Item
Milestone Year
Title (Dublin Core)
Milestone Year
Disclaimer (Dublin Core)
DISCLAIMER: This item may have been submitted in response to a school assignment prompt. See Linked Data.
Description (Dublin Core)
To get to this story, I have to go back a few years first.
I'm an immigrant from El Salvador. I came to the U.S. as a teenager in 1994, and never went back. I was in my 30s when I decided it was finally time to visit the grandmother I'd been missing for so long. I started to save and plan. Then she died.
It took several years before I finally took my first trip back in November of 2019. I spent the time vacationing on the coast. I avoided my grandmother's house, my friends, and my family. I wasn't ready. But I decided that for my 40th birthday, in 2020, I'd return for a longer stay and visit my childhood home and all the friends and family left behind.
Then there was a pandemic.
The trip was cancelled, but it was the least of that year's problems. I lost my job and went back to school to start a new career. Our dog got cancer and died. My partner had a friend in El Salvador who died of COVID. I can never reschedule that same trip. Too much has changed.
I'm planning to return this summer. This time with a firmer grasp on life's impermanence. I want to visit the white sand beaches at Playa Mango before it gets turned into a "surf city" tourist trap. I want to visit all the important cultural landmarks, especially those from which I can learn about my ancestors. More importantly, I will not avoid friends and family. On the contrary, I want to cherish the time I will have with them as if the next day isn't guaranteed. I plan to take dozens of photographs, portraits of everyone I see, I want to write down their stories in my journal, I want to record every visit, every meal, every experience possible in my journal. I plan to say "see you later," but not leave anything unsaid. Just in case.
I'm an immigrant from El Salvador. I came to the U.S. as a teenager in 1994, and never went back. I was in my 30s when I decided it was finally time to visit the grandmother I'd been missing for so long. I started to save and plan. Then she died.
It took several years before I finally took my first trip back in November of 2019. I spent the time vacationing on the coast. I avoided my grandmother's house, my friends, and my family. I wasn't ready. But I decided that for my 40th birthday, in 2020, I'd return for a longer stay and visit my childhood home and all the friends and family left behind.
Then there was a pandemic.
The trip was cancelled, but it was the least of that year's problems. I lost my job and went back to school to start a new career. Our dog got cancer and died. My partner had a friend in El Salvador who died of COVID. I can never reschedule that same trip. Too much has changed.
I'm planning to return this summer. This time with a firmer grasp on life's impermanence. I want to visit the white sand beaches at Playa Mango before it gets turned into a "surf city" tourist trap. I want to visit all the important cultural landmarks, especially those from which I can learn about my ancestors. More importantly, I will not avoid friends and family. On the contrary, I want to cherish the time I will have with them as if the next day isn't guaranteed. I plan to take dozens of photographs, portraits of everyone I see, I want to write down their stories in my journal, I want to record every visit, every meal, every experience possible in my journal. I plan to say "see you later," but not leave anything unsaid. Just in case.
Date (Dublin Core)
June 22, 2020
Creator (Dublin Core)
self
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Rebecca Joyce
Event Identifier (Dublin Core)
HST643
Partner (Dublin Core)
Arizona State University
Type (Dublin Core)
Text Story
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
English
Biography
English
Travel
English
Emotion
English
Home & Family Life
English
Immigration
English
Environment & Landscape
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
El Salvador
immigrant
death
family
loss
culture
document
memory
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
Arizona State University
ASU
HST643
history of tourism
El Salvador
Collection (Dublin Core)
Deathways
Latino(a/x) Voices
Linked Data (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
02/02/2023
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
02/16/2023
Date Created (Dublin Core)
02/02/2023
Item sets
This item was submitted on February 2, 2023 by Rebecca Joyce using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive
Click here to view the collected data.