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at 15 years old Ruben Raposo arrived in Alabama with a dictionary a host family he had never met in one mission learn English my dad was a on top of being a priest he was a teacher so he was teaching Latin Spanish literature and Greek in the local school and my mom was there and that's when they met language sayings in Spanish is that a lot of people say is no me tires de LA lengua no me tires de LA lengua like don't make me say it don't make me say something that I shouldn't be saying or something I'm being gossiping or something so it's very common Spanish people are very very happy people in terms of being on the street friends and um bars and restaurants and I mean if you go to Spain or if you ever seen I'm moving to Spain people are on the streets all the time the No. 1 problem in Spain right now for new generations is how they're gonna make a living and how they're gonna afford housing hi I'm Alexandra Lloyd a French Canadian who's called Birmingham Alabama home since 2,017 welcome to from where to here the podcast that celebrates the rich diversity of languages cultures and the stories that connect us all each month I'll sit down with inspiring guests from different backgrounds to explore their cultures languages and tackle some fun in our truth or dare or debunk segment whether you're a language enthusiast a culture lover or just curious about the world you're in the right place let's dive into your next favorite cultural adventure at 15 years old Ruben Raposo arrived in Alabama with a dictionary a host family he had never met and one mission learn English what he didn't expect was to end up on a football field navigate a completely different school system and build a life that would keep him here for more than 30 years this is from where to here the podcast about language culture and the journeys that reshape who we are Ruben grew up in Madrid Spain what was supposed to be a one year exchange program turned into something he never planned for college at UAB a career in healthcare technology two master's degrees two companies and roots planted deep in Birmingham Alabama Today he lives here with his wife and their dog Romeo while staying deeply connected to his Spanish roots Ruben welcome to from where to here very excited to be here thank you Alex now before we dive into your journey we're starting with what I call a round of truth there are debunk so I have cards in this bowl OK and I'm gonna hand them to you OK and we have three colors so blue means truth you'll share something about Spanish culture that people assume is true red means dare so dare to teach me something in your language which is Spanish right Spanish from Spain obviously and the black means debunk okay so you draw just a card and then whatever the color you get is the challenge that you take on alright ready let's do it I got a black okay the black one so what's a stereotype about Spain or Spanish culture that you'd like to debunk well one thing uh people think about Spain is that everybody um is Catholic or religious and actually that's not the case uh quite often actually more recently because of the influence of other countries and other immigrants and and just diversity these days um Catholics not as it used to be a tradition in Spain Spain obviously most centuries uh has been a Catholic uh predominate uh culture but more recently it's been changing a lot because again uh I think new generations and also new diversity and new uh religions coming to Spain is less traditional than it used to be so it has changed a lot and you see it still changing today yes more and more and and I'm Catholic so I I go to church in Spain and I see the difference too there are less kids and less younger people in the church that they used to be actually one thing that um is very personal to me is Catholic because my dad was a priest so my dad uh actually my dad left the church for my mom so my mom and my dad met early 70s and that's one of the things that I'm always say I'm happy to be in this earth because a lot of things had to happen for me to be here and my dad got approval to leave the church and marry my my mom uh back in the 70s so you imagine how hard that was at the time but back to the question is that the religion itself in Spain is not as it used to be a traditional value in especially in younger generations and there's um also part of the um challenge of parents these days that there's a lot of more divorce and uh Spain is one of the top countries in divorce rates and so I think there's there's that traditional family that in the 70s 60s 80s and so forth was more Spanish uh tradition is not the case as much anymore that's interesting yeah it must have been hard for your dad to make that decision cause the church originally will not approve such move that's right to leave and then cause you can't have a relationship when you're a priest and so correct yes it was very hard um for him to be able to do that he had to get approved from John Paul the second we actually have the letter that John Paul the second agreed for him to uh release his vows and marry my mom um so yeah me and my brother obviously we didn't be here if that didn't happen at the time but um yeah they they actually met because my dad was a on top of being a priest he was a uh teacher so he was teaching uh Latin uh Spanish literature and Greek uh in the local school and my mom was there and that's when they met wow so it was really a commitment for him to say OK I'm gonna marry this woman and yes yes changing his life yeah and his life was all the church I mean he had been in the church since he was 10 years old so imagine uh he got married in 30s mid 30s so imagine uh yeah all living you know met met the love of your life and living the church but both are your love so I can't I can't imagine what he went through but yeah I'm very happy that and they're still together oh my dad unfortunately passed away but yes uh they were married all their life and yeah very happy marriage and um but he passed away of cancer about 18 years ago I'm sorry so yeah thank you so OK um yeah that's a good debunk yeah you can draw on the next OK see so I got red yep so um one of the language sayings in Spanish is that a lot of people say is no me tires de LA lengua OK OK you say no me tires de LA lengua like don't make me sad don't make me say something that I shouldn't be saying or something I've been gossiping or something so it's very common in Spain to say don't pull my tongue out literally they're trying to entice you to say it but you don't wanna say it so you end up not saying it usually saying no I'm not gonna say it so when you say that the other person say okay I understand no me tires de LA lengua yeah exactly yeah ah it sounds so great I love Spanish and you know a word that I like to say and it's the city which I think you're from oh well near where you're from so you're from Madrid that's right correct Madrid Madrid yeah but I love saying Barcelona Barcelona because you say it with a thong it's not Barcelona it's not Barcelona that's right Barcelona yes you got it that's right I love it you got it I love it it's so beautiful um okay one uh next one okay see what we got here I got blue a different one blue so this one is a truth what's something about Spanish culture that people assume is true and it actually is yes very social very open I mean we party all the time Spanish people are very very happy people in terms of being on the street you know friends and bars and restaurants and I mean if you go to Spain or if you ever seen I'm moving to Spain people are on the streets all the time we live in a very closely environment like you know we can do everything within feet we don't have to be in the house and get our car whatever so and that's a European thing too Italians do the same thing Portuguese French people it's very social but everybody that I've been here 30 years over 30 years and everybody that I speak with they say oh you from Spain they're like oh yeah people are so friendly I love Spain the people are so you know hospital and their hospitality and they're just when I wanna uh learn from you or they want just wanna make you comfortable so yeah it's very true you said it as oh we live close to each other or we can access places more it's more convenient than taking a car correct you think that's what contributed well I think that and also you know um we we are very open people and um we like to be around people like like we don't like to be alone and that's a great thing because I think in health uh overall the closer you are to your community and the closer you are to your society it impacts your health they go buy the bread they go buy the groceries my grandma did that every day so we get up go to the bread store go to the butcher go to the she will have a routine and she will get out and walk I mean first of all she's walking right she's grabbing all this stuff she's going and she's meeting her friends oh she's talking to the bread guy or she's talking to the pastry or she's talking to the butcher or she's talking to the fish guy so that's kind of the aspect of you know it helps your you know she did that all her life and to this day I see you know when I go to Spain this still older ladies and men that's what we do and new generations continue to pick up on doing that not as much I hope that doesn't change but new generations still you know going to the bakery going to the butcher shop going to all and getting around and then of course having tapas or dinner or restaurants I mean literally when you go to Spain you stop at 20 places for tapas and you just hang out have a beer or wine whatever and you support local yes yes all local yeah yeah yeah okay quick quickly a segment or a little story I went to Barcelona I haven't been to Madrid but would love to go and I got to experience first hand friends of my friend we gathered at a restaurant to have tapas and it was the most social community type of just gathering that just seems so effortless and alive and like old friends getting together even though I was not part of their group I felt like they have been my friends and we were just having a great time and then at the end I will always remember cause we ordered pretty much everything on the menu all little tapas or little bites and then at the end we just threw money on the table to pay the Bill and that was like one Bill and the whole thing of just sharing the food and the moment together it just effortless I think that's the best word I have yeah so I can totally understand what you're describing yeah yeah you you experienced it you you felt it I love it okay very good next one let's see what we got here another red dare to teach me a Spanish expression okay let's go with Cada maestrillo o cada maestro maestrillos like Little Master I mean like we all you know whether you do things around the house or we do the things at work each person has their own mastery of making their own things so uh so that's something you tell like um when you're working with somebody and you tell OK so you have your own way of doing things and somebody tells you how are you doing how are you painting the house or how are you gonna get to something um let me figure that out and sometimes like I don't need your help I just gotta figure I got my own way I got my own ways let me do my own way my dad used to say that a lot because he would uh he like to do things on his own way and he would like fix his plumbing or he would go and fix something else and he would be like somebody would tell him why why don't you do it this way he's like no no come on my street attention to the video I know why I'm doing this way just let me fix let me do it so it's a very Spanish common thing to do because each one is like I figured it out already I kind of I know what I'm doing you know what I mean yeah I love it okay say the first word again more slowly maestrillo maestrillo maestrillo cada maestrillo maes Maestro Maestro yeah so each the reason why I say maestro is because small master like you're mastering something like so you're like the master of something but you're a little master like they're they're poking fun at you right like you're the little master of this little thing uh huh so you have your own way of doing this little thing right Cada maestrillo tiene su librito yes