L. Jack Davidson: Some Final Thoughts

Jack now has residences in New York and El Salvador. In this section, I ask him about the future.

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(So now, you really live in both places?)

Then I went back to living in between, and I really—if I look back on the pattern of my life, ever since I would say 1956 or ’55, I’ve lived between the US and El Salvador. When my father moved here, I used to come here, actually ’54. It was either vacations in one or living in another. Afterwards through school, the decade of the ‘70s I lived primarily in Salvador, and the decade of the ‘80s I was primarily in New York. But then—so even those two sort of even out half-half, and then the rest of the time has always been split. So I’ve been doing this for over fifty years.

(Do you find it taxing?)

I love it. I love it because I feel that Salvador gives me a human dimension and warmth and friendships. My friends are from Salvador, and my relationships and my community, which is important to me, and my society and my everything is Salvador. I have friends in New York My sister lives in New York. My mother lives in Boston, so it’s not that we have nobody there, but our human ties are to Salvador. But of course, New York offers New York: culture, exposure, the world, etc. And I really feel that I’ve been privileged to be able to have both. I feel I have the best of both, and as long as I have the strength and the reason to do it, I hope to continue doing it.

(Do you think you’ll ever move here permanently?)

I think Salvador is the best place in the world to raise children, and the best place in the world to grow old. So maybe, at a point, depending what life brings. I think at our age, you know, you first wait for your children to settle down before you actually can make a decision, because it depends where there are children, where there are grandchildren. I certainly wouldn’t want to move in with any of my children, that’s out of the question. So at that point, I would probably—yes, I would seriously consider it.

(Now, you’re currently a citizen of which countries?)

I’m currently a citizen of Chile and the US, and I hope to become a citizen of Salvador soon. I wanted to do that years ago and didn’t, and when I became a US citizen and I thought that it would be somehow endangered if I took on a third citizenship. But I’ve since found out that it isn’t, so I’d like to get all that. I’d like to have a whole bookshelf of passports, and take out the most convenient one. Because, as I said, I am not trying to be cynical about patriotism and country, because I think that would be stupid, but I don’t have a terrifically strong sense of—I’m Salvadoran, although I don’t have a Salvadoran passport, and Chilean because I have a Chilean passport. I don’t feel Chilean. And I’m an American because I’ve lived there for years and I also have a US passport, but I’m as Salvadoran without a passport as I am American, or maybe more so. So the only thing I really am is Jewish.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC