Family Ties: Stories That Inspire

[0:03] Layla Ahmed: Please introduce who you are, your name, all that.

[0:09] Natalie Saldarriaga: Alright, so my name is Natalie Saldarriaga and I am from Englewood, New Jersey.

[0:16] Layla: So, why did you decide to share a story for this project?

[0:24] Natalie: Yeah, so actually this is my project and I am deciding to share this particular story because it’s thanks to this story that I got the idea to begin the Family Ties project. So, it’s like the origin story of this project and how it began.

[0:42] Layla: Okay, great. So how would you describe your cultural background?

[0:48] Natalie: So I would say that I have Latin heritage. My mother is from Guatemala and my father is from Colombia. I grew up around a lot of Latin people, specifically Colombians. So I had a lot more examples of that culture growing up and I knew a lot more Colombian people than I did Guatemalan people. And also since I’ve been living abroad these last few years I would also say that I’m American. Which I probably wouldn’t say living in the U.S. but when you kind of leave the… your country, I think maybe this is just me, I would have to say I’m pretty American in the way I think and what I’ve experienced obviously. It’s normal having grown up there my whole life and been educated there when you leave that environment you learn that you’re pretty American even though I probably wouldn’t say that, like I said before, having moved out of the country. So I think that’s also an important part of my culture.

[1:49] Layla: Right. So how long have you been outside of the U.S.?

[1:58] Natalie: I’ve been outside… this year it’ll be four years since I’ve been out of the U.S. and I’ve only been back… I was back one summer and I went back recently in December for Christmas. So I’ve spent most of those four years here in Spain which is where I live now.

[2:18] Layla: Cool. So who is the story… well you talked about how it’s about yourself too but also which person in your family is this about and are they family? Or how’s that?

[2:35] Natalie: Yeah, yeah. So this story is about my great-grandfather on my mother’s side. His name was Francisco García and the person who told me this story was my grandmother who I grew up with. She lived… well she was one of the first family members to immigrate to the U.S. and that’s how my family ended up in the U.S. But the story is about Francisco García and he was a family member from my Guatemalan side.

[3:10] Layla: So when did she tell you about him?

[3:14] Natalie: So she told me this story in 2017 or 2018. It was my last year at university. It was after I had been accepted as an intern at Raíces. I mentioned it to her and I don’t know why but she told me this story. And it was like perfect because it was first a really remarkable story for me and it impacted me a lot, but also it kind of goes with the theme Raíces and their whole you know respecting the ancestors, and knowing where you come from, and respecting different cultures. But yeah that is when she told me this story. So I was about twenty-one years old.

[3:57] Layla: So, if you could share this story.

[4:02] Natalie: Yeah. So, Francisco García was my great-grandfather from my mother’s side of the family from Guatemala. From Juitapa which is the department and I believe he was from Moyuta which is like the small town in Guatemala. His mother was a servant at a wealthy family’s home. This family was actually Spaniard. They were from Avilés which is in the… which is in Asturias. It’s a community… an independent… not independent but it’s a region, there we go, of Spain. And she was a servant there and she became pregnant with the child of one of the family members of that family. The first time my grandmother told me this story she said it like this, but when I went back home in December she told me that it was actually a rape. He had raped her. He had abused her. And the family of course didn’t want anything to do with her so they kicked her out. Luckily enough another wealthy family in the area called the Garcías they took her in. Because they didn’t have any children and I guess they were just kind people and they decided to take her in. And they gave Francisco their last name because back then a child could not go to school without a last name. Francisco as my grandmother tells me, he was a very very educated man. He studied pharmacy, but aside from his studies he was really intrigued with learning and he was just very intelligent. She told me that one time he met a man in Guatemala who was from Italy and he could like describe this man’s hometown just by having read about it in books. He was that intelligent. So like I said he studied pharmacy and he ended up becoming a pharmacist, but he had like this little secret almost where he was a medium and he connected with spirits. And he would use that skill he had to ask the spirits from remedies and he had a book where he would write all the remedies that the spirits gave him. One of the… one of those concoctions I guess we can say was called… um… Oh, what’s it called? Hold on I have it written down because I want to say it right… um…

[6:39] Layla: Is it esencia maravillosa?

