​Nohelia Rojas-Miesse
Family (Re)connections: Transnational Belonging in Nicaragua and the United States
​
Introduction
Nohelia Rojas-Miesse is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Miami University. She is from Nicaragua and has lived the majority of her life in the United States. There are many aspects of Nicaragua that she misses such as the year-round warm weather, the scenery, the beach, the mountains, and the fresh fruits. Rojas-Miesse thrives in the fast-paced, structured lifestyle she has in the United States, but would not be opposed to eventually retiring to Nicaragua.
Nohelia Rojas-Miesse and the students who participated in one of her study abroad programs.
Along with intermediate level courses, Rojas-Miesse teaches conversational Spanish courses, in which she focuses on Latin American culture and news. “For the conversation classes, the objective is to increase students’ proficiency and at the same time give students the opportunity to get to know current events that are going on in Latin America and to connect them more to the social issues currently affecting Latinos abroad and in the U.S.”
She previously led a study abroad program to Nicaragua and currently leads two programs to Costa Rica, one in the summer and one in the winter. The study abroad program to
Nicaragua has been put on hold since 2018 due to the difficult political situation there. Rojas-Miesse says these experiences are eye-opening for students and they work to break down harmful stereotypes of Latin America. “They learn that there is so much richness and history in Latin America and in what it means to be Latino.”
Migration Story
Rojas-Miesse moved to the United States with her parents in 1981, which was two years after the end of the Nicaraguan Revolution. She remembers feeling excited for the move. The years prior in Nicaragua were very stressful as the people were living through a war. As a child, she was aware of the conflict because one of her loved ones participated in the revolution. “I very much knew that there was a war going on.”
​
Many young people who were older than her were involved in the revolutionary movement. For example, in 1980, there was a successful literacy campaign in which older teens volunteered to teach those living in rural communities how to read and write. “[During] the last two years after the revolution, the youth were invigorated and excited to be part of the movement to possibly change the country.” While Rojas-Miesse was unable to participate in the literacy campaign, education became one of her greatest passions as she would go on to be a Spanish instructor.
Youth in Nicaragua and in the US
Rojas-Miesse’s youth in Nicaragua was “very free” and she has many positive memories of spending time with her friends, playing outside, going to the beach with her family, and climbing trees to pick fruit. She lived in Ciudad Darío, which is the birthplace of famous Nicaraguan poet Ruben Darío. Rojas-Miesse and her friends played hide and seek on the grounds of Darío’s childhood home, which is now a museum. There was no security at the time so it served as a playground for the children in the neighborhood. The nostalgia she associates with Nicaragua is enhanced by her childhood there that was more carefree than her youth in the United States.
Her teenage years in the United States were more limited because she had to grow up quickly upon arriving in Los Angeles when she was twelve years old. Both of her parents worked long hours, which meant that Rojas-Miesse had to do more within her household such as cleaning, cooking, and caring for her younger brother. “I had to grow up very quickly, very, very quickly when I came to the U.S. because I had a lot of responsibilities at home.” Although she would have loved to be involved in after-school activities, she was unable to do so because of her responsibilities.
Nohelia Rojas-Miesse (L) and her childhood friend in Nicaragua.
Bridging the Gap
It took many years for her family to feel comfortable enough to return to Nicaragua to visit their relatives. They returned a few times in the 1990s, but it was not until the mid-2000s that Rojas-Miesse really began to reconnect to Nicaragua and her family that lives there. Using her connections, she started the previously mentioned study abroad program to Nicaragua meaning that she traveled there annually.
“When I was younger, Nicaragua was there, but I wasn’t really attentive to what was going on. That was before I rekindled those relationships with my family.”
“After I started reconnecting with my family and taking students abroad, I tended to keep up more with what is going on in politics, for one thing because I want to go back as soon as things get better.” She gets a lot of Nicaraguan news from her relatives who send her articles daily and from her mother who fills her in on current events.
​
Rojas-Miesse also wanted her two daughters to feel closer to Nicaragua. “I think the other thing too that has changed is since I have my girls, I wanted them to also have a relationship with the people there and I wanted them to understand where they came from.”
Nohelia Rojas-Miesse (R) and her daughters with her family in Nicaragua.
Life in the US
Rojas-Miesse’s experiences navigating between Nicaragua and the United States have produced an interesting transnational identity for her. “I identify myself as Latina in the United States. It’s weird. I’m definitely a Latina, but I don’t necessarily say I’m Nicaraguan.”
​
Rojas-Miesse maintains close relationships with her many relatives in Nicaragua, which she believes makes her transition easier when she visits. “So when I go to Nicaragua, I feel like I belong there. I don’t feel like a tourist, but I also feel like I belong here (the United States).” Her transnational experiences and connections have produced this dual sense of belonging that she feels as a Latina living in the Midwest.
​
Rojas-Miesse lives in a “bilingual, multicultural, and tri-generational household.” Her two daughters are fluent in Spanish because she made it a point to speak to them in her first language since they were little. In 2018, her mother and brother moved in with them, which increased the amount of Spanish spoken in their household because it is her mother’s main language.
Her family loves to travel and they devote a lot of their money to it. One of her and her husband’s goals was to show their daughters the world that is outside of southwestern Ohio. “We’re paying for that now because my oldest daughter lives in New York City.”
​
All in all, Rojas-Miesse’s relationship with Nicaragua has strengthened over the years as she reconnected with her relatives, shared it with her daughters, and started taking students there.
Check out her favorite recipe here.
“They learn that there is so much richness and history in Latin America and in what it means to be Latino.”