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This Is It?: Challenges Confront the Children of Nicaraguans Returning Home
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11044 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1993 |
2,699 Words |
| Author
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Pat Werner
Pat Werner teaches at the American Nicaraguan School. He
writes on a variety of topics concerning Nicaraguan culture,
flora, and fauna. |
Shortly after the Sandinista takeover in July 1979, Nicaragua's middle and upper classes began transferring their families and funds to other countries, especially the United States. Initial enthusiasm for the revolution faded as families were threatened by the regime's Marxist-Leninist policies. Private property was confiscated and economic and social institutions collectivized. No one knows exactly how many left, but by 1989 anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000, of a national population of 3.5 million, had fled the country.
Settling permanently in their host countries, immigrants completed educations, started careers and families, and bought homes. But with the electoral victory of Violeta Chamorro in February 1990 the possibility of return appeared. For a substantial number of émigrés, including many with hopes of reclaiming a finca (family farm), factory, or business, returning to Nicaragua became both a personal odyssey and an opportunity. They believed Chamorro's campaign promise to return unjustly confiscated properties and headed south.
Many of the returnees had attended either of Nicaragua's most prestigious private schools: the American Nicaraguan School or the Jesuit high school Colegio Centroamericano. Centroamericano was now dominated by Jesuits of a decidedly liberationist bent; their theology was popular among the new elites of Sandinismo but absolute anathema to returning Nicaraguans. Almost exclusively, returnees sought to enroll their children in the American School. For the children, primarily raised in the United States and accustomed to an American life-style, the move to Managua and the new school was a traumatic experience--educationally, socially, and culturally.
The American Nicaraguan School
The present campus of the American Nicaraguan School is located on the outskirts of Managua. It was built in 1977, the old campus having been destroyed by an earthquake in 1972. The campus was thus quite new when the 1979 revolution occurred, and except for a change of personnel and a few coats of paint, the campus of 1990 resembled very closely the campus of 1977.
The school was founded during the Second World War. It quickly became the most expensive private, international school in the country, and it was the only school that offered effective bilingual education. Standards were high, both in accepting students and in the hiring and remuneration of faculty. Teacher turnover was low, and there was continuity in
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