IMMIGRANT

Being an immigrant is different now THAN IT WAS fifty years ago. My country is COMPRISED OF immigrantS from all over the world JUST AS THE UNITED STATES IS. My profession allowed me to talk with my patients EVERYWHERE. They told me amazing stories. I would never HAVE made the same journeyAS THEY DID. Some of them LEFT their families and never saw them again. THAT IS WHAT MY GREAT GRANDPARENTS DID.

I remember an old man from Portugal WHO told me that he had a farm of olive trees in his country that he left sixty years ago. Once in Uruguay, he struggleD to survive keeping money to GO back, but he felL in love married, bought a house, and stayed. He used to write to his family once in a while. He missed his olives. I asked him if he WERE going to go back now that he was A widow AND had NO children or other tieS in Uruguay. He answered that he didn't have any relatives or friends to visit. He had only curiosity to know how things HAD changed in Portugal FROM THE TIME HE LEFT. He passed away a week after we talked.

ANOther man WHO was from Italy traveled by ship with fake documents because he was A minor and was not allowed to travel alone. His father and his older brother were already in Buenos Aires. They worked making shoes and sent money back to their mother and sister. They wrote once a month. When his father finally retired, he decideD to go back with his family but suddenly got ill and died.

ANOTHER patient OF MINE sent money and letters ,and once the war ended, he went to visit his town. He made the first bathroom in the town. The people from all around went to see the modern thing that he brought from the new world. He was a hard worker and had a shoe factory with his brother. He was continuousLY sending money and letters to her family, and ten years after, he went again and found that Italy was another country. He was sending money to them, but they had better houses , cars, and appliances than he had. He was really surprised.

My family is now spread around the world but I can talk every day with them by phone, email, or messenger. I can see their faces, see pictures, AND listen TO their voices. I EVEN know what my children eat everyday. I would never live for a long time not knowing about my family. My great grandparents came from Italy during the nineteenth century and never went back or even WROTE a letter to their family. IT was AS if the life that they lived back THEN disappeared.