my French is coming out when I use when I use my I can see that yeah very good yeah okay love it alright let's see what we got blue so one of the and things that is true about Spain that people may not know is that there are we have 17 different regions okay going back you know to the Roman Empire and going back to the Greeks and Egypt and so they have built such a culture that is even language so each region not every region has their own language but there are um dialects exactly well Spain has multiple dialects and one is the Basque dialect and the other one is the Catalan from Barcelona region then you have Galicia then you have Valencia so each one has their own dialect now most of them come from the Latin background because Spain Spanish comes from the Latin um root language however the bass is one of those kind of mystery LA uh languages not really know where it came from because it doesn't come from Latin the the Basque language is very very difficult to learn it's completely different like you can if you learn Spanish you can learn Catalan you can learn Galician you can learn Valenciano or Majorcan from the islands because it's very similar like Italian or French but bass from the bass region it it sounds like Russian or Polish or Romanian has nothing to do with the Mediterranean languages where does it sit geographically compared to so yeah if you go if you're in Madrid you drive up five hours north you run into San Sebastian or Bilbao and that's the those are the two main cities yeah I've been to Bilbao yeah so Bilbao and you just drive up uh you run into uh Bilbao and Sebastian and they're in the close to France and they're also close to uh of course they're over in the Atlantic Ocean part of the top of Spain and if you're in Barcelona it's like a three hour drive so that region is very very uh I would say traditional still they hold their culture very close to them and their language even closer to the point where now it's becoming a challenge politically in the Spain to hold a parliament or a congress because just to go back a little more into the death of how Spain works um in order to have majority in the parliament or majority in the congress you have to have um certain regions support you so Catalan Basque Galicia they have their own parties local parties just similar to Germany or similar to um um Netherlands if those parties don't um support the main parties there's only two main parties in Spain if you don't support the main party uh then you won't be able to hold the presidency of the Congress and it's becoming very hard to manage uh where you're able the president is able to appease all the regions and still hold a government so we're not actually we've been in that kind of scenario for quite a few years now in Spain it's getting challenging to to do that so yeah cause then no one is happy with what is being done cause they all have desires that vary from every and growing up were you aware of those um regions and yes yeah yes I mean I try we know my parents took me around Spain and around Europe so we were familiar with those and we like to experience those the the food the other thing that I forgot to mention is that each region has their own food right so it's like just because you go to Madrid and you eat tapas doesn't mean you're gonna eat the same thing in Barcelona or in Bas as amazing food uh seen the same thing with Galicia or Mallorca or South Spain they all have their own food scene and the food dishes and like Valencia has their paella but if you go to Andalucia or the Andalucia you have so many different type of dishes so you just have a food you know richness and and culture and they have their own traditions and they have their own parties and their own festivities and so all that comes with that region what do you think is one food that is unique to Madrid or it represent Madrid pretty well oh yeah I mean I would say always comes to mind it's called Cocido Cocido madrileño it's a Madrid stew and you can eat it all year round my mom makes it all the time when I go there I say mom I want cocido oh the other thing is lentejas which is like a lentil soup but cocido is my favorite because it's this broth that's been stew with bone marrow sausage uh chicken broth chicken bones chicken broth and then you put chickpeas all there and then you have a soup that is made with all the richness of all the bones and the marrow and the chorizo you eat the soup first and then the second plate you eat the chickpeas with all the meats that you've been stewing on top of also cabbage so it's it's very very uh satisfying my my wife also loves it I mean like everybody that goes to Spain you have to have Cocido madrileña cause otherwise she didn't experience this is kind of like Valencia you go to Valencia you have to have paella but paella is now everywhere it came from from Valencia but you can have paella different type of paellas like in Barcelona you have fideua which is no actual rice it's a it's a it's a type of pasta it's like a little uh like a small short pasta yes it's like a and so instead of rice they put that and then they make their own broth like it could be like clam or it could be vegetables so it can be chicken or fish so those are the main ones but yeah that's making me hungry now I do I do I'm happy yes it is hard to make but yes I do have the recipe oh OK good so you can keep the tradition alive yes yes love it alright blue so a truth something true that people assume about Spain or the Spanish culture that it is actually true so one of the truth about Spain uh and now it happens actually more and more than it used to be um is a new generations are having to um live with their parents so I have friends that actually still live with their parents and they're in their 40s they're not in their 30s anymore and the reason for that is because housing is so hard to get housing is very expensive and affordable for the for the majority or for a lot of the younger generations cannot afford like if you go to college and get a college in Spain you cannot make enough money to buy a place and rent is also expensive in the last few years rent all over Spain has gone up due to a lot of people moving to Spain from all over the world but also due to the lack of uh salaries increasing to the rate of inflation so 20,000 yes so 19 to 20 thousand dollars a year correct I mean that's poverty here right right so okay and then housing in mad I mean the main cities you can forget about it like Madrid if you wanna live anywhere close to Madrid or close to Barcelona or Valencia I mean the the condos like a one bedroom one bathroom condo would be half a million dollars oh wow or more and you forgot the house cards you still paying for 300 and then you have to drive an hour to get to the main city where you your job may be or you have to drive in and out out of the city every hour and that's three four hundred thousand dollars it's it's Spanish housing you can read in the news as going up 50 60% just in the last four five years and that's because a lot a lot of people have turned their former houses into Airbnbs driving people out people have sold out um generations of of people that own their house now sold it to their out and made money and and then new development has not kept up because to to build new development it takes a lot to do that to from the government to open up new land open new uh spaces so yeah just to go back to the question we have the number one I would say the number one problem in Spain right now for new generations is how they gonna make a living and how they gonna afford housing there's just for a room one room that's what your kitchen living room and bedroom and then you have a toilet yeah and then you share that with three or four others oh 1 yeah one you have your own bedroom and then you're sharing your kitchen and you're sharing the you have your bathroom and kitchen and and and Bruce that's right but they have three rooms so they rent three rooms to three different people or three friends so yeah that's that's that's the in Madrid specifically Barcelona is worse actually in Madrid uh is coming to that where new generation I feel sorry for them because it's so hard for them to to live to be independent I mean they're still not that they don't wanna leave their parents or they have a you know it's it's tradition to live with your parents but not up to your 30s and 40s or or a lot of people do want to live by themselves but they cannot because they can't afford it yeah that must be hard um and I mean now we're seeing it economically it's pretty much where it seems like but that's an interesting fact that it's been like that for a longer time yes at least and it's not yes it's not it's not getting better just out of curiosity what kind of job do you have do you need to have to earn more than $20,000 in Spain that's a great question so does to have a a job that pays 50 60 so for all jobs compared to the United States they all pay an an amount much much much less I mean like an it person let's say I'm you know an it engineer or an it architect here would make probably one 51 80 right easily over there the top be 60 so when people talk about you know why um the US is the way it is and Europe is the way it is I I work in technology and I see that US moves fast compared to Europe and tonight it's just because there's more investment there's more um access to to the investment there's startups there's just more funding venture capital uh investment banking uh a lot of entrepreneurship the dynamics of the entrepreneurship in this country just just completely takes out um what you can do in Europe uh especially in Spain Spain actually is behind other countries because they have such a level of bureaucracy such a level of tax level for entrepreneurs I'm not talking about just regular income but you can yeah just regular income regular jobs um that it it really makes this the the economics and the society um much much more harder for people to build their business um also Spain is very um very um public in terms of jobs so most of the jobs are offered by the government meaning the private enterprise has much less participation than the public so if most young people say where would you wanna uh work and they would say the government and I even Antonio Banderas had a Antonio Banderas the actor from Spain yeah Antonio Banderas you said yeah he said we cannot build a country where young people say I want to work for the government he said it recently in a in a in an interview he's like in United States he knows United States very well I wanna build my own thing I don't wanna work for the government and so that itself is is been a a problem I'm I'm saying it's been a challenge because if you have the government jobs and yeah a secure job but that doesn't help in terms of the entrepreneurship and the dynamics and building new things yeah because I knew ideas I mean you need both to succeed exactly society yeah yeah so I think that's part of the some of the challenges that are happening now and I so I think some of the new generations do want and I understand like new innovation and new technologies but they cannot get so they actually live in Spain they can uh you know build a business so they either go to England or they go to Germany or Switzerland or they come to United States because they can scale so much rapidly their idea and they can make it over there well and we're gonna share more about we're gonna dive into your journey and how you came here to the US yeah but before we do that let's uh OK draw another one take another card yeah black black so one of the things that um people you know really understand now more than they used to about Spain is that we have a very um public help or support from the government which is great because healthcare uh is provided for everyone everybody everybody has to make money some way I don't like when I hear and people ask me don't you get free healthcare it is not free we do get healthcare the government provides us healthcare but my mom and everybody else pays Social Security and pays the taxes the taxes are much higher to fund for the for the funding of the healthcare right nurses still get paid everybody has to get paid still the same way and the government still has to buy supplies from all over the world because everybody makes those things so that is there and it's a very very good system because it gives everybody access to that one of the challenges with that is first of all the taxes are higher taxes that's what it would be then yeah for someone earning at least 20 to 30% will be taken off your check for a salary of $20,000 of 20,000 correct so now when we talked about housing now you're subtract that so now you're down to what some people live with have to live with 12 dollars a month in Madrid I mean that's it's like unless you have wealth in the family there's no way to survive right I mean it's really hard to make a good living and correct have a respectable job you may have fun yeah exactly so you may have you may have a job you're not ramping up your life so you are kind of stuck you may most of the time you don't have the job other thing is that you don't have the job that you went to school for why is that because another good thing is that everybody gets access to education a very very low cost it's not free but very very low cost so like tuition would be like 400 bucks or 500 bucks for semester it's very very low which is great uh huh however if everybody has access to to getting a bachelor's um that's that's the one that's that's mostly access to everybody goes to school which is great education but say you're an engineer and you came out with your bachelor's in engineering and there's no job because there's so many engineers out then there's more lawyers in Madrid than all of France I'm starting to see the trend here like you're painting the picture pretty well here so yeah I mean you don't stand out as much but it's so accessible but then it's good because it's giving the education right to people so that they can learn and apply their learnings right but then it's it's hard to find a job probably correctly and it's that's true yes and lawyers and lawyers or doctors or you end up doctors or nurses like for example when I came to this country and I Learned that doctors are making 3 4 500,000 dollar a year what it's being a doctor even a really good surgeon that gets in surgery and doing brain surgery he wouldn't make more than $150,000 so he is making and some of these are making a million dollars in the US so yeah I mean that goes to kind of a lot of the differences so when people ask me things about why what what system is better I'm like well it's like it depends right I can't tell you which system is better because it depends on what you as a person decide to do with your life no free access again access to healthcare access to education but you're gonna have a harder time either you get into the hospital because the capacity is also throttle because now with the public option capacity is a challenge because the more people are paying in the system because people are older and live longer you have less capacity to get to all the surgeries just in Canada there's a waiting list in Spain we have a waiting list my dad had to wait on the waiting list to get cancer treatment and then we had to go private so then you have a second system of private to get to private so you can get faster with education is similar the rich people and the people have money go to private the people that don't have so much money or in the medium low income are gonna go public and education you get an education but once you get out then you're gonna have a hard time finding a job in your field you might end up you might go to Madrid and say hey and you talk to the bartender and they're like uh what what did you go to college what you do is I'm bartending but I went to chemistry I Learned chemistry so that's that's what he could get are bachelors and doctorate and just education in general from Spain recognized across other countries or around the world across Europe yes across Europe yeah what about America we'll have to get a translation translating uh and they'll have to do some other work like it's not 1 to 1 they'll have to actually not just more money but actually work in the field that there they like to work on not either bartending or hospitality hospitality is a huge space in this tourism obviously you're always gonna find a job in Spain in tourism but you might be a engineer working in tourism because there's no other job interesting okay so really the debunk here is how it's not as simple maybe as Americans think it is to live in Spain and to agree yes I I can yes cause I get these questions all the time I have people asking me what so simple like shouldn't be just like you go there and you get another thing is like a lot of people are moving to Spain from all over the world Americans too and I think it's great loving my country and then they find but it's different for them it's different for them because they come from if you're moving to Spain from United States let's just say I'm moving to Barcelona yeah let's say you're moving to Barcelona okay your level of income is already higher than the people in Spain so you're gonna be able oh with my income yes OK cause it's different so yeah the two you have the ones that don't have a job that wanna move to Europe the slices of say Spain especially in the field yep I mean you may get a job yeah again tourism or a hotel or doing something around those areas but getting a job as a doctor or as a nurse or as a lawyer or as a professional job that's gonna be really hard um say you're moving with your job from here to there then your level of income is much higher so yes you are in such a huge advantage to the people of Spain because you are making probably two or three times more so then that's what's happening then the people that move there with the level of income a nomad an engineer that works all over they go there like okay 600,000 for a condo sure I'll pay 700 500 so then they start taking the local properties from the locals yeah and that and then displaces the the local people so then it becomes a gentrification problem Portugal has the same problem yeah you go to Lisbon there's a lot of Americans there that yeah it's great for them because they come with a huge income and a huge benefits and they can work from there but the local people are not making 150 200,000 dollars yeah Portugal I think was having a special visa or welcome golden visa yes the the golden visa yeah I mean for people under 30 or 35 I mean we were yeah at some point we were thinking well should we do that exactly and I know people that took on that insane thing in Spain had a golden visa they stopped it because they see the consequences in Barcelona they see the consequences in the cities that now the locals are like why is the price increasing so much because now you're driving up driving up the the people the local people like the people that have those properties are great for them cause they make tons of money but the people are trying to buy there the live there or the family from there it has become a problem yeah it becomes much harder yes okay let's see what else we have here alright red red so there okay so the let's say one of the ones that I really like to say all the time and another one this one my dad also taught me and when I was little little little like I don't know I seem to remember my dad just keep on putting this thing on my head I'll keep Madruga Dios LA ayuda which means the one that the person that gets up nice and early and the dawn much early um god will help will help him through the day and my dad was always like like telling me this because he was always like

don't sleep in you know until 9: 34:54

00 or 10 o'clock they'll get you up and um my dad and when I was young my parents had a we still have this place but my dad started it we had this land uh out in the village out about an hour and a half outside of Madrid it's in a town called uh belvis and uh in that town where my mom is from they bought a piece of land and we were my brother and I I think my brother was like four or five I was like two and three and four years old we used to go there every summer but they bought this land of course it's like 10 acres okay well he loved to till the land so he would go there and you know plant trees and olives and almonds and he started chickens and then uh we had um you know all kinds of collect we had to collect the internet so anyway every summer because we were in school most of the time but during the year we would go back and forth but always have chores for us so

so he'd be like 7: 35:50

00am tomorrow morning you get your butt in the car we're going to till you know we would plant potatoes plant chickpeas plant peppers and all kinds of veggies so that's where my that's where that saying goes cause every every night he's like I can madrigal de dios LA ayuda my tomorrow morning you gonna get you ha ha so you gonna have to get up and get to work yes I bet it was a beautiful garden too oh we but with all this effort and that and that's the hard work that discipline that kind of your parents teach you and you obviously at the time you don't realize to you you wanna be at the pool you wanna be with your friends you don't wanna be out in the land and till then um the land or learn you know learning how to plant a tree but my dad instilled us that and obviously we still adore doing that and you learn that after so many years of the discipline that that touch and the hard work and and the goodness of that so that's amazing yeah I I love it well that wraps up our segment of truth there or debunked okay thanks for playing along yeah that's great today's episode is brought to you by Red Cat Coffee House and their landmark series coffees as a cat lover I could not resist but introduce you specifically to this blend called Light Rails it features a cat on the label but not only that each blend features a landmark is inspired by a landmark of the city this one is inspired by our vibrant Rainbow Tunnel downtown and it has sweet fruits and mixed berries you can find the landmark series including blends like Iron Works Full Steam Ahead Alabama Audubon and John's Valley Trail either online at REDCAT locations or your local Biggley Wiggley it's coffee with a story and even with a feline charm Ruben really your journey started with a decision your parents made for you they wanted you and your brother to learn English your brother came to the US first and you visited him in Tennessee when you were about 15 what was your first impression of America during that trip yeah actually I was 12 at that time yes yeah that's my my second time I came with when when I was by myself at 15 I was 12 yeah my brother already come as a change student because he's three years older than me uh he's the one that that my parents um took on the initiative first when I came it was a Christmas um we wanted to come and visit him for Christmas up in Tennessee and um it was a and his family were very welcoming we had a great time spending Christmas with them we exchanged gifts I mean the first time I got to basically you know learn from the culture the close culture of I mean you see it on TV you see it on you know all different aspects of I mean I knew of American life through the TV or through my brother when he call us but when you land and when you get to meet the the folks uh and the family it was very welcoming like I said very um special to learn that um how Christmas was for them and and and how my brother was part of the family already like he had been there only for like six months something like that so five or six months so I really enjoyed it and I felt like well this is in the good thing for that is that it gave me kind of a preview of what it could be when my time was up yeah did the were there any other kids at that house or was it only him no he he had another brother from the family and then he had another brother was not in the house and they all came and got to meet them and yeah we toured around his high school so I got to learn his high school where he went to high school uh the food uh gather around different uh restaurants and just uh we landed in Atlanta so got to visit Atlanta just some of the culture of you know the terrain the nature uh I was really impressed about all the trees because I live in Madrid and you know we have good parts but when you're out in the open and out in the country there's you know we got to see a lot of different aspects of of the south very cool you kind of alluded to it but soon after you came to Alabama as an exchange student yourself