Given my life as a wife of an expat and growing up as an "Army Brat," when anyone asked me where I was from I would glibly quip back, “Which time? I’ve never been anywhere long enough to be from it!” In fact once while living in Shasta County in California I applied for a teaching position in the county’s Migrant Education program under the California Department of Education. When their representative called back for what I thought was a telephone interview-all in Spanish-she asked me to list the various places where I had lived and worked. After listing them all (from La Guajira, Colombia to multiple points up and down/right and left in California) in my best Spanish learned to impress my mother-in-law, to survive in Colombia, and to teach bilingually in California, she then asked me about my children. I thought this rather odd and illegal in an interview. But never one to miss an opportunity to brag about my kids, I shared about their accomplishments and ability to be mobile and survive. As the “interview” came to a close, the person from Migrant Education assured me not to worry that she would have my two children enrolled next Monday in their Migrant Education Program! I informed her that it was not for my children I was calling, but rather for myself seeking a teaching position, to which she stated there were none and apologized for her confusion in thinking me a “migrant worker.” That night when my husband came home, I grabbed him by his lapels, looked him straight in the eye and declared: “When Migrant Ed calls to enroll our children, it’s time to grow us some roots!”
On Living the Migrant Worker's Life:
The Migrant Experience: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html
Former migrant worker about to blast into space
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
Expat Vs. Immigrant -blog entry
Military Brats Online
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