[6:41] Natalie: Yes, yes! You know it better than I do. Esencia maravillosa. Um, so I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. He was a medium he spoke to spirits and he wrote it in a book. And years later my grandmother and my grandfather they had this pharmacy which was a very successful pharmacy that they had in town and my grandmother who did not go to university, she didn’t have any formal studies, she used Francisco’s book in her pharmacy and she would use esencia maravillosa as a treatment for many different ailments. And yeah, so that’s kind of the story. It’s this grandfather I have who is a very intelligent many, but behind that he’s a medium. Which was shocking to me mostly because… for two reasons. Because of the time period, this is like early twentieth century and because of the history of Latin America just being so Catholic. And I just feel like the two don’t always go together so it was a bit shocking for that reason. And also because my grandmother always told me stories growing up. My grandma is just like a storybook and she had never mentioned this. And it was just shocking. So I told Francisco and Nicole this story and they were really interested and I ended up doing my internship exhibition on this story. Um, and it was just a coincidence that that year my mother decided to finally take me to Guatemala for the first time. And it was like we were on this mission to find this book. My mom had this cousin… well has this cousin called Mari who we knew she had a picture of Francisco. So we thought well we’re going to be in Guatemala, for a family event, but let’s also try to find some more information about Papa Chepe which is how we call him. We don’t really call him Francisco, we call him Papa Chepe. And we met up with cousin Mari and interestingly enough she had no clue he was a medium. But she did know that his wife Adela, was a medium because as a little girl Mari was taken to a meeting of mediums and she remembers one time where the mediums, it was like a meeting in town. They were having trouble connecting to the spirits and someone said… like pointed at her and said “It’s you. Leave.” And they kicked her out of the meeting because they couldn’t connect to the spirits because she was a little girl and she was there. So she knew about his wife, Adela, the grandmother that she was a medium but she had no clue that he was also a medium. And she told us that when he passed away. Um, he passed away due to complications of his diabetes. He had really bad diabetes. She was there like at his deathbed. He shared a lot of stories with her, but he never told her this about himself. So it was kind of like another revelation that we had that it wasn’t just him, it was also his wife on our part, but then for her that it was not just the grandma is was also the grandpa. In the end no one knows where that book is and it’s so frustrating because there must be some amazing, apart from the esencia maravillosa, there must be some amazing other concoctions and remedies in that book.

[10:17] Layla: Right, right. Um, so how did this story affect you?

[10:22] Natalie: So personally it was interesting because at that time I started kind of delving into the world of spiritualism for myself personally. Um, I was looking into crystals, I was looking into witchcraft. Not practicing it but I was really intrigued in that world. And I also started playing around with tarot cards. And to hear that someone from my family had also been spiritual in that way was kind of like a confirmation. Like it runs in the blood. Like he’s in me. It was a nice moment where I felt like wow like my ancestors are really with me all the time. Um, and also… so apart from my grandma never telling me this story and her saying it like it was the most normal thing in the world she thought it was so hilarious that I was interested in this story. She’s like “what’s wrong with you? It’s just a story.” And she also told me that as a child I would play with like playing cards, you know… like the normal playing cards.

[11:26] Layla: Mhm.

[11:27] Natalie: And I would pretend to tell her future. So it kind of also connected that you know childhood part of me, to the adult part of me that was trying to you know connect to myself spiritually, and then to learn about my grandfather was kind of just like confirming in that maybe I’m meant to you know, know more about these things. Um, so it really impacted me. It was such a…not only because I was at Raíces, but also because personally in that stage in my life I was just being very curious about those things. It was almost perfect that maybe I was meant to hear it at that moment and I wasn’t supposed to hear it before.

[12:03] Layla: Yeah. So is this a story that is known by other members in your family or no?

[12:11] Natalie: I think so, yes. My mother she knows it pretty well and when I was doing the exhibition my mom reached out to her sister, my aunt, who still lives in Guatemala and she was trying to get a picture of him for us. I think she got, she got it from Mari, and that’s when we were like okay we need to go to Mari to get some more information. Um, I think so because you know what that pharmacy was such a big part of my mother’s childhood. It was the family business. My grandma, actually when I went back home she was telling me more about that pharmacy and that’s how they made their livelihood. It was like… cause they lived basically in the mountains it’s a very, very small place. And, um, it was everyone’s pharmacy that they would go to get medicine. So, um I think so yeah. It’s important, that book was very important, and the pharmacy was very important in my mother’s life and obviously her siblings and probably other family members who were alive during that time. So, yeah I don’t think it’s a secret I just don’t think they think of it in the way that I think of it.

[13:17] Layla: Yeah. Um, I wonder if Francisco practiced being a spiritual medium with others or if that was just something he did on his own?

[13:30] Natalie: I also wonder. I mean If his wife was also a medium maybe that’s how they connected and fell in love maybe. Um, I learned recently I’m not sure if it’s exactly during the same time period and it’s also in a different country. But I learned about how in the U.S. like when Houdini was like really popular at the same time people were really into spiritualism and mediums. And I wonder if it was just maybe a bit in fashion at the time or it was just in his community it was something that was practiced in secret. I’m not sure.

