Look how happy my friend was after the 2012 ceremony that gave her US citizenship.
The other day the young lady above and I came to a funny realization about what I thought she told me 20-plus years ago when we first knew each other.
At that time, as a recent immigrant, her English was not as fluent as it is now, and I wasn’t as good a listener. As a result, I’ve been believing a bogus story for decades — and telling it to other people!
A naturalized US citizen originally from Brazil, my friend runs a cleaning business that has long benefited my family. Today she and I were chatting, and she happened to mention that she had studied nursing for two years. I was surprised. As the information sank in, I was even astonished.
“Wait! What? You spent two years studying nursing before you came here at age 14 with your boyfriend?”
It was her turn to be astonished. “I didn’t come here at 14. Oh, no! Something wrong with communication!”
“You didn’t leave home at 14 with your boyfriend, now your husband? The two of you didn’t come here through Mexico and work on a farm?!”
“No! Oh, my goodness, no!”
“But that’s my story about you!” I exclaimed. “I have told that story to everyone.”
How we laughed!
She said, “I think I know what I told you that made you think I came here when I was 14.”
“You mean I have to completely rethink my story of your life! Well, OK. Gee. I liked the old story.”
Laughing, she explained, “I met my boyfriend when we lived in Brazil. He came to America first, and he said, ‘Why don’t you come?’ So I got a visa and came. I was 18.”
“18! Well, I guess I’m glad you didn’t leave home at 14 after all.”
“My father was upset enough that I came here at 18. Imagine if I had come at 14! He would never speak to me again.
“I think I told you that there was an opening to become a citizen at that time, but to qualify, you had to be living and working in the orange groves for five years already. I wasn’t good with numbers when I told you that it meant I would have to be 14 when I started picking oranges. I should have said 13.”
Then I replied, thinking that if she had told me “13,” I really might have questioned the story more, “So you never came through Mexico?”
“No, we were in Florida. And the US had a special amnesty for people who worked in the orange groves for five years.”
“And the two of you never worked on a farm?”
“No! First I worked in a nursing home, but I really couldn’t speak English. I couldn’t understand what people were asking me for. The manager had to demonstrate everything.
“One time an old man asked me for water over and over and over, and when he finally tried using Portuguese, I just cried because I knew I hadn’t been helping him or the other old people when they needed help. So I went and put an ad in the newspaper for cleaning houses. That’s how it started.”
She had some other great stories about misunderstandings in English and we laughed a lot. Now everything is cleared up.
(I hope.)
Photo: 
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 