50 Stories for 50 Years: Mireia Giné ‘92

To celebrate our 50th anniversary year during 2018/19, we collected stories and profiles of people and institutions that have helped us build our organization, which first began as one person's dream in 1968. We will feature one story per week on our blog. Please enjoy these “50 for 50” profiles featuring ASSIST's dedicated board members, dynamic staff, welcoming host families and enthusiastic ASSIST Scholars.

Mireia Giné ‘92
Spain, Baylor School

The day that George Semler confirmed that I had won the ASSIST scholarship, I jumped for joy: I was going to the USA at 17 years old, really looking forward to leaving Barcelona, breaking out of my shell, and becoming independent from my parents!

I dreamed of NY, Chicago, San Francisco; in the background I projected Barcelona, which was the only living space I knew, but bigger, on an American scale, more urban, more asphalt and iron and glass. Speed.

And where did I land? Where did you send me, George? To a little town with a name that makes you laugh: Cha-tta-noo-ga, Tennessee. The Deep South of America. In 1991, with no Internet in sight, Chattanooga was a map destination from National Geographic—something out of an atlas. My mother had only one reference, a swing song she loved by Glenn Miller: "Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” and in our months of preparation we kept listening to Glenn Miller. From there I jumped to Benny Goodman and Bessie Smith, who was actually from Chattanooga, and then to the great Miles Davis... my education had begun even before I got on the plane.

When I got to Chattanooga and saw my new school, Baylor, I saw a beautiful campus, an old military academy for cadets, red brick with ivy, with a huge chapel as big as our cathedral here (I immediately understood that religion was very important in Chattanooga and in Baylor in particular) surrounded by the winding Tennessee River. A campus with an island included. Well, in Chattanooga there was no asphalt. No iron or glass or speed. It was Cherokee country, surrounded by Civil War (1860-65) battlefields from the war between the Confederates and the Union. The Battle of Lookout Mountain, where the family that hosted me, the Eitels, lived, was the beginning of the end for the Confederates and the South. The Appalachian Trail was not far away.
Maximum contrast with Barcelona.

What was I doing there, an urbanite, a little or perhaps very pedantic, surrounded by so much greenery? And what kind of people would I meet here? I saw many Confederate flags in the residential neighborhoods of Chattanooga, not quite understanding what they meant. There was a sense of pride, not only national, but also regional, that emanated from their history. I was curious.

In ASSIST they do a great job of preparing you for your arrival, and everything was running pretty smoothly. I spent my first few weeks at the Eitel house with my two new sisters, Stephanie and Jennifer, who were about my age. The family was and is very religious, Methodist, a warm family, all great singers, with karaoke at home to practice ... everything from funk to religious hymns. They took me to Mass on the first Sunday and started me singing.

And I, who had stopped going to church on my 14th birthday as an act of intellectual emancipation, was fascinated by this ritual, by the sermons closely attached to real life, to the day-to-day problems of the congregation, and I was moved by the liberating emotion of the singing. I kept on going to church with the Eitels.

Many Sundays I tried other churches, Catholic or Protestant, and other songs, which was what I liked best. Sundays were an important part of exploring and understanding where I was and listening to reflections on the lives of the people of Chattanooga. What was happening in Chattanooga?

Despite the beauty of the mountains and the wide Tennessee River, there were tensions within the community. 1992 was a year in which there were several confrontations between white and African-Americans in Los Angeles after the beating of a black youth named Rodney King by 4 policemen. And in Chattanooga, an old Confederate stronghold, there were serious confrontations. I had never before seen this type of violence, which showed very powerful tensions within the community. All of this was discussed in church, along with many other problems.

I came out of a very homogeneous environment in Barcelona where all my friends and acquaintances were more or less like me, with a similar education, the same religion, even our surnames were barely different...and I entered a really different world with worrisome edges. For the first time, I began to talk about religion, about family customs and values, about being a first or second generation immigrant, about racism, and above all about how to get along with each other.

At Baylor the focus was on getting along, coexistence, contributing to the community, and also on academic excellence. For the first time in my life I made new friends who were markedly different from me. My roommate Irene, a Russian girl from a Jewish family, with her head half blonde and the other half black, and with some tattoos in strategic places... Jenny Oh, a Korean painter…Phillip Tiongsen, a Filipino with doctor parents who had been sent to the Deep South...Tracy Berglund, who is now the godmother of one of my daughters.

This is what ASSIST is really about: getting us out of our micro-worlds to experience another reality. Even though it is the small town of Chattanooga, we come to it with another point of view and see a diversity that we have never experienced before. The ASSIST experience teaches that life is not a speed event; you have to stop at the meanderings of the river and explore.
And ASSIST not only accompanies students but also gives that extra courage and security that parents need to let their children fly off into the unknown.

I returned to Barcelona changed (I became a vegetarian) and after finishing my studies I wanted to return to the USA. I was there another 10 years. Without Chattanooga, I would not have 2 extra pairs of grandparents, the Eitels and the Berglunds, a lifelong mentor in my English literature teacher and cross country trainer Heather Ott. I wouldn’t have invested 10 years of life in the USA and gained two American daughters.

The ASSIST experience gives more than a 9-month scholarship to a school in the USA. It’s the beginning of a lifetime of opportunity. It is like a master key that we are given at the tender age of 17, so that we may go on to open many doors. Thank you for this master key.