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Lariza migrated from Nicaragua in the late 1980’s as a teenager. This particular story has many layers of complexity since her mother, an adamant supporter of the Nicaraguan revolution forced Lariza to leave Nicaragua in order to prevent her from joining the Sandinista Revolutionary Army at the age seventeen, because she feared for her life.
Lariza’s father is American; her mother met him while she studied in the US. Due to her collaboration with the Sandinista Revolutionary Front in Nicaragua, Lariza’s mother was labeled as communist, lost her U.S residency and was deported to Nicaragua, taking along her two U.S. born daughters after divorcing her American husband.
Lariza’s story presents her internal conflicts with the duality of her ethnic heritage, her acquired biculturalism and the emotional and psychological turmoil she went through before coming to terms with her reality. Most importantly, this story has a lot to do with how Lariza’s ideological conflicts are tied to her conflicts with her mother. “The revolution made us and broke us at the same time”, a quote from Lariza’s interview.
Lariza did not come to this country under asylum immigration status. She is an American citizen. I chose to present her narration because it a story of forced migration and it reveals the close relationship between ideology, identity, and family and how war, economics, principles and foreign intervention define the course human lives.
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