Almost Home: A Brazilian American's Reflections on Faith, Culture, and Immigration

6. Almost Home

124 6 Al­ most Home An ar­ bi­ trary set of boun­ dar­ ies de­ ter­ mines your ­ rights and con­ trib­ utes enor­ mously to your suc­ cess or fail­ ure. To be born in Bar Har­ bor, Maine . . . leads to a ­ vastly dif­ fer­ ent life than to be born in Bur­ kina Faso. John Yemma, Chris­ tian Sci­ ence Mon­ i­ tor, July 5, 2010 Born near a small town in east­ ern Ore­ gon (pop­ u­ la­ tion 900), a high, dry place of deep can­ yons, ­ Mark’s child­ hood was ­ filled by ­ county fairs, ro­ deos, 4-H clubs, and FFA meet­ ings.1 Sit­ u­ ated in one of the least pop­ u­ lated areas of the ­ United ­ States, ­ Mark’s ­ school was the only one for miles on end. ­ Twenty-seven sen­ iors grad­ u­ ated with him that year. Most of them re­ mained in the area, doing farm work, run­ ning small shops, op­ er­ at­ ing the co-op. They liked the life­ style, the pace of liv­ ing. Their plan after high ­ school was sim­ ple—to get mar­ ried, have kids, and set­ tle down where they came into the world. ­ Decades later, most of them are still there, quite con­ tent in re­ peat­ ing their ­ parents’ sea­ sons, if only at a more ­ high-tech rate. Not Mark. For some rea­ son, he grew up dream­ ing of other ­ worlds.­ Small-town life was not in the cards for him. Mark loved music, es­ pe­ cially ­ church sing­ ing, but had no idea of what to do with the rest of his life. One of the few in his grad­ u­ at­ ing class to go on to col­ lege, after high­ school Mark at­ tended ­ Oregon’s ­ land-grant uni­ ver­ sity, a nat­ u­ ral ­ choice, since it is known for its ag­ ri­ cul­ tu­ ral pro­ grams. The ­ school choir ­ caught his at­ ten­ tion dur­ ing fresh­ man year. After dis­ cov­ er­ ing that the uni­ ver­ sity had an ex­ change pro­ gram with a Ger­ man ­ school, he de­ cided to study­ abroad . . . and never came back. Ger­ man uni­ ver­ sity life was in­ ebri­ at­ ing, Almost Home 125 the stu­ dents so cos­ mo­ pol­ i­ tan, and Ger­ man cit­ ies were sim­ ply too much of a feast for his ar­ tis­ tic taste. So the kid from the ­ American North­ west found his home in Ger­ many. The food, the music, the the­ a­ ter, the mu­ seums all made sense to him, all ­ seemed fa­ mil­ iar. De­ spite being so re­ moved from every­ thing he’d known, Mark was home at last. There he found his beruf, his call­ ing. After stud­ y­ ing voice, he has spent a life­ time sing­ ing opera in one of­ Germany’s most im­ por­ tant com­ pa­ nies. In Ger­ many, he also fi­ nally found love. He has set up a won­ der­ ful life with his part­ ner, who is an actor, in a taste­ fully ap­ pointed flat in one of the ­ nation’s most cul­ tured urban cen­ ters. This year he ­ started his Ger­ man nat­ u­ ral­ iza­ tion pro­ cess.­ Mark’s life is as re­ moved from that of his high ­ school ­ friends as it could pos­ sibly be. But it is home to him. Su­ zanne hails from a small town in Mich­ i­ gan (pop­ u­ la­ tion 11,000). She too ­ dreamed of liv­ ing ­ abroad while she was in col­ lege. Her plans were a bit dif­ fer­ ent from ­ Mark’s—she ­ wanted to visit and live in sev­ eral coun­ tries. The first one she chose was Japan. She en­ rolled in the JET Pro­ gram, an in­ itia­ tive of the Jap­ a­ nese govern­ ment that ­ places ­ American col­ lege grad­ u­ ates in as­ sist­ ant teach­ ing po­ si­ tions in local Jap­ a­ nese pub­ lic­ schools. Japan was sup­ posed to be ­ Suzanne’s spring­ board, but once there life took a dif­ fer­ ent turn. On her sec­ ond year in the coun­ try, she met the man she would marry. ­ Twenty years later, Su­ zanne is hap­ pily set­ tled in Ai­ zumi, with a Jap­ a­ nese hus­ band, her ­ nine-year-old twins, and a dot...