The Lawyer

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“I was at that time 26, no, 28 years old” said Felipe Saez, A retired lawyer for the World Bank, and my grandfather. “My motivation was… that I had an interesting job opportunity to have international experience”. Before Felipe went to the United States, he was a lawyer in Chile with his very own law firm “I thought it would be a good exposure to work in another country” He reflected.

However, he didn’t plan on staying in the US forever. “I planned on initially five years in the United States” He recalled,” The reason I chose five years was because I still wanted to be in my home country”. Not wanting te leave your country is understandable, however, he still has an interesting reason for why he didn’t want to leave permanently: “My thought process was that if I didn’t come back to my country in five years then I wouldn’t be motivated to return at all”. The reason Felipe wanted to not permanently leave Chile was because he had liked it there, and that was where his childhood was, and that had sentimental value. However, un the end, his career called him north. “I went over by airplane, and it was a long flight,” he said. “But I had been in the US before, so their journey was ok.” Once Felipe was in the United States, he officially got the job that he ended up retiring with and getting him the experience, he wanted so dearly. “My opportunity was to become a lawyer at the World Bank, where I would be practicing law with different countries all over the world”. He later stated that the aspect of working worldwide was both exciting to think about and fun in practice.

“I don’t know if you have answered this already but during your time in the Americas, did you experience any racism or general acts of misdoing toward you?” I asked. This was around my 12 questions, and at this point, I had been contemplating his responses for a couple of minutes while we chatted. “Honestly I didn’t experience much, like I mentioned earlier I had been in the United States previously, so I pretty much felt at home”. My grandfather's previous experience was graduate school. In which the same events occurred, in a way. He took a plane there, attended graduate school, and took a plane back. He also passed graduate school thankfully.

Felipe ended up staying in the US for about ten years. After that he was all over the world getting the international experience, he so craved. However, he didn’t return to Chile for another 20 years. Felipe is now in his 80s and lives happily in a beach house on a small island a few miles offshore. He swims in the ocean on a daily bass and loves to talk walks on the beach. He also learned how to cook.