the country, they just extend it to you, while you continue to be a student. They said, well what are you doing in Massachusetts if you study in Iowa? I said, well, I have this grant and I wanted to be with my husband, and the officer was very, like, I was afraid that he would not let us back, like he wouldn't get us a visa. He said oh, you have to regularize your situation, and I said to him, what are you suggesting that we apply for citizenship, or a green card? And then, I did get the visa. And at that moment, we had already started the paperwork, and even the two different lines that you go through when you arrive at the airport, it was, it gave us so much peace of mind. It took, it removed a huge stress and I mean, can you imagine? You know, and this is within this very privileged scenario because it's true.

DL: So, are all of your siblings still back in Lima?

MM: Yeah, some of them still in the same neighborhood we grew up. One of my brothers, actually, bought the house from us, the house where we grew up, he, yeah. Pretty amazing.

DL: So, do you feel any type of disconnect because you have this type of privilege? Maybe some of them are still back at home?

MM: In that sense, in the sense of family and the connection, I don't have the privilege of that connection because I'm not there to share, con vivir, to share in their everyday life. So, you know, they are all professionals and they all have established families, so, no, I think I become more and more aware of the richness, at one level, the richness of the family connection and the family care, and how everybody is there for everybody else, which is different. It just ended up--so I feel that my family, we are just a nuclear family, very nuclear, so the four of us, and right now actually, both of my children, who are adults, are living with us, temporarily, we know that it's not forever, and it's, I can see that we are, it's like that's all we have, on some of the holidays, that's all we have, each other. So, yeah, we kind of long the family everyday interaction, but as I said, you know, we just found out, actually, my daughter found out that one of my nieces is pregnant, because you know, it was a WhatsApp to all the cousins, and we go home and it's like oh let's call her, and so we talked with her and then the next day, I call my sister, so that makes it a little bit, it's so important, I realize the older I get, and I'm trying to, I've been trying to go visit once a year, because that's the only way I see them. Some of them have come, but it's not that easy to come from there to here, even though they all have, you know, they have a comfortable life, but, and so you know, there is work, also, so the more you work, the less time you have, if your work is a little more sporadic, the less you have you can afford to come. So, I have just decided, okay, I have to go and see them, and I realize that maybe I need to go more often, which is also a privilege, you know that I could afford to do that, but to really keep the strong connection, if I skip a year, it's so hard because you haven't been part. It's almost if when I go and come back, the phone calling, texting becomes easier through via WhatsApp because you have just connected. You have a mental map of what are they doing in the morning, what is their routine, what time is a good time to call, that kind of thing. But when I, the months go by, and of course there is a change of season, also, which is, they are more available as the summer comes here, which makes, you know like, we spend more time outside, and such and such, that's funny, interesting. But yeah, I think the biggest loss for me is that I had to raise my kids without this amazing super committed love of the extended family, and they didn't have that growing up, and they long for that, as well. I mean, they feel very connected. It seems that it strikes a chord with you, too.

DL: Yeah, yeah it does. That's definitely a cultural thing for me and I grew up with an extended family and then moving around, I kind of lost that. I guess I'm wondering, so, when you were in Peru, can you talk more about your family life there like growing up with your extended family and maybe like some of the figures that you looked up to who raised you?

MM: Well, my grandmother on my father's side, which his father had died right before my parents got married, and my grandfather on my mother's side, who actually had, my mother's mom died when she was like 15, so, but that whole family, so she and her four brothers moved in and my grandfather lived in to move with my grandfather's sisters, and I met two of them and she was the third, and they were all maiden, single women. And you know, older, they were like great aunts to us, but it seemed like the family life, was, they were the centerpiece, and my grandmother, they both, my grandfather lived right around the corner from us, and so I remember having certain toys that stayed at their house because we would just take off and go. And we had this aunt, Tia Maria, who was, the one that survived my grandfather and the sisters, and in fact, when my grandfather died, we just, the house where we grew up is full of additions, because with eight siblings, so we kind of added, or put a roof over an area that had been more open when my grandfather died so that my aunt, Tia Maria could live, move in with us. But, so we loved, she prepared desserts, sugar, like crazy. She would prepare jello for my grandfather and she will add sugar, and so we loved jello. And we would go to her and say Tia, I'm hungry, tengo hambre, and she would say, oh, would you like some crackers? She always had like the Maria crackers, very sweet, and she also had like hard candy, I can show you, I bought, every time I go to the store, I buy some, we call them perritas, they have the shape of a little pear, they're, um, anyways, red and yellow, and she would say, oh would you like some crackers? No, I'm hungry for jello (laughs), we would say, because we saw the jello and we knew that it was always sweet, sweeter than at home. So, we had a lot of that, we spent a lot of time with them, and we would just walk from their house to our house. And then, the grand, and every Sunday, there was, we call it Lunche, which is like a tea, like tea time, 5 o clock, and the cousins will come, but it was every Sunday, it was just every Sunday, and all the, you know, all the sweets, and the chicha morada, which is like this really nice purple drink, which is made out of blue corn, and really like traditional Peruvian, and uh, so when my grandfather passed away and we moved my aunt with us, the lunches were at my house, at the house, at our house. And the same, cousins, you know, but also extended family, like some were really good friends of my mom, since, almost like her sister, and then her daughter, and also some of the cousins who, then got married, and then their children, people just knew that they could come, they would call sometimes, but you know, I always wanted to recreate that kind of tradition, but I was never able to do it, it just never worked out with the kinds of lives that we lived here. I don't know, yeah, but I always, at one point, I always wanted to do that, and for it to be open, it's not only family, but friends would know that, yeah, I don't know, it's like you work so much in the week and the weekend you don't want to do anything because you are so tired, and so then, um, so that's one of the traditions.

