Confessions of an Immigrant: The Naturalized American; Anti-American, Filled with Scorn for America; How I Overcame it all to Love the United States:
Confessions of an Immigrant: The Naturalized American; Anti-American, Filled with Scorn for America; How I Overcame it all to Love the United States and its People:By Marc Chamot
“Learning English as a third language was the hardest thing to do in my life.”
“Growing up in cancerous anti-American cultures after lasting for a year in Peru, and witnessing the chaotic state of poverty and corruption common with third world countries it made me realize how important America was to me. I began to have severe bouts of depression and homesickness for America.”
“Being in love and married to an illegal alien for eight years didn’t help much. Teresa Liliana Vitteri de Chamot was my illegal alien wife from Peru that I met in San Francisco around 1991.”
“That is why it isn’t right to have illegal aliens cut in front of the line for amnesty while my father and the rest of us played the game to come to America legally.”
Growing UP:
I was born in Bolivia around 1958. I came from a Swiss father and a Jewish mother. I grew up most of my childhood in Latin America, mainly Bolivia and Colombia.
It wasn’t until 1968 that my father Guy Andre Chamot a world-renowned geologist who worked for former and now defunct Gulf Oil Corp. Was awarded a green card for him and me through his second marriage to my stepmother; an American woman well renowned educator in Washington DC Dr. Anna Uhl Chamot.
Unfortunately I never had any contact with my mother Tehila since six and while growing up, my father and mother divorced when I was young.
The Bolivian courts split my sister and me up; I went to my father and my sister Helene went to my mother. Oh boy! How it was a tragic bitter divorce between these two.
The two divorced around 1965 and my mother and sister Helene made it to the United States and lived in New York.
Staying with my busy working father wasn’t easy either; I was left mainly under the care of other Swiss friend family and private schools in Santa Cruz Bolivia and Switzerland for long periods of time.
I came to the US with my dad after he got remarried around 1968 through Miami. I remember beautiful Miami Beach and the strings of hotels aligning the coastline.
Coming to America was a tremendous experience for my father he made America his home; I was too young to understand its ramifications I just went along with the flow.
Not only that I had the opportunity to grow up in Latin America for my first ten years of my life, I also had the great opportunity to have lived in Zaire Africa and Ankara Turkey around the early seventies. Around 1970 we had a brief exit from the United States.
Having traveled so much throughout my youth and to me it was just another location and just another country. Rotating between Switzerland living with my Swiss grandparents and Latin America during my youth broke my stability in education. I went from school to school, I never had the real opportunity to be stable and fit into a solid regular schooling program.
My father’s predominant language was French, so when I went to Swiss schools in Lausanne I would be taught in French and in Bolivia I would be taught in Spanish.
Fortunately we were able to keep my language skills among romance languages. When I arrived in the United States around 1968, being ten years old then I barely knew words of English. English became my third language and primary language to learn as a youth.
My father made English my mandatory language to learn without question.
Unfortunately it became a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of situation. While learning English I began to seriously neglect my French and Spanish.
Learning English as a third language was the hardest thing to do in my life!
Transitioning from French and Spanish was a whole lot easier. But learning English grammar was a total transitioning change from Romance languages that I was used to.
English composition and verb positioning is entirely different from English to Romance languages. It took me years to develop some kind of descent writing skills. Even at times when I do write, my lack of nativity writing skills still show.
For example in English you might say work is trabajo translated, “It took me a long time to get my work done” in Spanish you would say “El trabajo tomo mucho tiempo para hacer lo” translated “the work took me a long time to get done” While in English the verb work is towards the end of the sentence and in Spanish it is in the beginning of the sentence.
That is why many none native speakers of English have the problem and confusion in structuring verbal sentences. And I do fall into that same trap once in a while especially with prepositions words like in, of, to and for, I still have a big problem distinguishing from the four when I write.
Thank God for the tremendous American public schools of the late seventies and early eighties. I had tremendous teachers that taught me well and helped me transition into a new language that I was never prepared for.
Growing up in cancerous anti-American cultures:
While growing up and living abroad mainly in Africa, Latin America and Turkey, I was influenced to hate and despise America.
The schools I went to have other native students of their perspective countries that grew up to hate America; mainly learned from their parents and their surroundings.
This rubbed on me and I became very anti-American, I would insult other American kids about the USA, I can also remember that I got my butt kicked a few times over it too.
In third world countries it’s so hard to avoid these kinds of anti-American negative influences, especially when you’re a kid growing up. Even though in Zaire, Africa I was enrolled in American missionary schools they still had native Zairians and Muslims that went there and spewed their cancer on me.
But that wasn’t always the case. When I briefly went to a private school in England around 1972, Seaford College, the Brit kids would menace, harass me and assault me because they accused me of being American.
Well I had come straight from the USA and enrolled to this school and they’d call me the “Yank” I lasted one year through all of that abuse. It’s without a doubt that the British have an inherent hatred for America and Americans.
Being in love and married to an illegal alien for eight years didn’t help much. Teresa Liliana Vitteri de Chamot was my illegal alien wife from Peru that I met in San Francisco around 1991. My former wife Liliana had a whole lot of dislike for America. We would argue to no end about it. It's something that is embedded into their culture.
It wasn’t until 1998 when I went to Peru to live and to fulfill a missing childhood longing being back to my childhood days. After lasting for a year in Peru, and witnessing the chaotic state of poverty and corruption common with third world countries it made me realize how important America was to me. I began to have severe bouts of depression and homesickness for America.
I was so miserable and lonely, I was going around telling folks there that as soon as I stepped back on American ground, I would kneel down and kiss the ground of the United States and when I made those comments, I lost my friends and my ex wife’s family’s friendship over that comment.
In closing, America has been my home for three quarters of my life, America has given me a great education, great loyal friends and a far better life than I would have had had I remained in these corrupt anti-American third world countries. That is why I am an avid spokesperson/Blogger for anti-illegal alien and immigration issues because of what I lived through and experienced.
That is why it isn’t right to have illegal aliens cut in front of the line for amnesty while my father and the rest of us played the game by the rules to come to America legally.
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