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Speaker 1: Dear Latino USA listener.

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Speaker 2: the episode description and after you do that, then click play.

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Speaker 1: Let's go to the show.

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Speaker 3: I live in a historic neighborhood in the center of Bota,

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Speaker 3: the city where I was born. I'm near the mountains

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Speaker 3: known as Los Cerros Orientales. They're part of the eastern

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Speaker 3: most Andes Mountain Range, and they border the capital. The

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Speaker 3: mountains are either lush and green, illuminated by the sun,

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Speaker 3: or barely visible under the thick andy and haze. They're

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Speaker 3: my guiding compass to the city, at once brutalist and beautiful,

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Speaker 3: moody and awe inspiring. They're what I most remember from

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Speaker 3: my early childhood here before we moved to the US.

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Speaker 3: When I moved back to Columbia early last year, the

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Speaker 3: mountains felt like a familiar relative, welcoming me back.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 3: I start my days on my balcony admiring their grandeur.

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Speaker 3: Am on my balcony lake. I am most mornings. Then

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Speaker 3: I head out to do some grocery shopping at La

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Speaker 3: Place America. I get giant avocados, artfully selected by expert hands.

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Speaker 3: I procure bushels of fresh herbs bigger than the size

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Speaker 3: of my head, and drink fresh passion fruit juice hugo

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Speaker 3: marakuja yea. Then I get to work from the cozy

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Speaker 3: little office nook in my apartment where I touch base

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Speaker 3: with my editor who's in the US. So you will

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Speaker 3: send it to me by what times I can put

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Speaker 3: it here, you might call it after work. I try

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Speaker 3: new things like pole dancing, and familiar things like spending

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Speaker 3: time with family. It's the kind of life no one

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Speaker 3: expected me to be living after spending most of my

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Speaker 3: life in the US, the daughter of first and second

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Speaker 3: generation immigrants, I've chosen to move back to Colombia. It's

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Speaker 3: a choice that goes against the hegemonic world order, a

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Speaker 3: move from global north to global south. But I'm not

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Speaker 3: the only one. Other young Latinas who grew up in

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Speaker 3: the US are choosing to return to the places their

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Speaker 3: parents left, or that they left as little kids. Some

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Speaker 3: have even called this phenomenon remad creation, a term originating

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Speaker 3: from indigenous land back movements, a restoring of the connection

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Speaker 3: between a people and their motherland. When I first moved

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Speaker 3: back to Columbia for a short lived pre pandemic adventure,

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Speaker 3: my mom questioned me, why can't you just visit for

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Speaker 3: a while. Why do you have to live there.

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Speaker 5: She asked.

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Speaker 3: I was trying to answer that question myself. All I

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Speaker 3: knew is that the decision came from an emotional place,

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Speaker 3: from visits spent wandering the streets of Bogota with my cousins,

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Speaker 3: From the kindness of strangers, the familiar rhythm of the accent,

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Speaker 3: the healing power of the Andian sun on a warm afternoon,

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Speaker 3: the wisdom of the mountains. From an intuition that it's

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Speaker 3: something I had to do, something I needed to do.

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Speaker 3: Life feels more vibrant here. I relish the flora, thriving

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Speaker 3: and beautiful all year long. But like any diaspora kid

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Speaker 3: coming home, I question myself. I question if I belong here.

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Speaker 3: When I asked if I'm from here, I say kind of.

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Speaker 3: I was born here, grew up in the US, and

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Speaker 3: now I'm back. I catch myself over explaining if I'm

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Speaker 3: being honest, I think I want to prove something to myself,

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Speaker 3: prove that I can come back, that there's a place

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Speaker 3: for me here. So I'm asking, is Columbia still home?

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Speaker 3: And if it's not, can I make it home again?

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Speaker 2: From Fudro Media, It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria ino Josa Today.

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Speaker 2: An intimate exploration of home. What does it really look

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Speaker 2: like to go from diaspora back to the motherland? One

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Speaker 2: Colombian American looks at what it means to return to Colombia.

