7/15/2009 - Reflections on a year in Humboldt: Chilean exchange student returns home

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last installment in a series of stories following the experience of Chilean exchange student Carlos Miranda as he adjusted to life in the United States. Miranda returned home at the end of June.

In the last few weeks, Carlos Miranda has been leaving some mixed messages on his Facebook page, complete with emoticons shown laughing, and with both sad and smiling faces.

”Surfing … swimming in the river!! Great summer in the U.S. but still miss his life in Eureka and the cool friends that he made!!” He wrote from Honeydew, where he spent his last week in the United States, after graduating from Eureka High School mid-June.

”Sad and melancholic … =( =( =(,” he wrote as he prepared to leave, followed by, “Eureka rocks! Gonna never forget my time there and the lovely people that I got to know!”

The 18-year-old Chilean exchange student spent a year living and going to school in Eureka, and exploring Humboldt County and other parts of the West Coast through the AFS Intercultural Programs.

According to its Web site, AFS Intercultural Programs is one of the world’s largest not-for-profit volunteer-based organizations. It offers international exchange programs in more than 50 countries through local AFS organizations, each with a network of volunteers, a professionally staffed office and a volunteer board. More than 300,000 students and adults have been exchanged since 1946.

Since his arrival last August from his hometown of Calama, Miranda said he has come to love his second home in Eureka, where he spent his 18th birthday in February.

After his graduation ceremony on the high school’s football field, Miranda talked about how much he was going to miss the people he’s met.

”It still feels like I’m going to see them Monday, but I will probably never see them again,” he said.

While Miranda, being from a socialist country, said he still doesn’t completely understand America’s capitalistic culture, living in Eureka has helped him realize that not all Americans are well-off and spoiled.

”You’re always thinking that people are really rich here,” he said, adding that going to school with people from a range of economic classes has helped him to see otherwise.

Miranda also learned a few things about himself in the last few months.

”Be yourself always, never change for anybody, always be nice and smile to everybody because it’s nice,” he said.

But it wasn’t always fun for Miranda in his new environment. Before the soccer player met new friends his second semester in school he had trouble adjusting to being a new kid in school, learning about a culture he wasn’t used to.

After a run-in with a few classmates he thought were stereotyping him because of his nationality and physical appearance, he met new friends he described as kind and funny. He learned that he couldn’t just jump into school and expect everyone to welcome him with open arms just because he was an exchange student.

”People have to get to know you. You have to give more time here and then you will get to know really nice people,” he said.

Miranda’s host parents, Wendy Riggs and Russ Turpin, said they could see that his expectations had not matched up with reality in the beginning, but things eventually got better.

For Riggs, the experience also took an unexpected turn.

She said she had envisioned more of a cultural exchange and an environment that would help her two young sons, Keenan, 4, and Kai, 3, pick up the Spanish language easier. But, she said the situation worked out—although her boys aren’t experts, they can say words in Spanish, and they made a new friend.

”They love Carlos, they know that he speaks Spanish and they talk to his mom and dad on the computer. They practice their words in Spanish,” she said. “That was really, really neat for them to have a different-colored person in their lives.”

Riggs said she also didn’t realize how much of a commitment having a teenager would be.

”I definitely learned a lot about communications and boundaries and culture, and I think he did, too,” she said, adding that by the end of Miranda’s time in the U.S., she had begun to feel like she was really playing the role of his mother, which could be difficult with two young children.

”It was really, really hard and I didn’t realize how much of a mom I was going to have to be,” she said, adding that having to revolve their lives around two small children seemed harder for Miranda because of his age.

Nevertheless, Riggs said, she was glad the family took in Miranda.

”You form a really strong bond because he really is your kid,” she said.

Riggs’ husband Turpin agreed. Being a math teacher at Eureka High School, he said he found it interesting to hear about the school from the perspective of a student. The experience also gave the couple a peek into what the future may hold.

”It was a good thing to have happen because we’re going to have those, we’re going to have two teenagers faster than you think,” he said. “You definitely get to see the challenges ahead because (teenagers are) in a different space than us and a different space than the boys.”

Turpin said he thinks it was a good experience to go through and that Miranda is going to be a life-long contact for the family, despite some of the challenges.

”I respect Carlos (Miranda) a lot, but with anybody coming into your house, it’s not going to be a bed of roses,” he said.

Turpin said it was somewhat difficult for AFS volunteers to have enough time to devote to Miranda if he needed another adult to check in with.

AFS volunteer Chris Hawkins, who is a former AFS student herself, said that families with young children often do find the experience a little more difficult.

Miranda’s liaison was changed after a few months because he became a host parent to another student when her family had to leave the program. Hawkins said sometimes that happens, but the program tries to make sure that other volunteers can step in to help out. She said often first-time host families get overwhelmed with the expectations of the students.

”Families need to know that they don’t need to do everything. Just because the student thinks that they should go to an NBA game or go to San Francisco all the time, doesn’t mean you need to take them,” she said.

Hawkins said she encourages families to ask the organization for help, even if it’s just teenage questions like what time curfew should be set, how to approach the subject of alcohol, or what they should wear to the prom.

She said there is a network of volunteers who are not just host parents and liaisons, waiting to help with giving rides or even babysitting younger children if the parents need a break.

Most of all, it is important for parents to make their own expectations realistic, Hawkins said.

”You’re going to have squabbles and they’re going to leave their dirty laundry somewhere and they’re teenagers … you still end up a parent to them,” she said.

When Riggs spoke to Miranda on the phone after he arrived in Chile, she said she was glad to support him during his transition back into his life at home, just like when he first arrived.

”He said how sad he is. He likes us now, so that’s good,” she said, laughing.

In a recent Facebook chat, Miranda said he loves his host family and that they will always have a place in his heart.

”It was wonderful,” Miranda said of his time in Humboldt. “Even though there were bad moments, there were good moments. You always try to remember the positive things.”

His last Facebook postings revealed a much happier Miranda.

”I’ve been changed so much since I got there! Thanks so much, I feel now like a new better person!”

This article originally published here.