Camila Garay
Growth Under the Sun
Introduction
Camila Garay, class of 2022 at Miami University, is majoring in Marketing in the Farmer School of Business with a minor in Spanish, talks about how different her youth was compared to her peers who were from the U.S. Although Garay was born in Washington D.C., she grew up with parents who were born and raised in Argentina.
This is where the story begins. With all of their family remaining in Argentina, Garay’s parents moved to the United States when her father was offered a job in 1995. They had originally planned on only staying for two years, but ended up staying longer until they had children. Garay was born in 2000, and shortly after, her sister was born. They realized it would be best to move back to Argentina when the girls were older. However, an economic crisis occurred in Argentina and put their plans on hold. They decided to stay in the United States for the sake of their small family as well as broaden their economic opportunities within the country.
Parallel Educations
When Garay was in kindergarten, she attended a typical U.S. elementary school during the week, and on Saturdays, she attended Escuela Argentina, or otherwise known as Argentine school. Because of this, she realized how different the two education systems were. They would be taking oral and essay exams in Escuela Argentina while taking multiple choice tests in U.S. school.
“I hated Argentine school growing up because I realized I had been so used to the American education system and having multiple choice, just things given to you like teachers telling you what to learn, what to do, checklist kind of.”
Once she graduated from Escuela Argentina, she realized how valuable that experience was because she really understood the material and it allowed her to be well prepared for college. Garay explains that this open teaching strategy allows students to learn more and develop more skills.
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Economic Differences Discovered
As Garay grew older, she also noticed the differences between the economies in her two home cultures. Growing up, Garay was not attuned to political situations, but during her junior and senior year at Escuela Argentina they began covering more modern topics in some of her classes. This gave her knowledge of current events and how the economy was doing in Argentina versus other Spanish-speaking countries. When she visited Argentina in 2018, she took this knowledge and applied it to what she was seeing first-hand. When she visited again in 2020 (before the pandemic), however, she noticed even more so how badly the economy was impacting the lives of Argentine people.
“I really noticed how bad things have gotten since I last visited in 2018. It was a lot less safe, a lore more people were on government unemployment and the peso went down in value. [...] Seeing this made me realize how poorly the economy was doing and reminded me of what was happening in Venezuela. Then hearing about all the corruption in the government made things even worse.
Especially once COVID hit later in 2020, she emphasized how difficult it was for her parents to see their country go through something so difficult and how they worried about how it would be handled politically nationally. Having prior knowledge about Argentina’s economy made her pay more attention to not only what was going on in Argentina but also how the rest of the world was being impacted.
Memories & Identity
“It was really hard because I didn’t know ‘Am I American or am I Argentine?’ Like I always had that sense of ‘I don’t know what side I’m supposed to be on’ because with my American friends I don’t feel American because I have this background. But with my Argentine family I feel like I’m a fraud because I don’t know Argentina as well as they do because they live there.”
Although these were aspects of Argentina that Garay was concerned about, there are lots of aspects that she misses from the country and the culture. She continues to keep in touch with her family, especially her aunt and grandmother. In Washington D.C., her family has many Argentine friends who she calls “Tía” or “Tío.” She loves the friendly, laid back characteristics of the culture.
There is plenty to miss in Argentine culture for Garay, but she did mention how her experience of identifying herself was difficult at times. Growing up in a white neighborhood and in a predominantly white school, she caught herself comparing her family to her peers’ families. This also made it difficult for her to place herself when she was around this community.
“It was really hard because I didn’t know ‘Am I American or am I Argentine?’ Like I always had that sense of ‘I don’t know what side I’m supposed to be on’ because with my American friends I don’t feel American because I have this background. But with my Argentine family I feel like I’m a fraud because I don’t know Argentina as well as they do because they live there.”
However, she shows great appreciation for the way her parents managed to incorporate Argentine culture into her life (speaking Spanish in the household, following Argentine traditions and holidays, etc.) and how she has been able to carry it on with her. Now that she has come to college, she “…really realized how cool being diverse is.”
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Camila and her sister, Sofia.
Camila at a field hockey game U.S. versus Argentina with cousins.