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Speaker 2: Producer Dasha Sanoba is going to pick up the story

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Speaker 2: from here.

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Speaker 5: I was born in Bogota, Colombia.

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Speaker 3: This is my dad.

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Speaker 5: My name is Louis Sandobal.

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Speaker 3: He's a classical and jazz blutist who turned to music

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Speaker 3: teaching to support our family. He's giving me his take

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Speaker 3: on the city where we were both born.

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Speaker 5: Is a very big city, is a cosmopolitan city.

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Speaker 3: Preschool years were spent here where apparently I was beloved

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Speaker 3: by my teachers.

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Speaker 5: Super cute, lovely. Everybody loved you. You were very Socia.

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Speaker 3: But I wasn't just cute.

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Speaker 5: You were stubborn.

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Speaker 3: Has my stubbornness ever loved anything good?

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Speaker 5: Of course? Here you are.

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Speaker 3: By here, he means in Columbia. We're on a video

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Speaker 3: call me and Bogota, him and Florida.

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Speaker 5: I came to the States just because I was in

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Speaker 5: love with your mother.

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Speaker 3: My mom is Cuban American. She met my dad while

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Speaker 3: on a trip to Colombia in the early eighties. They

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Speaker 3: fell in love and moved to Miami, my mom's hometown.

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Speaker 3: But when they had my sister in the late eighties,

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Speaker 3: they decided to come back to Columbia.

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Speaker 5: I didn't have the tools too to make a living

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Speaker 5: in the States.

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Speaker 3: It was an unusual move Colombia. In nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 3: the year that drug cartels were at the height of

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Speaker 3: their power, working with paramilitary groups to a certain control.

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Speaker 4: Mil Novecentosentin Marca, Lestoria, Columbia.

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Speaker 3: Luis Carlos Galan, a front runner for president, was assassinated.

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Speaker 3: A commercial flight from Bota, Ta Cali was bombed, killing

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Speaker 3: one hundred and seven people.

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Speaker 6: Estationally a those succient mask and this it must be

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Speaker 6: steriosos in Lestoria, LAVIASI in Columbiana.

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Speaker 3: And car bombing is proliferated, including the bomb that killed

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Speaker 3: over seventy people in a government building in Bogota, Alasia.

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Speaker 3: It's hard to believe that my parents moved to Columbia

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Speaker 3: that year, of all years, Wow.

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Speaker 5: How did I do that?

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Speaker 7: That was kind of irresponsible to take my family to

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Speaker 7: a place that was going through such an ordeal.

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Speaker 3: At the time, you did not have an awareness of

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Speaker 3: how bad things were before we travel, though once you arrived,

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Speaker 3: did you have an idea?

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Speaker 5: Of course, we woke up with explode shoes.

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Speaker 3: I was born a couple of years later, in nineteen

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Speaker 3: ninety one, and spent my early childhood in Chia, a

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Speaker 3: town just north of the city, blissfully unaware of the

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Speaker 3: violence that had surrounded me. We lived in a small

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Speaker 3: brick house with a backyard that opened out onto a

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Speaker 3: shared neighborhood park. I would get home from school and

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Speaker 3: run up and down tiny hills covered in Ojose boita

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Speaker 3: black eyed Susans, then climbed the giant eucalyptus tree, but

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Speaker 3: this was short lived. My parents wanted us to grow

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Speaker 3: up in the US.

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Speaker 7: After nine years, then we decided they go back. Tend

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Speaker 7: to go even for.

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Speaker 3: Us to have more opportunity, my dad explains. We moved

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Speaker 3: to Coral Springs, Florida, a suburb of fort about an

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Speaker 3: hour north of Miami. I entered second grade, I started

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Speaker 3: to assimilate. By the time I turned twelve, I had

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Speaker 3: started a quiet rebellion.

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Speaker 7: When you wanted not to speak Spanish in mostly you

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Speaker 7: were I believe in middle.

