Sophmore Karen Garza poses in front of a stop sign in Tamaulipas. She was visiting her family over winter break.
Photo courtesy of Karen Garza
Dom Brown
Lantern Staff
At 20 years old, sophomore Karen Garza is no stranger to travel. Having made her first trip to Canada with her mother at the age of 15 and taking a trip to New York City, N.Y., all by herself when she was just 18, Garza is familiar with traveling between the three countries of North America.
“Every four months, I travel back and forth to Mexico, pretty much every time we have a break,” Garza said.
Entering her third semester at Butler Community College, Garza returned from her last trip just before the semester started. The whole point of the trip is to visit her family who live in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas about six hours to the United States/Mexican border. From El Dorado to Tamaulipas is a 16-hour drive, so it is understandable that the preferred method of traveling is a nine hour flight, usually taken through Delta Airlines.
In addition to her family, she visits all of her childhood friends that she grew up with living in Tamaulipas. While Garza has met many people in the States, there are some things that she prefers in Mexico like the liberties of being considered an adult at the age of 18 as opposed to 21 in the United States. Being able to go out and spend time with friends at bars after not being able to see them for so long was one of the highpoints of the trip.
“When I’m in the United States, I know different people there than I do here, so being back is a different atmosphere,” Garza said “I feel a little bit more welcome. I just like being in my own house.”
However, seeing her family and grandparents for the first time in four to six months was Garza’s favorite part of her most recent trip back to Mexico.
Despite all the political outrage that has occurred within the last year, moving across the border was no more difficult than any other time she traveled.
“The only difference between traveling was the president!” Garza said. “I thought that I would be given a rough time since Trump was elected president.”
An interesting story from the return trip was a shared interest in music. Over winter break, Garza developed an interest and likening to 70s music.
“I really like Fleetwood Mac, Garza said. “My mom showed me this song by Chris Isaac called “Wicked Games”, so I pretty much listened to them for the entire break.”
While at customs, the officer that was with her started playing that exact same song, which sparked a conversation between the two about the music that each of them liked.
“It was really nice, and it made my day,” Garza said.
Having returned the Saturday, Jan 14, she resumed classes in time for semester. Her final semester will be in the fall of 2017.