and you stayed with a host family for a year what do you remember most about that first year oh yeah so what I remember the most is kind of the the first few months so I had already Learned some English in Spain but obviously the way we learn it in Spain the pronunciation the the speed of the conversation that's just not that's just not gonna be possible to replicate right unless you know you went to a formal like a actual full English school which I did not um but so the language was for me was I would say basic to medium I mean I could I could understand more than I could speak and obviously I could speak I could uh understand better than I could even write full sentences like complete sentence so the first things I remember was like you know how am I gonna go to school like literally I got here on a Monday or something like that and the next week I had to be um on for the first the first my junior high school like I first day of school like I didn't have like 3 months of preview or 3 months of 2 months of month of you can practice no the first day of class and yes went in yeah so my my first week my host parents took me to the school and say you know this is your school this is the lockers these are this is kind of the layout obviously nothing looks like my school in Spain it's different layout um the this is your schedule this is your six periods this is all your classes and um you know you're gonna have history and biology and math and all this and English literature and so the first thing I have is a dictionary on my hand everywhere and so those first few weeks I couldn't really keep up with any of the classes so the what I what the what I told the teachers like please write on the you know after class please write a note on I'm happy to come back and please write what I have to do for the next day because otherwise I'm gonna fall behind and my my host parents kind of knew that cause the first week they like he knows some English he knows how to order steak and eggs he knows how to say you know milk and cereal but in terms of full sentences he's not gonna be able to to do that right yeah right he's gonna need some some help so they told the school like you know his English is good in terms of comprehending but he's not gonna be able to speak full sentences or full dialogue and also his books he's you're gonna have to tell him kind of where to sit so um to answer your question the first few months literally dictionary on one hand and book on the other and just word by word we didn't have all these tools that we have now so literally I would go okay what does that word mean and then put it on and then figure out and then I would write it sometimes in Spanish so that I could figure out what the whole sentence would be so that that was that was my first view I mean I would say probably the first two 3 months were literally like that until I could actually my brain started to like I'm gonna pick up in all these different words of the this pronunciation I mean even where people will tell me things I'll be like OK like people will speak to me and all I can say is like OK cause I I can't I'll be like sorry could you repeat and they will repeat and I actually that was me when I first came to Alabama and I spoke English right but yeah the southern accent I mean this was in oh yeah also cause you were yeah you came to Alabama too so I was up a a Smith Lake about an hour away from here from Birmingham and you know the the southern accent is pretty heavy in there um so you can't teach that in Spain even unless you're here people come from the north like what is he saying we go up to new to Boston and then the Boston people speak with the Boston accent the same thing yeah yeah I mean you mentioned having your school homework and then your dictionary and looking up word by word to understand like maybe the question of the homework yes or or the instructions that your teacher gave you were you ever discouraged or wanted you just go back to Spain and be like okay this is not worth it like I just wanna go back home and no yeah I don't remember being like fully discouraged but yeah there were times where like this is this this is gonna I mean this I I

I literally would get home after 3: 44:53

00

we'll come home at 3: 44:57

00 I would have like something to eat and then I would just study for hours and then the next day kind of do the same thing and and I saw the progress once I start seeing the progress then I'm like yeah I got this but the first few weeks I'm like this is the only way I can do it like literally I can't go back home after three months like my plane ticket was not until the following year and I can't call my mom and say my parents say hey look I can't do this and the family was great my parent host parents are they're part of my family they they encourage me they help me so like oh yeah that could have been something yeah I have a tutor to help um my post parents didn't know I like of Spanish I mean they were not Spanish fluent or anything they didn't know anything about Spanish and they know no no they no no Learned probably just some words haha be hard for them to learn but but no no they didn't know um but they gave me the tools to help me like what do you need like and I'm the tour was not an option but like do you need like um help with getting you more time with the teacher or they knew that they could but as they saw me picking it up that I was picking it up pretty fast that I yeah well for you that requires a lot of perseverance but obviously language was a huge challenge what um what subject were the hardest American history was on my first semester I remember that being literally really I'm learning the American Revolution entire form you know how the United States form wow okay the pledge of allegiance that's cool yes that's part of your service yes the pledge of allegiance and we said it most of the days in school we said the pledge of allegiance I had to learn all the states obviously all the states capitals all the state uh all the Constitution all these things that were very English you know very specific so yeah I mean I was a history and then the other the good news though was that I was advanced in math from Spain I was advanced in algebra and biology so those science classes pretty much were done for me I took AP's the following year and I was fine but the English literature and obviously because of the language and history because you have to read a lot and you have to comprehend full text and then in the when you had a test then you have to describe the whole thing they were no like the ones that were a B C d easy right or multiple choice yeah that's gonna take some more effort OK um and also I heard there's a story involving a football field and a very confused coach tell us what happened here yes I mean first literally first I would say first two weeks of being in the school the football coach um Coach Williams I still remember his name Coach Williams great man he uh he comes to me in the middle of the hall like I'm just sitting around break time and he's like I heard you from Spain yes I'm from Spain and I heard you play soccer yes so um we we want you to be up in the clubhouse at three PM after your seventh period up in the clubhouse I'm like what what's going on like is there some can you repeat please yeah can you can you tell me no like he literally say you kick the ball OK OK so I'm like I don't even know where the clubhouse is at this point hahaha but you know I got to the clubhouse after 7 period I'm still on my I mean I'm a Jean I'm wearing jeans like today and wearing my tennis shoe my regular shoes me is like here's the ball he puts me on this trip point and I'm like I knew about football obviously my brother had played uh high school kicker too so I kind of I knew obviously what he was doing but I had no practice I mean I had no I mean I just came in and so anyway I get to the clubhouse I kick the ball on the instep point it goes through the uprise puts me on the 20 yard line now I'm 30 kicking 30s he's like oh yeah you're a kicker so now from now on this time every day hahaha so that's how I joined the football team and from there on you know I was part of the Pep rallies and part of the football team which was great because it was a great that's amazing camaraderie and and good good times with with friends and and it really help me combine with the with the culture and then now that I was part of the kicker people saw okay now you know you get to meet a lot of folk you you get that social aspect from Spain that's right now back that's right through instead of being like the Spaniard that nobody knows what he does what now it's like you're part of the yeah yeah that's great it sounds like you really had people cheering you on yeah like this coach um and then also your host family they really wanted you to succeed and yeah it sounds like it really made a difference people are really welcoming uh so yeah um in Spain you stay in the same classroom all day uh you come to Alabama and then suddenly everyone's moving between lockers and classes like what was that like what tell us more yeah the legend of that really play a a mind trick on me because obviously the timing of being so early in the process like literally just got here a week ago and being involved in all that and taking all on such a sort really cause some logistics issue in that sense where okay lockers we don't have lockers um you stay in the class the teacher comes to you and you just you just go through the every signature every um class Pierre was broke his history on top of that was broken into 15 minutes the first part and then the other 30 45 40 minutes was after lunch so you would take a lunch break and then come back well I happen to just not come back because in Spain we take a break we take literally we eat lunch and then we take another 30 40 minutes break just to like socialize again hang out with your friends play soccer I play soccer every day in Spain after lunch and kick around and hang out no literally after the bell rang you get your back back on the back on the desk and I was just walking around and people ask me what is he doing like people people I went to I will go to like the library or like the football the the outside and hang out and people like he never comes back why is he not coming back so they end up calling my host mom is like he's not coming back like he's he's coming the first part but after lunch he apparently just disappears so my mom tells me my host mom is like you know that you I'm like no I mean like where's my break like I eat lunch but then the bell rings so I think I need a break I need a break after the break right exactly like I need to digest my food and uh and she's like no no no so the principal calls my mom and they take me to the principal and the principal's like you understand like literally after this you don't have a break you go back and so that first I think like first week I missed like the second part of history oh no history too exactly I was like I'm like and the teacher and so yeah that was an anecdote I tell everybody because you think you know the people tell you but until you experience it and until you go through the things my mind to your point my mind is still thinking Spanish things because I'm still my brain is like still thinking Spanish logistics or Spanish things that are not here yeah did you notice at some point like hmm like there's no one around me I did but I was like where do I'm supposed to be back like I don't I was confused for so many days like uh okay I'm here but I don't see anybody here and I see it's all quiet this is funny now I mean let's face it you were 15 at the time alone in a foreign country like tell us what was the hardest emotional part of that first year I think the hardest part definitely not having your family members uh your your parents your brother um to be there when when things either you didn't know or somebody to but I did have I mean I I call my parents at the time was very expensive to call Spain imagine early 90s to call long distance it was very expensive so I couldn't call every day even if I wanted to um so we could we were able to call like once a week or so and you know hearing them on the phone obviously help a lot and then supporting me through you know telling me you know do you need anything are you good you know what's