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Speaker 3: School, unlike Miami, Coral Springs didn't feel like an extension

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Speaker 3: of Latin America. Looking back, I think I started to

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Speaker 3: reject my Spanish because it's what made me different.

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Speaker 7: I've told you Tennessee and Espanol Espanol, and you had

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Speaker 7: to speak to me in Spanish in order to communicate

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Speaker 7: with me.

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Speaker 5: Thanks to that, you didn't lose it.

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Speaker 3: This tactic, in which my dad pretended not to understand

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Speaker 3: me unless I spoke to him in Espanol, was the

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Speaker 3: bane of my existence us. He called it a campania.

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Speaker 3: Though I rebelled against language, I never let go of place.

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Speaker 3: We went back to Columbia every two to three years

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Speaker 3: for summer vacation and in between. I long for it,

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Speaker 3: for the kinship with my cousins and the grandeur of

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Speaker 3: the mountains. But with every visit I started to feel

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Speaker 3: more and more out of place, more and more like a.

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Speaker 4: Gringa guys as in Galacina.

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Speaker 3: My cousin Pipe remembers this ours started getting stuck on

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Speaker 3: my tongue as I struggled to roll them.

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Speaker 4: I remember we started bullying you because of that.

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Speaker 3: It's here that my confusion, or what Pepe might call

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Speaker 3: my identity crisis, really began. Though they teased me, I

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Speaker 3: adored my cousins. I still do.

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Speaker 5: You became really, really close to your cousins.

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Speaker 7: And I believe because of that is that you are

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Speaker 7: backed in Colombia because you have those bones and they

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Speaker 7: are strong.

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Speaker 3: That's definitely part of it. But it's also because I

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Speaker 3: had fomo. When in my twenties I started meeting backpackers

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Speaker 3: who had traveled all over Columbia, I felt a bit jealous.

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Speaker 7: I think you were frustrated because people told you, oh, Colombia,

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Speaker 7: you're from Colombia. That's such a beautiful country. I was there,

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Speaker 7: over here and over there.

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Speaker 3: If they could get to know Columbia, well couldn't, I shouldn't.

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Speaker 5: I You wanted to know by yourself, so you made

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Speaker 5: a decision to do it. Period.

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Speaker 3: So, swayed by nostalgia, family bonds, and stubbornness, as my

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Speaker 3: dad might say, I decided to stop resisting. I let

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Speaker 3: the poll bring me back.

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Speaker 2: Coming up on Latino USA, Dasha moves back to Colombia.

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Speaker 4: I remember, I thought she's going to do it, and

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Speaker 4: she's going to prove everyone wrong somehow.

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Speaker 2: That's after the break, not yes, hey, we're back and

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Speaker 2: Tasha Sandovali is gonna continue with her story of going

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Speaker 2: back to Colombia.

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Speaker 4: Describe to me, Okay, so there's a picture in your

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Speaker 4: phone of a little girl and a little boy.

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Speaker 3: Pepe and I are in my apartment in Bogota. We're

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Speaker 3: looking at an old photo, one of my favorites of

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Speaker 3: us together.

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Speaker 4: This little boy is like staring at the distance, holding

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Speaker 4: one of his suspenders suspenders. Next to him is a

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Speaker 4: little girl, very coquetta, with a crown of flowers in

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Speaker 4: her hair and a very pretty dress. She's like pulling

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Speaker 4: my arm. It makes me nostalgic about childhood.

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Speaker 3: I'm about fifteen months older than Pepe.

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Speaker 4: I'm your little cousin. I'm your premito.

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Speaker 3: We've been close since we were really young.

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Speaker 4: I'm like the brother you didn't have, and you're like

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Speaker 4: this sister I didn't have. We became siblings because we

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Speaker 4: kind of wanted to.

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Speaker 3: Today he's a poet and copy editor with a striking

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Speaker 3: bountiful Beard jam He's much adored.