And so my grandmother on my father's side, she would come--tango, come here, that's what he wants--so my grandmother would come for lunch every Sunday, no, every Saturday, and some of the memories I had, she would bring marshmellows, they are not like the marshmellows we have now, but they were harder, and they had all these different pastel colors, and they were, they had like these designs of shells, of different shells, it's like I have never seen them again. Are you okay? Are you sure?

DL: Yeah, yeah.

MM: She would bring that after lunch, and she, if I got a book, a story, we would give it to her, she will learn it and then she will tell us the story, so we would see it, and it was just amazing. And then on Sundays, sometimes we will pick her up and go to church, to mass, with her, and then, on the way back, and this was early, probably like 8 'o clock, and on the way back, we will stop by the store and buy cream crackers, they were called.

DL: Like the cream is inside?

MM: There's no cream in there, but it's, they are like soda crackers, but they are thicker and a lot, I think they have some kind of fat in them, and so they were bigger, like this, and cheese. And so once in a while, ham, cheese and ham were like totally special occasion, it's, we never had that in the house, I used, in case we got it, someone would eat them before the time. We never lacked anything, I mean, we, we went to, really private schools, more like religious schools, like parochial, and we always had the uniform and I remember that the policy was to buy really good shoes that will last you through the year, so we grew up with a lot more than many people even in our neighborhood, and Peru for sure, but at the same time, there wasn't excess, and I remember asking, talking with my mom at one point, about how we got like one present at Christmas time, one present at our birthdays, and then going out for ice cream was like once in a very blue moon, or I remember going to a movie, the whole family, maybe twice when I was growing up, things like that. Very kind of measured, and no waste at all. I once asked my mom, you know, why, what was our, did we have enough? Did we didn't have enough? She said we, I think we had more than we needed, but to me it was very important to raise you in a way that you didn't have more than you needed because I didn't think that was right,so, there are a few things like that from my mom, you have a question about who has influenced me, and I think my mom has influenced me a lot, like her values, she always did volunteer work, in other places people wouldn't dare to go, because lima is surrounded by a belt of very low-income, poor people, I mean what you would say, I hate to use the word "poor," because I think there is a lack of economic resources, so um, so things like every year we will share one of our favorite toys, actually, with a group of kids that, I have this image engraved in my mind of the doll that my grandmother had made for me, and I loved the doll, and so, so I gave it away that Christmas, and so I remember, the girl that got it started to twirl with the doll, like how, it's like engraved in my mind. One of my sisters felt like it was too much for us as children to be expected to give up our favorite toy -- so, it's interesting because I never thought of that, I mean, growing up with privilege, I mean you grow up, it's your culture, you never think about that. We were always aware that there were a lot of people that had a lot less than us. Including, I mean in Peru, it's very common to have people working in your house. You either, maybe at this time it's a little different, but when I was growing up, you either could afford to have someone working at your house, or you had to work in someone's house, that was kind of like the divide. And then um, there are horrible stories, I mean, of abuse, all kinds of abuse, and there's are some interesting Latin American, and Peruvian novels, actually, that describe that. It was not our experience in my family, I mean you know, clearly, someone that lives and works in your house, is in a very vulnerable situation, but, we would get in really big trouble if we demanded anything or were disrespectful, or even like, even in, we would go to somebody's house and they would say, oh, I will ask, you know, whoever was working there, to go to the store and go to the bodega, what we call the corner store, to get some soda or something, we were absolutely not allowed to ask anything like that, you know. They had their jobs, there was the time when we were not to disturb them because it was their rest time, but, and I think that was really good, but still, I think you know, living and so, not living in that situation has made me a lot more aware of how, of the extent of the privilege and the vulnerability. In fact, I wrote my master's thesis on that and I cried like crazy.

DL: Can you tell me more about that? I'm really curious.

MM: Oh gosh, all of this is on tape, I cannot believe it. So, when I was in England, I got into a master's program and I decided to do my research on, on the ideas of class and race in the institution of domestic service, and it was great because I was away so it was an opportunity to be, but it was painful, it was painful, I mean, things that were the most painful, I guess, one of them is, well we had "Mamas" which is like a nanny, but it's a different status than the nanny here in this country, and we call them "mama," right. So, in our case, two of us had a Mama, when we were little, and so, you know, my Mama is still alive, and she has a family and grandchildren and everything, and I visit her once in a while, but she got married when I was about maybe 4 or 5, so my brothers, the two brothers before me, the Mama became the Mama of the 4 of us, it's like Mami is the mother and Mama. And she was tough with me sometimes, Akila, I remember a lot of, I mean remember her room, I remember she loved this singer Pedrito Rico, and so, Akila got married, also, when she was, I mean by that time we didn't need a Mama, but she was working at home until she got married. I have a picture, actually, of us, some of us, in her wedding, I can show you. But then, so she had, two children, one child, one girl, and then she had twins, but at the same time, apparently, she realized she was pregnant because they had screened her