going on and um but that and and I think you know the social aspect of being we were out in the lake so we were out kind of in the country with you know with the you know walking around or what like I didn't experience like basically I would just go outside of my apartment and be with everybody but that wasn't there because we we live in houses separately like like big houses or even out in the country you live separately you know you don't see anybody basically so that that was a challenge but I I kind of got used to because I was so immersed in learning the language and learning what I had to do that I kind of those things were not in my head all the time like I got used to like coming home and Tom my host dad would take me out on the lake and so we would go out and boat riding and fish and ride uh that's fun and ride the skis I have a skier a water skier so I would drive the boat and I would ride the seadoo so those things help me the transition because I had things to do and my host parents were really good at that because even during the months ahead of my first year they were always getting me into new things like I started playing golf I started um playing soccer again or I started going and learning skiing or they would take me to the Carolina so they would take me to Florida they would take me so they would always do things so that I was not necessarily thinking not about my parents but like I was learning new things and that really helped me new experiences new learnings were these activities new completely new for you yeah yeah never done those like water ski yeah never water ski never got on a boat uh on the lake I mean the the lake is beautiful and I still go back and seeing the lake which lake is it Smith Lake Smith Lake OK it's about 45 minutes yeah it's a beautiful lake um jumping on the lake and swimming just fishing just like I would come home and that's literally the first thing we would do like change into our bathing suit especially if the weather is good and go down to the lake and hang out so that really help um because obviously if you're in a place where you don't really have anything to do then yeah it would have been yeah much more harder but um having those activities and having those the band because I play saxophone in Spain oh so I was also in the band so I was also in band practice all these things is that either new or transported from Spain like soccer and music that I could still do here that's great one thing that you mention not being able to go to one place to another I mean obviously 15 I mean here it's 16 to get your driver's permit uh what age is it in Spain I was 21 21 so big difference but it's not like you need it as much as let's say in Alabama that's right and that's something that doesn't get talked a lot as part of like student exchange having access to transportation because you come at a young age you don't necessarily have the permit that you need but in Alabama that's a reality you need a car to get pretty much everywhere like what was it like for you to not being able to drive when you came and I think you you actually flipped the script or you went all in and taking permits can you share a little bit about that yeah so the first yeah I was 15 so I could not um I don't have a car at the time but I could start the process to learn uh both and so the good thing about um coming so early is that I was able to register for driver's ed and for boating ed boating education so because we live boating yes so both of them were taught at the high school so they say you can take driver's ed and boating in the same class so the teacher would part of it would be driver's um education all the text all the all the um cases and all the regulations and rules and then you would also learn boating so I Learned boating and I got my driver's license and my boating at the same time perfect and so in the meantime my host parents had to work they were actually both of them working in Birmingham so they would drive leave in the morning drive to Birmingham and then thankfully my host mother's mother my grandmother American grandmother would pick me up after school and take me home for the first I think it was the first yeah until until my birthday also November so when I was able to get my license and then obviously getting a car is not easy unless you have so unfortunately they she had a car or my family had a car that I could borrow so I was able to to drive a car but that was a big difference because in Spain um you don't drive so I was telling my friends hey I'm driving and like what you're driving you're not even you're not even 16 yet cause I was already driving literally up to the point of 16 cause you can start you know getting some practice and they were jealous about that for sure but uh but you have to to your point in the I mean not just Alabama but you know any pretty much anywhere in the US unless you live in the big cities you need a car otherwise you're just gonna be uh very stuck uh and public transportation is not reliable in this country so unless again you live in New York or Chicago or something like that but most of the states you need a car and I think exchange students don't realize that oh even immigrants don't realize that until they come and like oh well without a car you stuck that's a big change yeah and most exchange students go home and that's the end of it you you actually ask your host family if you could come back for you your in senior years what made you want to return yeah so when you got to the um first of January as I remember now 96 January February of 96 I came August of 95 that's when I started thinking okay in may I'mma school years gonna be done what I'mma gonna do I'mma so my brother had decided to stay too so I kinda um knew that that could be a possibility but of course my host parents had to accept me to come back to their house and be in their house um so I kind of I kind of really felt good about where I was in the school I was progressing well I had good grades I mean I was in the football team I was in now I started soccer I always wanted to go back to soccer um and then I wanted to start learning other sports so I started you know asking my host parents hey if I would like if I if I can stay without being an option and they were like literally no problem you can come back anytime that's amazing so that was that was a game changer because my parents kind of want you know they basically say it's your choice at this point they wanted me to come back but they were not those kind of parents are like you have to come back like we can't let you stay there one more year that decision early 96 um I felt like I needed to to finish my studies here I was in good place and then I all I started thinking about college that time so you did one year and then that's when you asked them or you wait way before yeah the first six seven months and when I knew that I felt oh because yeah they what happens you start you also have to start thinking about your visa your visa is only good for one year so if you wait literally until the may or June of when your visa ends or when you have to go back when I had to go back um I would have I wanted to start the application ahead of time that visa was it a student visa which one was it that's the F1 visa I know you listen to from where to here because you're not into surface level travel you want the story not just the sights but let's be honest breaking the language barrier can be intimidating that's why I created the 5 phrases that unlock any culture these are five simple phrases designed to pass small talk into real conversations from almost anywhere in the world don't just be a tourist be a connector you can grab it at from where to here pod.comslashfivephrases that's your shortcut to unlocking real conversations but yeah so eventually you face a decision after they said yes this would be an option uh you can either go back to Spain or stay in the US for college at that point you had a home country waiting for you and a life that could have gone either direction you were the decider of okay what is it my life gonna be like right what tipped the scales towards rather than going back yeah at that time um between going back to Spain and starting college there or or or staying here um I started thinking what career and what professionally I wanted to do so my parents because they were teachers they also taught us that kind of aspect of starting thinking about what you're gonna do with your life um they were very um stew on education and on being um disciplined about education so I was on that path of okay if I go back to Spain now am I gonna be able to study things that I wanna study am I gonna have the access to what I wanna do technology wise and I I I started playing with computers in my senior year meaning I started thinking about computers computers were coming on and a lot of things were all in computers so and I wanted to study computers so when I looked at colleges here in Spain the access to the to what I wanted to do career wise um I applied to UAB applied to Alabama and then I felt like I did the act I did all the studies so I was prepping already even though if if if I didn't stay here I was already prepping myself to having both options cause the Spanish option was there but as I went through the process of college I understood and my parents obviously had to fund that which was you know also I had to give my heads up hey I'm gonna stay here my brother already stayed so kind of that path was already starting but funding college and getting a college visa uh you also have to start early process so that the career aspects is what made the difference for me I enjoy I I was coming here quite a lot even from Coleman um I was you know going to different music venues and theater and enjoying you know the things that Birmingham has to offer restaurants so forth so I felt like Birmingham was my next uh stage to to learn my my career very cool now another thing to we haven't talked about but is during college you also did a one year internship in Germany by that point you've already done the hard work of adapting to a new culture your new language even um and I wanna know like did the second time feel any easier or is it a different challenge every time that's a great question um it's a different challenge yeah I have to say that I even uh have bigger challenges after that was to further my market positioning where UAV was offering Germany internship with different companies so I was like I go back to Europe and I get paid to do this and that's a no brainer yeah I mean yeah so and I get to learn a new language um obviously German is tiny more difficult I would say than than English for me cause I went there I went to Heidelberg spent like 2 months at the university of Heidelberg trying to learn German um but yeah when that program opened I'm like sign me up I got lucky and they gave me an internship with Lufthansa Airlines uh a Frankfurt airport and uh they gave me that previous uh prep German prep at the end of the day my German was not up to par but I still finished the internship they pay me for my internship I learn I put it on my resume and that's what I accomplished and I had a great time in Germany I mean like I got to visit Spain obviously with my family but also I got to meet friends I learn I learn new culture Germany is a great country to learn and uh and meet so many people yeah any uh German you wanna share for our German ambitious good that's all I can remember I don't know what you said but my German is not very good oh OK OK yeah you need to be able to at least say that to whoever is like delivering a long yes German yeah I can understand some German but yeah yeah so after Germany you came back and then you decided that you're gonna put down your roots for a longer time here in Alabama and that meant going through a visa walk us through what that felt like from the inside and which visa it was yeah that you went so yeah at the time I was finishing my my college education my bachelor's um I came back from my internship in 2000 and 2 and then I graduated in 2002 so the market was not very good in terms of jobs available the US was going through a lot but I graduated in may of 22,002 and um that time I started talking to my counselor at UAV and say okay and you know I'm looking I wanna stay here the the thing about the