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Speaker 4: I remember a decisiveness and the fact of wanting to

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Speaker 4: share it with me. You put yourself in Columbias through me.

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Speaker 5: Somehow.

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Speaker 3: He's been my guide as I've visited and come back

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Speaker 3: for longer stance throughout the years. Until I moved.

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Speaker 4: Back, everyone in the family was betting that you were

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Speaker 4: not gonna make it. That's just doing it. How much

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Speaker 4: time do you give her? I remember, I thought she's

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Speaker 4: gonna do it, and she's going to prove everyone wrong somehow.

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Speaker 3: Why do you think I wanted to come back.

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Speaker 4: To do this to research your like the identity of

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Speaker 4: the Latin American people through your identity crisis. I felt

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Speaker 4: that you were decided, like, I'm gonna make it. This

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Speaker 4: is gonna be my purpose.

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Speaker 3: Pepa and I have always been similar in this way.

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Speaker 4: We're the storytellers of for a family.

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Speaker 3: That's why Pipa has been my confidante through this whole

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Speaker 3: return to roots mission. He's the person I've turned to

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Speaker 3: when I felt weird about living in Colombia while working

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Speaker 3: remotely for US based companies. But this particular arrangement is

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Speaker 3: making dollars and living in Pisos, right, do you remember

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Speaker 3: me feeling conflicted about sure?

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Speaker 1: All the time I worry.

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Speaker 3: About jacking up rents with my US income in one

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Speaker 3: of the most unequal countries in the world. I want

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Speaker 3: to contribute to life in Bota, not make it harder

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Speaker 3: for people to live here. So I support independent pole

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Speaker 3: dance and ceramic studios, and I got involved in a

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Speaker 3: diy queer cultural space.

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Speaker 4: Your actions are your undoing, but your position in life

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Speaker 4: it's a doing of God, the economy, whatever.

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Speaker 3: I have agency over my actions, he says.

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Speaker 4: Like what matters is what you're doing right and your

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Speaker 4: intentions in your current life, what you want to do.

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Speaker 3: Essentially, Pipa is telling me that I didn't choose this

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Speaker 3: to be a dual citizen with a diasporic identity and

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Speaker 3: a curious spirit, but I am choosing to make the

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Speaker 3: most of this duality and to do it as ethically

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Speaker 3: as I can. This conclusion isn't entirely satisfying, but I

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Speaker 3: think I can make peace with it because I'm finding

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Speaker 3: out who I am when I'm in Columbia. Building a

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Speaker 3: life here is facilitating my path as a journalist and

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Speaker 3: a writer. From here, I can pursue meaningful but precarious

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Speaker 3: contract work. I can do this kind of writing. I'm

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Speaker 3: also uncovering other possibilities, layers of creative potential, and I

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Speaker 3: think I'm starting to feel more comfortable owning my hybridity.

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Speaker 4: I feel that part of your essence and part of

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Speaker 4: your transformation has been to accept that you're not going

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Speaker 4: to become a Colombian and stop being a Gringa. You're

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Speaker 4: just reconciling the fact that you are both in different

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Speaker 4: ways and in different proportions.

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Speaker 3: Stopping myself when I feel the urge to qualify my

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Speaker 3: existence to others.

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Speaker 4: You cannot detach yourself from the years of experience that

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Speaker 4: you have lived in the US. That's always going to

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Speaker 4: be there.

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Speaker 3: My gringodness comes out most when I get frustrated by

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Speaker 3: cultural differences, like the fact that audita usually means never

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Speaker 3: and the reality that things often don't go as planned

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Speaker 3: in Columbia.

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Speaker 4: When you plan something, you still have this tendency to, Okay,

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Speaker 4: we need to plan this, and we need to know

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Speaker 4: the time, and we need to know the place, and

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Speaker 4: we need to organize, because that's the greenaway.

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Speaker 3: Pope says, I've evolved.

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Speaker 4: And you have become more comfortable with the idea that

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Speaker 4: you can't do anything about it, like just.

