Languages and Diplomacy: A Sensitive Balance

In the next excerpt, Andree remembers her time as a newlywed in El Salvador. Later, she explains her family's momentous move to the United States.....and why they stayed for longer than expected.
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(Tell me about the man that you met and eventually married.)

I met Juan Alberto Llanes. We met the summer that I came back. We started going out. I was not quite eighteen.

(And he was how old?)

He was twenty-five.

(And did your parents know him?)

Actually, my father introduced us. I don’t think he had the intention of the relationship going where it did. (laughs) My parents were very much opposed to it because I was so young. They would have hoped for me to marry a Jewish man, and later. We were married within six months of knowing each other.

(In El Salvador?)

In Salvador.

(Where did you-all live? Did you live near—you had your own home, but did you live near your family?)

No, when we got married Juan Alberto had been renting an apartment from a person who rented the second floor of her house.

(Like a pensión?)

Like a pensión. When we got married, we had this small apartment, which was very nice. Meals were provided for us. The owner was very friendly and affectionate. We kept contact with her for a long time.

(Was Juan Alberto interested in you being Jewish?)

Oh, yes. He valued my Judaism very much and respected it. Actually, he supported very much the Jewish education of our children. He never converted, but he—

(But he was supportive?)

He was very supportive.

(When did you have your first child?)

Lorena was born in ’62, four years later.

(And then you had—?)

Beatriz in ’65 and Eduardo and Enrique in ’71.

(Twins.)

Twins.

(By ’71 you have four children.)

Yes.

(How is life at this point in Salvador?)

Well, when we got married, (pause) regarding the Jewish community, people were friendly and I didn’t feel that, “Oh, you went and married outside of your faith,” you know? I didn’t feel that much. People took us in. And Juan Alberto was a very friendly, outgoing, gregarious man.

(And so did you take your kids to the youth—were there youth programs at that point?)

Oh, yes, yes. The children—well, Lorena and Beatriz, because we came to live in the States—when they were nine and six. So Lorena, especially, participated a lot in the youth groups, just like everybody else. We didn’t feel that they were looked upon as less-than. Eduardo and Enrique were only 1 year old when we came here.

(With Juan Alberto you spoke Spanish all the time?)

Mm-hmm.

(Did you decide, “Oh, I want to speak a certain language——to my children”?)

With Lorena I spoke in French, and she went to the French nursery school. And I spoke in French to Beatriz also. But when Lorena started going to the American school, she didn’t want to speak French any more. She wanted to speak English. So Beatriz did not really pick up French that well, until later on. So we spoke Spanish at home. Then Eduardo and Enrique were born, and I thought, “These children are going to be trilingual,” and I spoke in French to them. They were a year and four months when we came here, and they spoke their twin language of French and Spanish, which nobody outside of the family understood. So I dropped French. I thought these kids have to speak something that the world outside of our home understands. I went on with Spanish.

(Why did you move here, of all places?)

Juan Alberto was a diplomat. He was a diplomat for Paraguay. That’s how we met in El Salvador. He was transferred to Washington.


(He was transferred to the embassy here?)

He was— He had been assigned to the first legation (which ranks below an embassy) in El Salvador. Then in '72 he was promoted and transferred to the Embassy here in Washington.

(How long did you expect to be here?)

Wishful thinking. I thought that we would go back to El Salvador. I thought that Juan Alberto would do a few years here and we’d go back to El Salvador. (chuckles)

(And what happened?)

I thought that Juan Alberto would go into the family business at some point. And what happened was that he did try some time while we were in El Salvador, working afternoons at the business, but he wasn’t cut out for that. That was not his field. So we stayed here.

(And he worked as a diplomat? And he was able to stay here—?)

He was here for about seven or eight years in that position, got promoted also to Ministro Consejero, and then he was given the position of Ambassador of Paraguay to El Salvador. That was in the late ‘70s. Bad time, bad time to go back to live in El Salvador because of the political situation. I stayed in Washington with the children.

(So he went by himself?)

He went by himself. yes. He stayed there for about seven years.

(And he came back and forth?)

Yes, he would come at times, like, every two or three months he would come for about three weeks or so. And then (pause) he was promoted back to Washington as Ambassador to set up a new office for Paraguay to the OAS (Organization of American States.)

(For Paraguay? That’s a huge job.)

Right. So he came back here.

(What year was that? In the ‘80s?)

The ‘90s. Because in the late ‘70s, at the height of the war is when he went to El Salvador for another seven years, more or less, and then he was sent back here. Then his government went through an upheaval and Juan Alberto's job ended.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.