internship that it already put me in a good place so I sent resumes resumes resumes out I was still in a I was still in an a student visa in a college visa my college visa was running uh through that summer so what I did is continue my education so I actually apply again for college and my extending my visa for uh masters okay so I continue to study until if I could get a job so I was like I'm continuing to study I'm still learning um new new things so I sent I don't know probably over 200 that's a lot obviously we did one and then we copy and send mail mail physically letters and introduction letters so in nice paper in nice paper he's like the my counselors like yeah this is what you gotta do you know put a nice reference letter a nice tablet so anyway send 200 I think I got 4 five interviews and I went to the interviews one of the companies here in Birmingham they were all around Birmingham was interested in me and um offer me a job as a support engineer I was like Lord behold I got a job I can't believe so I was so excited I was still going to college and then last September 2002 they gave me the offer letter and they started the process of sponsoring me so I got an h1b they applied for an h1b it was approved and I started my 3 year stint of the of the h1b uh of the h1b visa so they apply for on your behalf correct correct that and do you know what made them go and take a leap with you cause I mean this is yeah this is a big deal yes it is a huge deal now I think that I think they like my I didn't know anybody at the company by the way I don't have connections to anybody yeah exactly it's not yeah it's not like I had a professor that knew somebody I mean that happens sometimes you have a professor that knows somebody in the industry or so forth but that was not the case I had no ties to this company I had no connections and they took a lead because they saw my resume and they saw I guess the way I interview and how f you know how much effort I wanted to put into it and that I really you know wanted to to start my career and that I was ready for for that and yeah they were so uh amazing it was a start up it was a small company it was only at the time I joined we were no I think it were 30 something employees um in the healthcare that's how I started in healthcare my first professional job was in healthcare it supporting radiologists across the country so they we had a basically like an application that store all the image for for all the patients and we uh able to uh visualize it for the for the doctors so we had a a software that did that so I was supporting radiologists in phone calls and taking is basically like a support engineer help desk and I did really well at that job and and continue that process yeah what did that mean to you oh I mean such a such a what you say a validation like you all the hard work everything you put in all your life to this point it's like one of those milestones like and you know celebrated my fam my family was so happy I mean I was like okay now I know I can you know be in the field first of all working in the field and getting paid and getting value for what you have worked so hard I mean I had a 3.9 GPA so I had I had a pretty very very good GPA and education and they saw that and the fact that I took an internship and I was doing all the things um but you don't know because again you're an immigrant in another country it's hard to get a job when you come from another country regardless of the country you're coming from even it's like I we talked about in Spain um but yeah that verification and that uh that was really really that really put me in a very good spot well congratulations I mean that was years ago but I mean this is a really big deal and preps you for putting the effort and then yeah I getting the results that you wanted because with the green card comes stability and that that's a big piece of it because then you have the chance to really build something and get the experience that you wanna get so your career took you into healthcare technology working with some major companies what did that world teach you about resilience oh yes I mean in my career of healthcare uh I started with a startup then that startup took me to other places for for the work that I had done and so what he taught me is resilience of continuing to adapt and evolve on your on your learnings like not just what you're learning in school because that's just minimal but learning every day like on the job like collaborating uh cross cross teams you know really building relationships that's what kind of propelled my career because everybody uh that I came in contact I tried to build a relationship where they saw the value that I was bringing and put on a lot of work but then you have to amplify that with networking so I I did a lot of networking and the people that were in that company are still friends of mine I still play golf with them so and those that were there built another company so that I was in that other company and that's how I ended up getting a green card through that other company and then that LED me to other larger companies that um taught me you know huge areas of that I didn't that I didn't see for like in terms of technology in terms of learnings in terms of the market and and took me all over the world literally I I went to India uh to teach what we were doing here in United States I spent a month in India teaching uh uh my our Indian support how to support American customers I went to on another company after that I went all over the world implementing systems healthcare systems um in Mexico in Canada in the UK in France in Germany in Spain so the possibilities of what he opened up um it I I I I couldn't believe it at the time but it goes back to like to your point about resilience and resilience just continue to the hard work will pay off if you continue to provide value yes wow yeah that's impressive and do you speak other languages that you're kind of like German German help a little bit I don't know Italian I can I can I can definitely understand because it's very close to Spanish but I don't really speak I wouldn't say I speak another language okay okay yeah and so yeah you spent years building a career inside large companies then at some point you decided to build something yourself first in Spanish food distribution and now in healthcare data analytics what drew you to entrepreneurship and also what makes the nephrology work feel meaningful right now if you could please explain that nephrology work but also what what is your work that you're doing through entrepreneurship yeah just like I came into this country to explore a new a new world um entrepreneurship I guess it's in my family or it's in my DNA because I always felt like I needed to start something new like I I you know like I went to India and I was the first one to raise my hand up oh I'll go there yeah oh you wanna go to we need somebody to go I'll I'll go I'll do it um so that entrepreneurship with the Spanish food came um later in the 2 they I was like uh I love Spanish food but it's so hard to come by and uh very very I this is when the web the selling through the web turning through the internet was starting and so I'm like well it's hard to get Spanish food here what can I do to get my own food that's how I started literally like I told my wife like I'm tired of not finding the things that I like olive oil and smoked paprika Spanish rice you know basic things I'm not asking for like you know but some real foods what's different about the olive oil maybe you can haha well Spain is Spain is the No. 1 producer in olive oil people don't know that but you know you have this really amazing producers of olive oil in Spain that are really amazing quality Aberquina picual different olives that um only grow in Spain I mean now that you have it in California and other but at the time is it this specific uh olive oil in Spain again more most olive oil than producer in in the world uh smoked paprika which is a specific paprika smoked uh in the way they the way they uh they grow it and the way this is made uh Spanish rice for making paella uh Jamon Iberico which is Spanish ham at the time they wouldn't import it eventually they started importing Spanish ham so all these things I mean that could go on and on but there's a whole list of things that I was like a list of essentials exactly and people from all over understand because we have in the United States we have Indian food Chinese food we have everything here and we have Indian markets and Mexican markets and we have all these markets but Spanish food was not people they really didn't know like Spanish food they were like is that like French food or is Mexican food people are like don't you eat burritos like no we don't eat burritos we don't eat yeah and so people didn't know really much about Spanish food but as more people went to Spain and more people travel to Spain um I found one website and it was hugely expensive to buy things from there so then I was like well heck I'm gonna start it so so I started one day just researching researching researching what do I how can I bring just some items so obviously every year or every time I went to Spain what happens to the suitcase oh yeah it's filled I mean how many suitcases would you bring but I would bring yeah just when I went to vacation I would bring my Spanish olive oil my bring paprika and and my things and eventually some some started to get in the in the in customs you will get thrown out like because I'm uh especially meats will get thrown out so obviously that could only self satisfy for so many weeks or so far but so anyway I started a website I build a website I build a distribution uh they will bring it from Spain to a storage or a warehouse here I will store a warehouse here and then I will ship it across the country wait did you have any background did you hire people or did you do it all yourself all myself dang yeah all myself that's so cool yeah how long did that last about 10 years 10 yeah good for you it was called Reposos Gourmet um Posos gourmet.com and it was basically my name uh gourmet.com and we would say Spain's best for less so you could buy the best of Spain the main things for Spain for less and you could have it on your house on uh ship to your house um so that went really well I mean it started kinda get really busy and I had a full time job too so on top of this yes yes so on top of my real job I was doing this on the side and he got kinda you know relatively size where I couldn't keep up with all the orders and so and then Amazon came along and then I started selling through Amazon Dang but that was probably the beginning of the end okay because what Amazon did is learn the patterns of purchases and then they start bringing it into their own themselves and then they cut off pretty much everybody else so I I deliver I deliver food for chefs locally like Chris Hastings here locally knows me um the Betola restaurant had some of my food so yeah I started you know and and that that I don't that was an amazing experience by the way I like I Learned so much through that I Learned what not to do what to do so just the fact that um it went that far um it was really um I was really happy to to see people were uh happy with the service we provided and and then we just uh after so many years um I decided to to close this up after Amazon started offering the same things we were offering it was no there was no enough uh margins or enough uh profitability for us to to make it oh that's unfortunate yeah I mean were your products or did your um food providers sell directly on Amazon after that or some of them did uh I I didn't I was not an importer so I would go through wholesalers and distributors but there were others that started doing similar thing so then they started through Amazon or they did it themselves now um also they were able to um stock better than I can obviously a larger quantities and also it come to a point where to me it was like it got to a point where I couldn't keep up with it either so um it was it was capacity but now going back it was like okay well could you hire somebody could you just I could have hired people I didn't that that was something that was like at the time was like either I hire somebody and start doing this full time uh huh and quit my job or I do this and I decided to like