Know who you talk to in Colombia

These are the types of families in Colombia

My upbringing was more humble and my family was what we can catalog as low/middle class in Colombia, my fathers were able to have a home and food, but they had to hustle and work to keep up with expenses. Nothing was coming in abundance and money was usually tight.

But the beautiful thing is I got to see the different types of upbringings by having friends from different social and economical circles.

I was able to meet people that really struggle with money, to the point to not being able to buy uniforms or books for school for their kids (my close friend); at the same time I was best friend with a guy that his family was in politics and had lots of influence and power. His house was big and with a pool, we went there for lunch all the time.

As a kid you are not really aware of the economical situation and hardships of your family and others, you just enjoy your time with your friends and that’s it.

But I am writing about this because now I am aware of it, I am almost the same age my father was when I was born. I just imagine the struggle to someone to provide for his family with a regular job and a new baby just being born.

I think families with high economic status, their problems revolve way too much in keeping an image and singling status. That’s why it is hard to really know if they have money or not, many of the “high status” families used to have money but finances start to diminish. But the lifestyle, travels and status needs to keep up. I know now how hard is to go back to a more austere life. My take is that many of the “old school money” families start to struggle with money because they can’t keep up with lifestyle and can’t adapt to new reality.

Now there’s a more interesting social class in Colombia. The “new money” families, usually made good money by being involved in commerce (and sometimes in some sketchy business that you can imagine). The best examples of these families are those involved in the San Andresitos business, some close family and even university friends were able to confirm this to me.

Those “new money” families literally hustle their way up, they took advantage and leverage the commerce to build enough wealth to be able to buy real state, send their kids to private schools and universities and buy cars. The more common way to refer to them is ‘levantados’ and it means ‘the lifted’, and clearly shows their reality. My take on them is they have a deep unconscious dilemma: they have the money and access to influence, but their manners and ways to act are too rustic and not in accordance with people that really run the show in Colombia.

Finally, and this is the type of family I was raised, is the regular family with regular jobs. I guess in America you will be called a "blue collar family”, working their way up and living pay check to pay check to survive and thrive. I would make the assumption that many of more families like these share my family history: grandfathers they were displaced from their country side homes during the violence in the 1950s and came to the city, because that was the only option available.

That’s my family history, and I guess of millions of other families. Remember that Colombia has the most internal displaced people in the world, and we are the result of it. Families had to hustle their way up, they believed in education and made the imposible to send their kids to university, more than often to public university. Money was always tight. But they make most of the working force by now, and its the real spirit of the Colombian people.

Colombians I truly believe are hard working and that’s why they do so good in USA in labor. They know how hard their upbringing is back in home that they know they have to do anything to keep their families happy.

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