The Bruzatoris in North Little Rock an all-American family

Argentina natives talk about moving to the U.S., encountering Pope Francis back home

Published: September 27, 2016

By Dwain Hebda
Arkansas Catholic

Dwain Hebda

The Bruzatori family shares a laugh and the homemade banner the St. Anne Church community prepared for them upon taking the oath of citizenship. They are Willy (left), Graciela, Camila, Guillermo and Florencia.

Dwain Hebda

Willy Bruzatori glances down at his smartphone and with a few flicks of his fingers, checks his messages. The phone has been buzzing off his hip for a while and it’s time to get caught up. He sighs.

“See, I’m a real American,” he said as an impish grin tickles the corners of his mouth. “Always working.”

The joke means something different now, just two months since Willy, 30, his twin sister Florencia “Flo” Bruzatori-Mullins, younger sister Camila “Cami”, 22, and his parents Guillermo and Graciela officially became citizens of the United States.

In the 14 years that have elapsed since they arrived America has been the Bruzatoris’ cultural cryptography, a social puzzle to be deciphered slowly.

“For (Flo and I), it was tough,” said Willy. “We were in the middle of high school and we had our group of friends. We learned English in Argentina, but it was all British English; it’s one thing when you have to learn it and it’s another thing when you have to come out here and talk and listen to the slang and different accents. It’s a whole different ballgame.”

The family didn’t look toward America as a way out of the abject poverty that motivates many immigrants; Guillermo worked in sales and Graciela built a thriving accounting business in Argentina. But decaying and increasingly dangerous social conditions there made America a beacon for a better life nonetheless.

“We had an economic crackdown (in Argentina) in 2001,” Guillermo said. “The American owner of my company was watching the television one night and saw we had a big problem in the streets, and he called me and said, ‘Hey, you cannot live over there, they are killing each other. Why don’t you come here and try to see if you can do something from here.’”

“To be honest, I thought that was a crazy thing,” said Graciela. “So I talked to him and said, you go and try and then I will follow you. So I stayed over there for like five months and then what happened was that someone was trying to attack me one night. So I told (Guillermo) hurry up, I want to leave this country.”

For the kids, coming to America was like landing on the moon.

“I was mad, I was upset. I had no idea what was going on. I thought we were just going to visit Dad and then come back,” said Cami who was 8 at the time and is now in college. She said she’s been surprised by how her perspective has shifted when she’s back in Argentina for family visits.

“It feels strange at first, but once you’re there it begins to feel like home again,” she said. “But at the same time, the states feel more like home now to me than Argentina.”

The mooring the family found was St. Anne Church and even now, with Willy and Flo both married and Flo the mother of three, the church is still an intersecting point for the family. Both Graciela and Guillermo work in the church office — he as assistant director of religious education and she as business manager — and the kids are all involved to various degrees. Flo, for instance, was recently profiled in Arkansas Catholic as one of the “15 Catholic young adults who inspire us.”

Chatting with the family, one soon realizes there’s a lot here that doesn’t immediately meet the eye. It’s not every household who’s experienced the leader of a nation, a cultural icon and the head of the universal Church more or less on a first-name basis. They’ve done all three.

One of Guillermo’s former students when he was teaching industrial engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires is Mauricio Macri, who is now the nation’s president. Guillermo’s late mother was a staffer and confidante of Eva Peron, former Argentine first lady. And the family has many memories of everyday encounters with their then-bishop back home, a guy better known now as Pope Francis.

All of these Guillermo and Graciela sort of shrug off as just interesting coincidences and certainly nothing to rival their July citizenship ceremony. Graciela, her eyes washing over her children and grandchildren, said it was especially meaningful being able to take that momentous step as a family July 26, amazingly, on the feast of St. Anne.

“From now on, that day is a day for real celebration in our family,” she said, with a smile. “I’m so happy, I feel really blessed to be in this country and be an American now.”