FOREIGN STUDENT: Garcia adjusts to IVCC
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| By Brooke Fisher Spaniard Manuel Garcia Sanchez, 28, came to the U.S. to learn English and to improve his computer skills. Garcia, who has a bachelor’s in Journalism from the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, was born in Salamanca, Spain. To earn a bachelor’s in Public Relations in the U.S., he left his family, including five sisters, and the life he knew. Garcia has been living in Streator for two years and is tranferring to ISU this spring. |
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“My first classes were in Decatur, where I took English as a second language,” he said. “My best teacher was the closed caption on the TV.”
He recalls IVCC the first time he visited as dark and sinister because the college looked so empty. His perception changed once his classes started. But the transition was difficult, and he felt alone.
“I thought classmates would say hello when they saw me in the halls or in the cafeteria,” he said. “Most of the time they look down and ignore me. It took me a while to realize that when people say ‘What’s up’ or ‘What’s going on,’ they just say it but they don’t really mean to hear your answer.”
He does admit that he knows a lot of really nice people around the campus including instructors, classmates, and people on the newspaper staff. He is the co-editor of the college newspaper this fall and tutors students in Spanish.
He really enjoys his classes because of the small size and interaction between instructors and students. His classes in Spain had over 100 students.
Garcia finds the U.S. to be a peculiar country with an interesting history. Americans are “very patriotic, hard working, practical and independent.”
However, he notices that the independence weakens family attachments.
“In Spain, families are very close; we like to live with our parents, and they want to keep us at home too,” he said.
He finds American television shocking.
“You can not see a naked body on (American) TV, but you can watch shows like Jerry Springer in which a 12-year-old girls admits in front of a cheering audience that she has had sex with 20 different partners and a snake; that’s sad,” Garcia said.
What he misses most is homemade food and fresh bread. He said food here tastes “artificial and has fancy colors and lots of calories.”
He also misses partying with his friends and going out to bars until early morning.
After two years at ISU, Garcia plans to return to Spain and find work in some area of the mass media either in Madrid or Barcelona.
