Elena Garcia

Elena Garcia was born in Uruguay in 1943 and came to London in 1978. She describes an incident on a bus during a visit to Uruguay which made her realise how much she had adapted to life in London.

Listen to Elena (in Spanish, mp3, 765kb)

Transcript

Read transcript in Spanish (pdf, 11kb )

'I don’t want to offend anyone, but my homeland is my homeland. And, I don’t want to, I don’t want to go back for the simple reason that right now, in many respects I would return to be a foreigner in my own country. And anyway, I can’t go back either because I have my life here, I have my children, I have my grandchildren, I have my time here. How am I going to go back, what am I going to do there? 

'So no, I can’t - what hope is there. I go there to get some fresh air, I go to have a good time, with my family, with my friends, but I have to come back because this is my home. That’s how it is… You know that human beings are creatures of habit, no, and you adapt yourself.

'And principally I think I adapted for the simple fact that, once my children had begun to form relationships with partners, have children, that already determines that you can’t go back. And whether you want to or not, you grow accustomed yourself, you get used to so many things.

'I remember we went back to Uruguay, and we were so used to things here, we were on the bus, trying to pull the cord for the bus to stop, but no - there it’s the conductor’s job. Ah, the guy got so upset with me, he was furious. "Here! it’s me who does that!"

'And I didn’t know what to do, because in order to apologise and explain myself to this man, I would have had to explain where I’m living, and how things are here. So I wasn’t going to be the show-off, the one with airs and graces. Because I’m not like that, I don’t like that kind of thing. So as I say, I put my foot in it.'

Copyright Evelyn Oldfield Unit