Gabriela Ajagan

Gaby and I had the good fortune of meeting on the set of the Chillz Ice Cream commercial in Bombay in April 2007. What struck me first was her Katarina Witt-like looks. I thought she might be Italian. When we finally struck up a conversation and she told me her name, I reckoned that my hunch had been true. How wrong I was.

Gabriela was actually a native of Stockholm, Sweden. Curiosity got the best of me and I inquired regarding the Mediterranean name and looks. As it turns out, mother was from Finland, and father was from Chile, a refugee from the early years of the Pinochet regime. In fact, to complicate matters further, “Ajagan” is the hispanization of the Irish “O’Hagan”. Her parents were both activists in the Communist Party of Sweden, and had met and fallen in love there. Café revolutionary as I am, this fact only endeared me to her even more. We hit it off and were instant friends.

Gaby’s parents decided that the household language would be Spanish. She learned Swedish only from kindergarten, although thereafter used it with her half brother and sister. What’s more, idyllic childhood summers were spent with her maternal grandparents in Finland, even though she never learned Finnish properly. Touchingly, through a magical combination of love and body language, Gaby developed with her grandparents. Gaby always accepted that they couldn’t be as close as both would have liked, owing to the language barrier. Her Finnish grandfather was a writer, with works never translated. It has left her with a feeling of never really knowing them as well as she would have liked. In contrast, Gaby has a profound relationship with her Chilean grandparents, with whom she carries on a lively correspondence to this day, despite their advanced age. All of this has been part of the process of developing her own unique life narrative.

Indeed, as a child, in such a situation, it is unsurprising that there would be a certain element of loneliness and differentiation from others. This never stopped her from having lots of friends. On her first day in kindergarten, in a relatively non-immigrant neighborhood, she was introduced by the teacher as the girl who “spoke another language”. Being Gaby, this fortunately did not stigmatize her.

Another memory she recounted to me was being at home in her bedroom with girlfriends while her Chilean father was having a political discussion with friends of his own downstairs. The Swedish friends were unsure of how to react to the fist banging on the dining room table. Gaby had to explain that it was not a heated argument; this is just how South Americans discuss issues that they feel passionate about. They raise their voices, not out of anger, but rather out of conviction. The Swedes had a bit of trouble grasping this.

At age 13, the family moved to Chile. This was a most difficult experience for her. To compound things, she went to a private school, putting her into somewhat segregated surroundings. The experience was a real eye-opener, especially since she had been brought up in a middle-class suburb of Stockholm, where (through the eyes of a child) she didn’t see injustice and segregation, since all of that is well hidden in Sweden. One of the things that made her feel separate from the rest of her Chilean classmates was that she was eternally la Sueca, or the Swede. What’s more, this was just the age when Gaby was starting to notice boys, but her upbringing thus far left her totally unprepared for Latin men with their catcalls and other such behavior.

Once older, Gaby set off on her own odysseys, living in Barcelona, New York and a return stint as an adult to Chile. Travels took her to Africa and, of course, India. Her view of her own national identity is the mixture itself. She accepted early on that she would be alone in certain aspects, but was comfortable with the complexity. She connects on a spiritual level to Latin American folk music and Latin humor. Yet, at the same time, she shares the ironic and cynical Swedish sense of humor as well. And her love interests tend to be with men who are outside their own country of origin.

After her trip to India, Gaby decided to return to Stockholm, of all locales, if only to make her peace with the place. Upon her return, she told me that the grayness of it all struck her, a thought that I found most sobering. But she’ll do well. She is a happy person with a balanced temperament and has shown herself to be a true citizen of the world. Nationally Confused? Not in Gaby’s case. Nationally Integrated is her creed.