Storytelling is fundamentally human. It connects us; allows us to bond, communicate and share our experiences.
It was with this instinct that Learning Across Boundaries (LAB), an interdisciplinary program at Linfield dedicated to intellectual engagement with topics that cross boundaries, presented “Immigrant Story Live.” This event featured Liani Reeves, an immigrant from South Korea and a lawyer, and Sonia Ticas, an immigrant from El Salvador and Linfield professor in the Global Language and Culture Studies department. These two told their stories.
After being born in South Korea, Reeves was left at an orphanage without knowing her biological parents. She was put on a plane to the United States with many other orphans, and upon arrival, she was adopted by an American family. Despite being in a loving home, she wasn’t a perfect child.
“I pushed the boundary of my new family’s love in every way,” said Reeves. “I think I was testing them to see if they would abandon me the way my first family did.”
Living in New York, Reeves grew up unconfronted by her Asian-ness – nothing had prompted her or her parents to see her as Korean. However, when the family moved to a small town near Coos Bay, people began treating her differently.
“It was a town that rejected outsiders, immigrants and people of color,” Reeves said. “I represented all three.”
She had no personal connection to Asia, but for many of her peers, her looks were enough to marginalize her.
“I spent most of high school bleaching my hair as blonde as I could get it, wearing colored contacts, just trying to fit in,” said Reeves. “I looked ridiculous – the school administration didn’t do anything about it, and my parents, as well-intentioned white folks, could not comprehend the racism that their baby girl could fall victim to.”
Reeves was bullied severely, including fights and sexual harassment, until eventually, her parents stepped in. They hired a lawyer, and the bullying quickly stopped.
“I realized that one person, [the lawyer] had the power to change the course of my life in such a drastic way,” Reeves said. “I wanted that for myself and for others, so now, I had a plan – get out, become a lawyer, so I never had to go back to that town.”
From that point on, she worked and studied hard. However, somewhere along the way, she neglected herself and her identity, leading to an eating disorder.
“Every morning, I would step on the scale, and I would weigh myself,” said Reeves. “That number kept getting smaller and smaller until I ended up in St. Vincent’s Hospital with no recognition of who I was.”
It took time and effort, but she healed and found herself back in the legal profession, all the more ready to handle the challenges that would come ahead.
“I have come to terms with being a Korean who has no connection to Korea, an Asian American who’s never felt quite Asian or American,” Reeves said. “And with being told I would not fit in in a profession dominated by white men.”
She stood above the crowd of students, many of whom represent identities that have long been pushed out of professional and academic spaces.
“So now I can confidently stand here and say, this is what a lawyer looks like,” Reeves said.
Ticas told her story too.
She grew up in El Divisadero, a small mining town in El Salvador.
“Nestled near the Honduran border among lush green hills and rushing creeks – I experienced magical moments, but there was sadness too.”
When Ticas was young, her mother left their home for economic opportunity in Los Angeles. While she was away, and before too long, civil war broke out in El Salvador, so she returned to take Ticas and her siblings to Los Angeles. The journey was long and difficult, and they had to hide their Salvadoran identities due to racism in Mexico.
“We stay quiet, huddled together, sleeping at times on strangers’ doors,” Ticas said. “Days turned into weeks, then a month, until finally, we had reached the border town ‘Mexicali.’”
Once in Los Angeles, the group moved in with Ticas’s grandmother. She and her siblings have many happy memories of that time.
Soon after, Ticas and her siblings went to live with Muriel Bennet, a family friend, while their mother searched for her own apartment.
“Muriel was unlike anyone I have ever seen before. A solid, striking African American woman with thick red lips and an operatic voice and an elegance that fills the room,” Ticas said. “And just like that, my real American dream began.”
As she came of age, Bennet became like a second mother to Ticas, a supporter in the background. Bennet was as strict as she was caring, and the structure she provided was a blessing, especially in the wake of the gang activity that was prevalent in the area.
“A friend of mine got jumped into a gang, and I could feel the peer pressure, but Mrs. Bennett, she was tough,” said Ticas. “She’d snap her finger, point her chin up at me – and I knew better.”
When she was nearing the end of high school, a friend prompted Ticas to consider college.
“I could? But how? See, at the time I had no papers, no money, only the faint outline of a dream.”
She visited California State University for a Latino youth conference, where she saw a Latine theater troupe, Teatro Aztlan, perform. One scene from their performance resonated with Ticas. It depicted a Nigerian mother crying over the body of her son, who was killed in a war exacerbated by US intervention.
“It suddenly hit me that I too was a child of war. Thousands of miles away, with no say on how it began or how it would end. I knew then that [California State University] was my university.”
After completing her degree, she went on to pursue a Ph.D at UC Berkeley, and found her first academic job at Linfield, where she teaches today. She is working on a memoir that will tell the full story of her migration from El Salvador to Los Angeles, and in her classes, she makes cross-cultural communication and connection a priority.
Linfield’s LAB program continues to implement the theme of storytelling into its events, including a storytelling workshop that took place on Oct. 23 and a companion workshop during the spring semester. Students in attendance at these workshops will be able to share their stories on May 1 of this coming semester.
