Switzerland Immigrant Interview

Switzerland Immigrant Interview

Many people throughout the United States are immigrants; that's what makes the United States such a divers and amazing place. All immigrants make up the United States. Even here in Colorado there are many immigrants and for the Colorado History class an assignment was to interview an immigrant and understand their life stories.

The person I chose to interview was someone very close to me. Her name is Rita and she was my nanny. Rita came from Switzerland to the states and through my interview I learned why she came to the United States, where she went when she first came here, what struggles she went through and how this experience has affected her life.

Rita Ferrari was born and lived in Bern Switzerland until she was 20. She had always dreamed of coming to the states and seeing what life here was like. She was also a huge Elvis Presley fan and wanted to know where he had came from and how he had lived. The actions that finally made her come to the United States was her mom. Rita didn't have a good relationship with her mother. Her mother, as Rita described her, was very controlling verbally abusive and never affectionate towards Rita. Rita never knew her father so the lack of support from her mother pushed her to want to move away. The only person that she said she would miss was her older brother. But she still decided to come to the United States.

Rita had a previous friend whom once lived in Switzerland as Rita did, but Karen, her friend, moved to the United States 3 years prior to Rita. They kept in contact throughout the years and Karen had a child so Rita saw the opportunity to come to the United States and become a nanny for Karen. Rita had saved up some money from working at a local restaurant and bought a one way ticket to the United States. Once in the states Rita moved in with Karen and became her nanny for her 1 year old little girl. Rita did not know the English language and since Karen and she spoke Swiss-German they communicated that way. Rita was Karen's nanny for about 3 months until Karen got married and moved away. Karen was a friend of Malinda McGurk, my mother, and Karen referred Rita to my mother. Rita shortly after moved in with the McGurk family and became the nanny for James, my brother, and myself. Rita has stayed with my family for many years and has helped raise my brother and myself. She has become more my family than a nanny.

Though she found jobs quite quickly through being a nanny for Karen and then for the McGurk family; Rita still had many struggles and hardships that she had to go through. The language barrier was the hardest to conquer. Rita didn't speak the English language and

McGurk 2

this made it very difficult to communicate with Malinda and figure out what Malinda needed to get done. Rita decided she needed a translation dictionary, pocket size, and she started looking up the words that she needed to communicate and showed them to Malinda and that's who Rita began to communicate with the family. Rita took the translation book every where she went so she could always have a way to address what she needed. It took Rita 6 months to learn the English language and she began