[14:08] Layla: Right. So, do you think history is accessible to everyone in the sense or why or why not?

[14:22] Natalie: Um, I think it’s getting better which is a lot of people’s responses. But you also have to have like an interest in it and it’s difficult you know, if when you’re a child you’re not being, in your history classes you don’t feel represented or you don’t feel like you can relate to history then I think it’s more difficult as you get older to feel any interest in learning history. Though I think thanks to the internet we have a lot more access to different cultures and different stories. And we also have social media which if you find the right account they will tell you like a lot of untold, overlooked histories. But of course, you need to have that interest. I think we are doing a good job, especially with different films that are coming out. Or have come out. Like “Hidden Figures” about the… Katherine Johnson from NASA. If it weren’t for that movie maybe a lot of people wouldn’t have known about her. Younger generations I mean. And there’s another film I don’t know if it came out… it must of already about bi-racial children during Nazi Germany. It’s just those tiny stories that existed but if we are only telling one side, one way of history they get overlooked. So it’s thanks to these people who are willing to put in the work to bring it to a larger audience. So I think it is accessible and it’s getting easier to get that information but I don’t think it’s like the easiest. I think you have to really know what you’re looking for.

[16:02] Layla: So, for you was it until you turned twenty-one when you heard about the story about Francisco that you kind of felt um seen in history or in school did you feel like you were represented?

[16:20] Natalie: Not at all. Not at all. I studied history in college and it took getting to college to realize that I enjoyed history. That’s how little I saw myself represented in my history classes. I always knew I had like this fascination for old things, but I didn’t know it meant that I cared about history because I never felt like I saw myself in any of the textbooks that I had to study in high school, in elementary school. So, it’s interesting to hear those stories. Those family stories. I think that’s why it’s so important to me and that’s why I started this project because, um, I felt… because my family are immigrants. They came to the U.S in…my grandma came to the U.S. in the seventies. My dad and my mom in the eighties. Um, and I always felt a little bit of jealousy when people had like photographs of their parents when they were children or their grandparents. Like the black and white photographs. And we don’t have that because grandmother left and she didn’t bring anything with her and my mom and my dad the same, they didn’t bring anything with them. And the pictures that I do have of my mom it’s like falling apart and you can barely see her and the same with my dad. So I always felt that jealousy of people like having these physical objects to show for their family lineage. I don’t really have anything. So the fact that I was lucky enough that my grandma was always willing to share stories with me made me really want to preserve them and to be able to remember them for future generations. Or for anyone who maybe has no relation to me but maybe their grandfather, or grandmother, or cousin was a medium. Or is from a small town in Guatemala. So that we can kind of connect and learn more through that. Um, yeah so I think that’s one of the big reasons that I wanted to start this project.

[18:22] Layla: Yeah. Is there a specific part of your cultural background that you want to learn about more?

[18:31] Natalie: I’m just like… everything.

[18:35] Layla: Yeah.

[18:35] Natalie: I want to know everything. [laughs] I’m really interested in like everyday things. Like what did they do for fun? Like what did my great-great grandfather do for fun? Like, what did he do on his day off? What did he eat for breakfast? Like little things that I don’t know. I think everyday history is much more interesting than the big events in history. I think they bring us closer to who we are culturally and who we are as people. Because in the end, at the end of the day I think a lot has changed, but at the same time not much has changed. And it’s easy to feel very distant from your ancestors, but I think in a lot of ways if we knew more we’d feel closer to them. And know that you know, they lived what we are living now just at different time periods. So I wish I knew, um, more details like that knowing about Francisco’s life and the things he accomplished and this like gift he had is so cool and I guess… I can only wonder what other cool things my other ancestors did on both sides of my family. It’d be interesting to know. Um, but culturally I think like I said I was very lucky and I grew up around a lot of people who were of a similar culture to me so I never felt like I was kind of the only one growing up. Um, so I was lucky in that aspect. But of course, there’s always more things I can learn about both of my cultures.

[20:05] Layla: Yeah. If only our ancestors like kept journals or like diaries or something, you know?

[20:11] Natalie: Yeah. [laughs]

[20:13] Layla: Um, so do you think people are becoming more interested and aware of their backgrounds and their ancestral history maybe on the same or perhaps around the same path as you… in that sense?

[20:28] Natalie: I think so. I think people are like calling the B.S. that they see in textbooks and not believe everything that they read anymore. Are people going as deeply as others in researching? Probably not. But I think a lot more people know the importance of knowing where you come from and the power that it gives you to know where you come from. Yeah, I think so. It’s difficult to generalize as always and that’s a very general question, but uh I think so. I think people are taking ownership of who they are and also being prideful of who they are which is also really important.