this is not this is not where where I I wanted to take it yeah um it got to a good point where I was like okay I'm happy to what I did and yeah yeah yeah when you started what were you hoping to get out of it really I was hoping I could give my own food for a reasonable price and not get the food taken away for a reasonable price no I can't get get good food for reasonable price get Spanish food for reasonable price and then at that time I was like well heck I can do it myself what if I can get it to other people ask me like how do you get paprika how would I get this how would I get and I was like well here's a website and so it literally organically continued to to scale to a point where I didn't think that was that was that was not my vision but uh but I started with the thought that I want people to have Spanish food that was my main thing like people ask me like what do you eat I'm like I eat this things and they were like yeah where do you get that that's a great question you can't cause you can't go to public or you couldn't go to like the grocery stores and get those items so it was a great experience a lot of learnings and then you close it now where do you get your Spanish food I I actually get it from either um like sometimes um um Whole Foods has some of the items and then online you can still get it Amazon has a lot of things olive oil paprika all these things you can get it from Amazon other thing like tin tin uh tin like which a lot of people get weird about but you probably know this like Spanish tin food like seafood stored in a tin oh yes and like a like tuna cans but it's not necessarily tuna do you have other types yeah yeah yeah those you know things like that are really really good with really good quality at the time you couldn't get it now you can get all that stuff online do you have like a an Amazon list maybe we can yeah share and then you earn a commission every time someone buys it I'm happy to give you my top 10 list yeah there's definitely all delicious yeah that would be amazing well that sounds such a like a cool experience and just um just incredible that you were able to grow that from scratch yeah that that's so cool that's a very inspiring I love a good entrepreneurship story and then you asked me about the nephrology um and that's more into healthcare um yes I forgot about that part yeah so the healthcare field uh technology um I'm able to help more in terms of um patients so I connected with some folks I went to school obviously at UAB my masters but I also went to masters I got a masters in engineering and a masters in Healthcare Administration from UAB and so I was able to connect with a few folks there including doctors and physicians that are trying to do more helping their patients faster and quicker so I connected with them they were like uh we have this type of data and we don't know what to do with it but we want to do these things I'm like well I'm in data analytics I can kind of help you out if I can give you some ideas so we started connecting and we started getting together on a project they were like oh this is what we wanna do and so that has grown into just smaller startup where the UAV is able to take one of their projects and and take it out of UAV to commercialize it so at the end of the day we wanna help patients that are suffering from kidney disease with their treatments where they can get better treatments faster and quicker while they're in the hospital um so there's some challenges with the data the way it is uh out of out of the box so we're able to provide better insights to the doctors that are providing that that treatment so it sounds like a there's a data problem and um I work in e commerce my full time job and I mean data problem is is real it sounds like healthcare also experienced that where do you think it stems from haha someone else is listening I think it stems from a lot of systems being independent so we still have a healthcare system that has a lot of data repositories or different systems from the time you come into the hospital to the time you get admitted to the time you did get discharged or go to different spots inside of the hospital all that is recorded in different systems whether surgery or emergency or accounting or patient experience all those are different system and they don't talk to each other so there's a data interrupt interruptability that that is a challenge in the United States um for all the system so we we in this case they use cases for nephrology but uh and help those patients that are suffering from that merging the data connecting the data so that you can now get more uh treatment get better treatment uh from those from that data wow you're having an impact on people in a great way I love it uh now switching gears a little bit um you've now lived in the US for I mean three decades now but Spain is still home in so many ways when you go back today do you feel more Spanish more American or somewhere in between yeah I mean in a in a way um I feel lucky obviously because I get to experience both cultures and I have Learned two major culture 1 the American culture and the European culture cause Spain is European so Spain of obviously um but I feel when I go back to Spain I feel Spanish and when I come here I feel American but I still have Spanish culture so in a way I'm kind of like a hybrid person um and I'm very um thankful for that and and and grateful when I go to Spain my friends say you speak with a American accent so I can't help that but uh they're like why you sound very American your Spanish sounds very American and they've been telling me that for years I'm like I know I know I'm like because we speak English everyday so and uh and so they give me a hard time about that but I still you know the the social aspect and the Spanish culture I still uh adore uh everything about it um when I come when I'm here I'm I feel American but I I have my sense of Spanish culture and being a an immigrant that has adapted to to to the American culture um and and I think you know you you can have both like it's not different than people that came from Italy you know when they left for World War 2 and they live here and they came here and they had to leave their country I think you can uh as an immigrant you can have uh those two versions and and enjoy both yeah yeah I love that is there a a food a moment a phrase a smell something that makes you feel more Spanish when I'm here yeah oh yeah I mean for sure when I when I start cooking Spanish food or when I bring uh Jamon Iberico which is Spanish ham for Christmas for Thanksgiving for the family we eat and when I bring that ham or when I cook Spanish food and people see it and they enjoy it that that obviously makes me uh cause I'm I'm a foodie person I'm a I love food and so anytime I love to cook so anytime I get to share it with others and come to my house or go somewhere at Spanish restaurants or go to another restaurant and and share that I like breaking bread that that that really it makes me like you know share my culture yeah and remind me is your wife from a different culture or the same mmm hmm she well her background is Italian uh she she was born and raised here in Birmingham but her great grandparents uh came from Italy from Sicily so they still have traditions from Italy her all her fam her all her generations her parents it came um from your great grandparents came from Italy so all that tradition of food and getting together and and and learning learning how to be a family of Italian family yeah they and they're big I mean like when we get together it's like oh my god we're 50 sometimes and I bring it to become to my house for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or so forth and I love it because that's very Italian like yeah that's great people sometimes ask you why Alabama not just why the US why here yeah what do people in Spain think when you tell them Birmingham is home haha well first you have to find it on the map yeah yeah probably because they're like Birmingham where is that I mean it's not like New York Chicago Miami you know the the the the the usual the usual uh large uh cities uh first I tell them like Alabama is a small state right in the south you know and close to Atlanta close to the kind of geographically tell them where I am and then um I kind of explain to them you know the differences of Alabama and when people ask me why Alabama is because really my most of my life has been here uh my family is here as well as in Spain obviously but my wife's part of family is all here and I feel like you know this is the place that I call home uh because uh the people here have treat me amazingly I have friends family and and I enjoy being with with those that that have treat me so well you know so when when you get when you have welcome and when you after 30 years not like I got here yesterday after 30 years of and people ask me like how come Alabama even in United States people like why Alabama like there are certain aspects of Alabama that people still think about Alabama and I completely understand that but um I travel over the United States I've been to all the states uh I Learned so much from all the states and they all have their own uniqueness but Alabama has a place in my heart because of everything that's been given to me I didn't ask for this I mean I came as a we talked about it I came as a student from another country I'm like I could have gone back after a year or I could have had a bad experience like many other students but not just that year like continuously over my career the job the the professional the education it's like all these things continue to build up to where you're like with this all these positives that you have built so much time that yeah at the end of the day I feel like I'm at home but I I love Spain and I go back to Spain multiple times a year when I can um but I feel that that that here is is where I need to be love that for you that's great and you really build I mean a life like you said like it's been a long time you're married to also you a B nurse you put down roots in Birmingham now tell me maybe a little more like what has made Birmingham feel like home is this kind of like the fact that people have welcome you so well and are there any other aspects that stand out or that you think of yes I think it's a combination of obviously the family the the the friends um but also a combination of the history of what I have Learned about the people I interacted with so going to school my bachelor's here going to school my master's being in companies here with the network with the relationship with the folks that you know have helped me and supported me through my entire career that I can pick up the phone and talk to them that I I can see them in a networking event that I can go the other thing about Birmingham is a small city so I like that I like small cities and I got used to when I go to other cities I yeah I love New York I love many cities in United States but um when I come home when I come here I feel like it's an easier more peaceful uh way of living uh there's nature I love the nature in Alabama people don't recon maybe not know about all the things that we have here we have amazing lakes we have the water we have the beach I love the uh the Golf Coast the Golf Shores all the all the different towns down there the food the food in Alabama is specific you know there we have our own food scene especially in Birmingham now people start talking about Birmingham as a food scene when I was here 20 years ago we had still uh the chefs a couple of the chefs that are here were here back then but now they're coming up right so I I love seeing the growth in a in Birmingham um and I love the growth that is happening across all Birmingham not just um not just in the food scene but also people are starting to realize that at Birmingham in Alabama overall it's a great state to to live in uh because affordability wise uh access to many things that we have and uh and the people and and the and the nature too uh which park do you like to go or which like when you think nature where what do you think of yeah so I think nature of the I can go up to like Menton and the you know or I can go to the caverns the Soda Caverns I can go up to even out Mountain State Park or you know um and the biking the the you know the fishing the lakes