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Speaker 3: Learn to let it go, and that I'll continue to evolve.

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Speaker 4: The more time you spend on a place, the more

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Speaker 4: you become a local.

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Speaker 3: At the end of the day, he said, us living

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Speaker 3: in the US wouldn't necessarily be in service to myself

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Speaker 3: or to Columbia.

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Speaker 4: Well, O, the choices just stay there in the US.

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Speaker 4: It's just as harmful. The US is a crumbling empire.

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Speaker 3: So in this fraught political moment in the US, I'm

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Speaker 3: leaning on my Colombian side. But the political situation here

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Speaker 3: in Colombia is also volatile. The country came to peace

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Speaker 3: accords in twenty sixteen, ending decades of armed conflict, but

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Speaker 3: implementation has been slow and violence continues. They're still gorilla

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Speaker 3: groups like the eln fighting for control of land and

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Speaker 3: trafficking routes. January twenty twenty five was one of the

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Speaker 3: most violent episodes since the signing of the accords.

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Speaker 7: Violence between two armed groups has consumed the Katatumbo region

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Speaker 7: near the border with Venezuela.

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Speaker 3: At least eighty dead and it estimated thirty thousand displaced

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Speaker 3: from their homes and the twenty twenty six presidential elections

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Speaker 3: are on the horizon. One presidential hopeful and conservative set

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Speaker 3: Migue Luriue, was shot at a campaign event in June.

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Speaker 3: He died after months in critical condition. The authorities have

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Speaker 3: arrested the fourteen year old hired gunmen. They haven't identified

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Speaker 3: a mastermind behind the assassination. Many Colombians are worried that

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Speaker 3: this signals are returned to the rampant political violence of

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Speaker 3: the past.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Hey, we're back.

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Speaker 3: These are complicated times all over the world, But for now,

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Speaker 3: I'm staying here connecting with family. Yes, late this March,

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Speaker 3: I went to help one of my uncles pack up

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Speaker 3: his apartment before a big.

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Speaker 5: Moves that issful.

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Speaker 3: While my drummer uncle jammed away, we went through stack

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Speaker 3: after stack of stuff, including some family heirlooms that had

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Speaker 3: been packed away since my grandparents' deaths in twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: and twenty twenty one. I came away that day with

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Speaker 3: my late I would eat that Gudman's fine china, the

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Speaker 3: white gold and pink tea and coffee sets she had

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Speaker 3: held on to through the years, her greatest treasures. Now

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Speaker 3: that dishware adorns the shelves in my dining room. I

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Speaker 3: imagine my grandmother hosting her friends for afternoon onases, a

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Speaker 3: Colombian tradition of drinks and snacks. She serves her over

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Speaker 3: sweetened tintico in tiny pink and gold espresso cups. I'm

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Speaker 3: reminded that my grandmother would be thrilled to see me here, independent, steadfast, stubborn,

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Speaker 3: living among her treasures and in her country. Claiming those

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Speaker 3: tiny espresso cups from those storage boxes is another way

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Speaker 3: in which I'm finding myself back in Colombia, grounding myself

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Speaker 3: even as I continue to doubt myself.

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Speaker 7: You doubt yourself, but I have learned that that's okay,

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Speaker 7: because you always end up doing what you need and

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Speaker 7: what you want and beyond.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure I see this pattern as clearly as

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Speaker 3: my dad does, but he must have a point. He's

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Speaker 3: preparing his own return to Columbia.

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Speaker 7: Last time MAKE went to Santa Martin and Tobogota, I

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Speaker 7: realized that I am a lot more friendly with people.

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Speaker 7: I talk a lot more with people on the street,

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Speaker 7: and I feel at home.

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Speaker 3: After so many years in Florida. He hopes to find

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Speaker 3: a spot near the ocean on the Colombian Caribbean coast.

