My mother was born and raised in Lima, Peru; my father, in a small town in Oregon. They met in the late 1960's when my mother was working in the Peace Corps Office in Lima and my father was serving in the Peace Corps. After several years, they moved to the States, got married and settled in Roseburg, Oregon where I was raised.

 

Lima and Roseburg could not be more different, and in the 70's and 80's they were even more distant than they are now. No social media, no Skype, no e-mail; long distance calls were very costly. My mom was the only one in her immediate family that migrated to the US. I visited our family in Lima several times as a child, but it wasn't until after college, when I really explored and connected with my Peruvian ancestry and identity. At that time, I spent a year in Peru to get to know my family and the country.

 

That year was transformative for me. I spent time with relatives, learned about my family history, took classes at the university, made friends, read about Peruvian history and politics, traveled around the country and became fluent in Spanish. By the end of the year, I felt more connected to myself and what, for me, the *Peruvian* in Peruvian-American meant.

 

​It was also the year that the seed for this project was planted. I was on a very long train ride in the Andes mountains, when I ran into a young woman whose mother was also Peruvian and her father, also a Peace Corps volunteer....