Smith Lake I grew up in a Smith Lake so that's the other thing um I love going to the Lakes I go um there's we got multiple of them yeah we're close to the Smokies we're basically in the Appalachian uh heels of it you can go up to up to Huntsville up to Tennessee and just be close to the to the mountains uh and obviously the the beach I mean like um we're we're three hours four hours from the beach so um you have all that range of nature that um and you go outside and there's trees everywhere I mean like that I I like my I like the the being able to to see nature I mean I was at the golf course I like to play golf and I was at the golf course yesterday there was deer and Turkey just walking around I think I saw you sharing that Turkey I was like wait where is that yeah exactly I was like these are the things that you know people might take it for granted but I think that um uh it's things like that that are very yeah very grateful and and gratitude to to be in that surrounding yeah now question from our listeners so that's the segment from here to you and the question is do you ever feel like you don't fully belong anywhere anymore like you're too American for Spain now but you'll never be fully or never fully be American either I would say there's certain times that yeah that that comes up for sure um because you I'm because when you go to Spain like I mentioned earlier people bring it up so it's only when people bring it up that you are that that makes you like oh they didn't think that I'm American and I don't have to say I'm American or I'm Spanish at that time just to rectify to rectify to kind of validate what I am and what I'm not but I do feel like I'm I'm both honestly I don't feel like I'm uh American fully because I wasn't born here but I do feel like uh I'm as appreciative of the American culture and even more when you come from another country because you appreciate some of the things that people don't appreciate or they take for granted even the same when I go to Spain people don't appreciate the things that they have in Spain because they're not on the outside looking in so when you're not on the outside looking in um you miss this you completely miss this and this I'm sure this happens to all immigrants that come or go to different countries when you come with the different lenses and I I meet my friends or I meet my family and I come with the lenses off from here and you tell them or you say things like oh I didn't think about that or like you should be grateful of the things that you have here or there and so but people want to pick places I I'm not that kind of person that like oh you you have to say one or the other I carry a Spanish passport so I technically I'm a Spanish but um I have a green card and I feel just as grateful as to be here as uh any other American yes would you say it's something that you've made that feeling that you made peace with or that you still carry on yeah no I made peace with it I'm happy to to say I'm you know somebody says you're you're you're not American I would say I've been here for 30 years I love America I love what they done for me I'm always grateful for everything that has happened to me in this country so I would say you know this this this is my story you know how you characterize it or not that's a different question and same thing when it's pain like if somebody says well you've been living there longer than you've been living here how can you be a Spaniard I'll be like well I mean I still feel tied to my family I still tied to my culture I feel tied to my to my roots uh and I'm not gonna just give up that because somebody says I'm you know I haven't been living in Spain so yeah yeah and you've contributed so much to this place to America um so it's all in your honor to someone who feel maybe kind of in between what would you tell them I would tell them to think about kind of how they they want to think about yourself and how you want to be a piece to your point about how are you feeling about saying whether you're American or the country you come from do you do you feel like you're American because somebody says you need to be American or do or or you feel or you regret that you are not saying you're from your country you know what I mean like if you say you're American are you put him down your country your former country you know what I mean like those things is that is that what is triggering or is it that you know what you are um if you know that you're truly an American because you've been because that's what you identify with then then do that but also I would say when you have roots from another country it's it's kind of hard to say um you you give up your roots I don't think you have to do that I think uh everybody that has come to this country from another world would say uh you still want to connect to your roots uh so they can coexist right exactly that's harmony exactly exactly that's exactly that's exactly well said you can you can have both because at the end of the day you you are part of both you you came from a country that gave you so much from your birth and then you transported to another country that gave you so much and you had uh you know like me an amazing ride and you feel like you're grateful for that so when people try to um you know oppose each other I think that's I don't think that's that's right I would agree I mean that makes it rich yeah and makes it interesting and it brings the contrast in a good way you just need to be curious about the things that you don't know and just accept that they can live side by side and that's that's what makes the world so rich and beautiful exactly culture wise yeah and then yeah and then technically whether you carry a French passport or another or your American passport that's those are all you know bureaucracy administrative stuff yeah yeah you have to figure out but culture wise what you feel in your heart and what you feel in your in your soul and what you what what you are those are the things that you should be you know more attuned with yeah love that love that now before we wrap up I have actually OK two more questions but we didn't really touch on the tradition but would you share maybe a tough tradition that you like from your Spanish culture well I would say cooking for sure I mean I love cooking um I cook quite often so anything regards to food like paella or I get tapas days or something like that that's those are the things that food you know keeps me the roots on on me same thing with my wife with she cooks Italian or the the family cooks Italian I feel like food is is is a the great binding of cultures yeah so um that and then tradition wise I think you know when when like festivities come across like New Year's Eve we do something in Spain that's called uh Las Doce Uvas so we have 12 grapes in the last you know thirty seconds of so of the of the year to chug down and eat 12 grapes is a tradition of good luck bringing good luck into the New Year so I tend to do that in New Year's Eve to keep the tradition of the 12 grapes to you know to remind me home of of the of of that tradition so you kept the tradition alive so you will just stuff your stuff your face with 12 grapes in less than 30 seconds that's right exactly it's like a timing they have a specific timing you actually have to watch it on TV in a Spanish TV because they do a specific in Madrid and all the main cities they have a clock and they'll tell you when to eat each grape and then you you eat it you eat it you eat it and then when when the last second you eat your 12 grape and you can hardly say anything or kiss anybody because you're stuck with 12 grapes in your mouth because you can't eat them all at once but yes that's the tradition and uh yeah it's been I'm not sure how it started but it's still going so okay we'll have to try that a few questions before we wrap up is when you think about your younger self arriving in Alabama at 15 years old dictionary in hand host family you've never met what would you tell that kid today oh that's yeah beautiful question I I would tell that kid to smell the roses take time to smell the roses because that's one thing I would I would tell that 15 year old kid is to just literally because time goes so fast that we don't realize now 30 years later and and I continue to do retrospectives in my head all the time like of take your time like enjoy the moment don't rush it like there are certain things in life that only come once and when you hit that point really enjoy it like really take the time to celebrate it to nourish your your your body right because it's gonna be gone and then there'll be another milestone but you you know I like to live every day celebrate every day but there are certain things that happen in your life that you like God that was a that was really good moment right like I wanted to I wanna relive that but you can't relive it because because God so you're like darn it I wanted to see that again I wanted to see that thing happen again I wanted to see that person again I wanted to you know see that other that's those things I think um at times you you you you don't realize until they have gone and passed I mean it's a human I think it's a human aspect that you know we try but you have to if you're if you're knowledgeable if you're remind yourself of that then when they happen you're a little more attuned to it and you're like oh yes I'm here right and so I think that's one of those that I would tell a 15 year old and then the other one would be um just enjoy just like um don't don't don't think too much of of things just gonna uh go and adapt and I think I did that very well but at the time I'm sure there were times where I was like what the heck am I doing right so I don't recall those right now 30 years later but I'm sure at the time I was like what have I got myself into right uh I'm in another country with people I don't know with things I don't know and I don't even know what I'm gonna eat today you know what things like that that happen during the day I'm sure I was like oh my God what am I doing and so I would tell him you know just be fine you'll you'll be fine just keep adapting keep keep moving forward and looking ahead what does home mean to you now yeah home home means where where I feel at peace and where I feel like I'm myself um and and it doesn't have to be geographically one spot like I know people want to put geographically I mean obviously for me is here but when I go visit my mom or my family I feel very good there I feel very happy with being with the ones that I love and the ones that have helped me all my life so I would say home is where you feel the most comfortable where you feel the happiest obviously and where the people that you surround yourself you are the you are yourself the most yeah lastly where can people get in touch or follow you oh your journey yeah you can you can follow me on Spanish foodie I'm in I'm in Instagram Spanish foodie I post there from time to time I'm not a big huge poster but I do post you know when I'm when I'm in different places um you can hashtag Spanish foodie is my uh my Instagram and then LinkedIn by my name you can find me on LinkedIn I'm very active on LinkedIn because I'm very you know active on professional things and networking and career um so yeah those are we'll add those links in the show notes for anyone to look it up Ruben thank you so much for sharing your story with us yeah muchas Gracias Gracias a ti you came here at 15 to learn English for a year you stayed for a career two companies two master's degrees and a life that kind of journey doesn't happen just by accident and it happens because of the choices you kept making to stay to build and to belong if this episode resonated with you share it with someone navigating a new language a new country or a new version of themselves because every story like Rubens is a reminder that the one year plan is rarely the whole story until next time keep exploring thank you for tuning in to from where to here if you enjoyed this episode be sure to hit subscribe leave a review and share it with someone who loves discovering new cultures follow us on Instagram at from where to hear pod for exclusive updates behind the scenes moments and a peek at upcoming guests until next time keep learning keep connecting and keep celebrating the beauty of languages and cultures adiós