He was a cowboy in his native country of Paraguay and on Sept. 10, 2009 he became a United States citizen.
Victor Burgos of Gray Road in Barrington accomplished this feat with the help of Ann McKnight, a tutor with Literacy Volunteers at 117 East Elm St., Penn Yan.
McKnight beams with pride when she talks about her star pupil, who she started working with in April 2008.
“He always shows up for his hour and a half lesson and he’s right on time.” McKnight is a former school teacher and Victor is her first student with Literacy Volunteers.
Burgos came to the U.S.11 years ago after marrying Tara Farnan, who was a Peace Corps. Volunteer in Paraguay.
Tara is the daughter of Kenneth and Eileen Farnan, owners of Barrington Cellars Winery. The couple have a daughter Triana, 7 and a son, Valerio, born Dec. 8, 2009.
McKnight says Victor’s first goal was to be able to study the book to get a motorcycle license. Soon after obtaining the license, he began to work on his citizenship.
The first step in the naturalization process is filling out a typically American multi-page form.
McKnight showed a copy, which asks simple questions such a eye color to blunt questions, “Are you a terrorist? After the application was accepted, Burgos had to travel to Syracuse for fingerprinting. A $700 fee must be sent along with the application. “I was afraid I was wasting money,” Burgos said.
The real studying came when Burgos prepared for a 100 question test in Buffalo. “I told him he would have to listen very carefully,” McKnight said.
Questions included government, history and geography. The applicant has to be readily available for six months in order to take the test when called.
“Ann was a great help. She focused on history and geography. Even people at church started asking questions and offered to help,” he said.
The applicant is only asked 10 questions out of the 100. Getting six out of 10 correct is passing and they are given two chances. “I got all 10 right,” he said with a big smile.
Burgos called his tutor at 8:30 one night to tell her, “I passed.”
McKnight, along with his family members were there on Sept. 9 in Rochester to see him sworn in as a citizen.
Life in the United States is very different than in Paraguay, according to Burgos. He grew up on a cow farm and only went to school for six years. McKnight urged him to explain why.
He said Paraguay was ruled for years by a bad dictator, and explained, “For 52 years a militant political party was in control of everything. The country makes money from hydroelectric power, but the profits do not go to the people.”
Burgos said he could not attend school any longer, because his family belonged to the “wrong” political party.
In Paraguay, school hours are from 7 to 11 a.m. or 1 to 5 p.m. and students only attend one of those sessions. There are no school busses, everyone walks or rides bicycles. Burgos spoke the native language - Guarane, a blend of Portuguese and Spanish.
His father’s farm was near the Brazilian border, so on trips to Brazil for supplies, Burgous learned Spanish. His father and a brother are still in Paraguay and he has been back to visit them several times.
Teaching Burgos has been a wonderful experience for McKnight. She said at times he would get a little frustrated that his 7-year-old daughter would learn so fast.
She says, “I reminded him that Triana is in school all day and all week. ‘You are here for only 90 minutes, one day a week.’” She says he speaks English very well, but he says sometimes he has to say things twice for people to understand.
Math is possibly his most difficult subject. McKnight says he has to convert the material to Spanish and then back to English. The problem is that he originally learned math using the metric system. He uses math skills often when mixing products in the winery business.
McKnight tries to focus on several subjects in the short lesson time. He is given a small adventure story book for homework.
She has compiled a list of vocabulary words he will find in the story. She has him pronounce each one and tells him what it means.
Homonyms (i.e.seem and seam) a hard part of the English language to grasp, are included in the list.
Triana likes to kid with her father when they compare homework. He says she is very smart. Showing off her 90-100, she says, “You only got an 80!”
Tara has a lot of patience with his learning, but he says Ann McKnight has more and knows some tricks.
Victor Burgos now wants to move on to fulfilling his next dream, to get a G.E.D. He says Tara teases him, “You’ll never get it.” But that gives him more incentive to go for it. McKnight says there is a new version of G.E.D. available through a Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES program that is based on life skills and she thinks Victor is a perfect candidate to walk away with a diploma.