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Speaker 7: From the very beginning, the dream was the sea with mountains,

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Speaker 7: because of the beauty of the sea and the evening,

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Speaker 7: the dark sky and the stars and the waves, the

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Speaker 7: sound of the ocean. The sand, I don't know is

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Speaker 7: appealing to me.

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Speaker 3: A place that brings the family together, a place that

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Speaker 3: makes Columbia home for all of us.

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Speaker 5: And that's what I would like.

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Speaker 7: Like I would like to place where where my family

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Speaker 7: would like to go together, and you and your sister

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Speaker 7: and all our family and extended family.

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Speaker 5: Yes, being together and cheerin.

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Speaker 3: I want the same, But I don't want to wait

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Speaker 3: until retirement, so I'm starting now. Maybe being able to

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Speaker 3: come back to the place my dad left is a

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Speaker 3: historical justice. Maybe it's a particular brand of neocolonialism from

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Speaker 3: north to south. But maybe hopefully it's much simpler than that.

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Speaker 3: Maybe it's just human a desire to return to the

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Speaker 3: first place I experienced on this planet. Being here among

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Speaker 3: the trees in the mountains reminds me of something I

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Speaker 3: heard from Spanish writer Cristina Juliana Auril at a book festival.

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Speaker 6: Here, as we.

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Speaker 3: Take everything with us wherever we golus it's delusional to

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Speaker 3: think that we can detach from our layers, our fragments preus.

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Speaker 3: I think that when we leave, we leave with everything,

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Speaker 3: we take our roots with us. I bring with me

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Speaker 3: all of my layers, my second but now dominant tongue,

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Speaker 3: my emotional baggage, my millennial sense of doom. But I

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Speaker 3: also bring a renewed sense of adventure, curiosity, and joy.

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Speaker 3: As I write this, the cold gray day has transformed,

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Speaker 3: and losros the mountains have revealed themselves in full relief

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Speaker 3: against a clear blue sky. They're my roots, my sense

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Speaker 3: of place, and my sense of self, centering me within

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Speaker 3: the only home I'll ever really have that any of

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Speaker 3: us will ever really have ourselves. Jus them cheeky the getty.

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Speaker 8: Is the best I want to get those these thinking

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Speaker 8: majas me no one lascistana windows, the long one, the

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Speaker 8: usportes pata sene concreto gasconde secret.

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Speaker 1: Are we about lab time.

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Speaker 5: I see it?

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Speaker 9: When I gotto has we gathered by Sally boolp you

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Speaker 9: know it's a long little Spallo smack.

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Speaker 10: Over.

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Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Dasha Sandoval, who was edited

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Speaker 2: by Maria Garcia. It was mixed by Gabriel Abayez. Back

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Speaker 2: checking for this episode by Rosanna Aguire. Original song Gamino

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Speaker 2: de Nubez by Manuela Ocampo. Fernando Echavari is our managing editor.

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Speaker 2: The Latino USA team also includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis

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Speaker 2: Renandoleanos Junior, Stefane Lebau, Andrea Lopez, Gruzsado, Luis Luna, Ni

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Speaker 2: mar Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Monicamorals Garcia, JJ Carubin and Nancy Trujillo,

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Speaker 2: Penilee Ramirez, Maria Garcia and I are co executive producers

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Speaker 2: and I'm your host Maria Ino Jossa. Latino USA is

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Speaker 2: part of Iheart's Mike Ultura podcast network. Executive producers at

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Speaker 2: iHeart are Leoco Mez and Arlene Santana. Join us again

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Speaker 2: on our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see you

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Speaker 2: on all of our social media, don't you know it?

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Speaker 2: And remember, dear listener, if you love what you hear,

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Speaker 2: join Futuro Plus the benefit. You get to listen to

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Speaker 2: stellar journalism, So join Futuro Plus and remember Joe.

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Speaker 10: Latino. USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,

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Speaker 10: working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide,

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Speaker 10: the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the

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Speaker 10: William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for more than fifty years,

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Speaker 10: advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world

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Speaker 10: at Hewlett dot org.