American travelers should know how to say please and thank you in the foreign countries they visit, said Chairwoman and Professor of Art Barbara Bushey at “Postcards from Abroad,” hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society and the International Club on April 7.
AHS and International Club hosted Professor of Economics Ivan Pongracic Jr., Assistant Professor of French Anna Navrotskaya, Chairwoman and Professor of Art Barbara Bushey, and Associate Professor of Spanish Victor Carreño in the Heritage Room to share their stories of living abroad.
Pongracic came to the United States because his father discovered an advertisement about a conference at Grove City College located in Grove City, Pennsylvania featuring Russell Kirk as the keynote speaker. At the time, Pongracic’s father and family were living in their country formerly known as Yugoslavia.
Pongracic’s father wrote to the organizers of the conference, saying he discovered Kirk’s books through reading National Review. The committee said they would cover all expenses except for the plane ticket.
“My dad went to the conference with the express goal of meeting Russell Kirk,” Pongracic said.
After a four-hour conversation, Kirk invited Pongracic’s father to extend his stay which turned into an invitation to study full-time in Michigan.
“In February of 1984, we were on a plane to Detroit to stay,” Pongracic said. “That’s how we came to the United States.”
For Navrotskaya, her family had already immigrated to the United States. She arrived in 1995.
“One happy moment, my mother decided it was time to go, and that was it,” she said.
She didn’t speak any English on arriving in the states, but found a job as a salesperson at a bakery.
“I had no idea what the clients were asking for,” she said. “I remember being afraid to take a bus because what if the bus asked something one time, and I didn’t know how to answer? So I walked to my job two hours each way just to avoid this.”
She also shared her job of serving cake at a baseball game.
“You cannot start serving until the game starts,” she said. “You have to wait, and I was waiting. In my opinion, the game hadn’t started. My boss came up to me, ‘Anna, why aren’t you working?’ ‘I’m waiting for the game to start,’ I said. ‘It started fifteen minutes ago,’ he said. ‘Really?’ I said.”
Navrotskaya said she came to Hillsdale to teach French because she discovered the school’s long standing tradition of reading old books.
Bushey grew up in America and came to Hillsdale College after receiving her degree as an artist and art historian. The college needed a one-semester replacement in the art department who could teach both drawing and design.
“Oh, that would be me!” Bushey said. She said she kept being put on the schedule until the school offered her tenure.
During college, she traveled to Paris. Through Eastern Michigan University, she participated in a program called the European cultural history tour. Two teachers and 30 students went to Europe for three months.
“All your worldly goods were on your back for three months from London to Cairo,” Bushey said. “If there was ever a fight between you and your students and a group of Italian nuns about who would get to sit on the train, don’t even bother,” she said. “It was the nuns.”
Bushey has joined students in Hillsdale College’s Collegiate Scholars Program on trips to Greece and Turkey.
Carreño shared his upbringing in Venezuela. After a political crisis hit the country, Carreño said he experienced the financial repercussions of 2018.
“My monthly salary was $5 per month, but I needed $200,” Carreño said.
In 2018, he brought his immediate family to the United States for a job at The University of Oklahoma. After teaching in the Spanish department at UO for four years, Carreño came to Hillsdale College to continue teaching Spanish.
The event ended with professors giving students some advice when traveling internationally.
“Be open. Be humble and know that you have to learn,” Carreño said. Think that you cannot learn at once. It’s not just buying a brochure and that is it. And do what others do.”
Bushey quoted American poet and author Maya Angelou.
“Perhaps travel cannot conquer bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people laugh, cry, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends,” Bushey read.
