Clarke Central High School senior Andrea Aramburo poses with several of her Colombian bracelets in front of an American flag in the Media Center on Nov. 14. While Aramburo is an American citizen, she has a strong Hispanic heritage and expresses her pride for her culture in many ways, including the jewelry she wears. “I’ve always been about collecting bracelets and necklaces and stuff like that,” Aramburo said. “I feel kind of naked without them if I don’t wear them. They’re just something that I feel like are unique to me. Most of (them) are from Colombia. I just like having something colorful, regardless if it matches with my clothes or not.” Photo by Alexander Robinson
The ODYSSEY Media Group will provide viewers with stylized profiles that center on people in the Athens community telling their own stories.
Clarke Central High School senior Andrea Aramburo is an American citizen with deep Colombian roots.
At first one may not realize it, but Andrea Aramburo has a story to tell.
She actually has several, and will tell each one with a loud and enthusiastic cadence. Her eagerness to share makes every conversation an engaging one. Her perspective is always unique.
But dig a little deeper, and one will find the one story that Andrea wants to tell most. It’s the one about herself and her family. More specifically, it’s about the heritage they all share.
Andrea comes from a Colombian family. Her parents first came to America in 1999, and she grew up bilingual while listening to old Colombian salsa and regularly catching up with relatives on Skype. Her admiration for the rich history she lays claim to is warm and abundant.
After visiting the land and falling in love with it at the age of 10, she began to affiliate more with her parents’ country of origin.
“Even though I was practically raised here and I was born here, I consider myself more Colombian than American,” Aramburo said. “We do have more of an American lifestyle, but culturally I identify myself as more Colombian.”
While she’s proud of her two national identities, for a long time, the Colombian heritage of her parents was more of a liability. They were undocumented, and their legal status was of constant concern to Andrea.
“If we saw a police car or something, it was really terrifying,” Aramburo said. “We didn’t want them to get in trouble with the police because they could easily get deported. That was something that in a kind of way controlled my life and set my mind a certain way.”
For Andrea and her family, however, this would only be a temporary fear. Since acquiring new legal status earlier this year, her parents no longer fear deportation. They are now citizens of the United States. And Andrea, while forever proud of her family’s history, is glad that they can now legally live and work in America.
They have joined her as Americans, but all still honor Colombia.