[21:11] Layla: Yeah. Do you think that you’ve always had this like cultural pride and this want to know about your ancestral background or is this something that’s more… like something that you only thought about in recent years?

[21:37] Natalie: I think it might of started when I started to study history at university. Studying all these dates and all these events and all these people and not really knowing much about like my own culture. And it’s also difficult because I remember trying to find information about family members, but since I was in the U.S. and to access information from other countries you need to be in that country or you need access from the libraries so it’s difficult when you don’t have many generations in one country. That’s what I tell my fiancé all the time. Like his family has never really moved from the same area. I’m like, “You’re so lucky that you get to know where your great-grandfather lived and you’re in the same space really and you can go somewhere and probably find generations and generations back of information.” But it’s difficult for American… um, second-generation Americans. You’re just like, “Where do I even start?” Cause I don’t even live there and it’s like I’m not even from that country. I’m from the U.S., but a part of me is from another country, but it’s difficult to kind of to get all that information. I also think that a lot of times, or maybe not, maybe it’s just my case. Immigrant parents, they’re not like so focused on to kind of like always tell us these stories of their childhood or their family. They’re not thinking of it that way. I think these stories just come up like randomly and I was very lucky that I was able to have my grandmother with me telling me these stories. But it’s not like my family has this like family tree that you know we can look at and it’s like pretty and framed and everything. Um, so yeah.

[23:27] Layla: Um, do you think you are the one in your family to kind of like keep track of all this now and be the family historian?

[23:39] Natalie: Definitely, yeah. The other day I was with my brother and I told him I was like, “Hey did you know this about some relative?” and he’s like, “But no one tells me anything!” I was like, “You have to ask!” You have to sit down and you have to ask these questions. Because I guess it’ll happen when we’re older. If we ever have children, it’s like you don’t sit down thinking I’m going to tell my child about like my days at university or in high school. It just comes out naturally. So then, if you don’t ask the questions no one’s going to tell you anything and that goes for everything in life. If you never ask you’ll never know. So definitely I am, especially after hearing this story and doing all this work with Raíces. I definitely always sit down with my grandma or my mother or even my father now and I’ll ask them things. And I learn so much each time. You forget your parents and your grandparents were people before they were your parents and grandparents.

[24:39] Layla: [laughs] Yeah, that’s very true. Well, so I am interested in like… are your parents… your grandparents are they open to talking about things or are they more closed off?

[24:55] Natalie: Open. So actually my parents are divorced I lived with my mom mostly growing up. That’s why I know much more about her side of the story even though I had much more exposure to my father’s culture. The family history aspect I know much more of my mother’s side thanks to my mom and my grandmother. Actually, I told Nicole the other day, that I realized I know much more about my mom’s side because my mom and my grandma are always arguing about who’s right and who remembers what correctly. It’s hilarious. They always do it. They always end up arguing. My grandma, I think my grandma processes things or processes her emotions by telling me her life story. Like I’ve heard her life story a million times and every so often I learn something new. My grandma’s life could be like two more interviews honestly. If I could sit down and share her story. But, and my father it’s not that he isn’t open I just don’t think he thinks to tell me stories. So now I know like I have to ask him and if I ask he’ll tell me. But it’s not the same as my mother and my grandmother. And since I said I lived mostly with my mother you get more time to have stories told to you. It’s more like everyday moments where stories you know just kind of come out. Rather than my father which I saw frequently like all the time, but it was a bit different than like being at home and sitting down to eat dinner, and then randomly your mom tells you a story. But yeah I’m really lucky that my parents, they’re willing to tell me a lot of stories.

[26:29] Layla: Very cool. I think those are all the questions I have if there’s anything else that you want to talk about then we can do that.

[26:41] Natalie: Um, yeah I just want to emphasize the importance of like passing down these stories and having them preserved as small as you think they might be in the long run they might help someone, some researcher, some person identify with themselves. Or connect the pieces of a puzzle that are kind of not put together yet. Every story, every life is so important in trying to understand the grand scheme of things of what or how the world has worked before and how it works now. So what to you might not seem important or not that big grand story to tell might someday be the story we needed to know. So, just a reminder to whoever is listening, whoever is watching to make sure you preserve those stories because they’re stories, and if no one preserves them they disappear and we lose so much important information. Yeah.

[27:45] Layla: I could not agree more. Well said.

[27:49] Natalie: [laughs] Thank you. 

[27:51] Layla: Okay. Thank you for doing this interview and yeah thank you.

[27:58] Natalie: Okay, thank you so much for listening.

[28:00] Layla: Ok.