Max Bendsen  0:00  

Uh, hello. My name is Max Bendsen. I'm here with Agustin Garcia Prieto at the VCU Cabell Library. Today is Saturday, March, 22 2025 and the time right now is 3:19pm, thank you so much for allowing me to interview you.

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  0:21  

Yeah, for sure.

 

Max Bendsen  0:24  

So first, I'd like to ask some basic questions about you, your family and your background.

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  0:28  

Sure.

 

Max Bendsen  0:29  

Could you start us off by sharing where your family is from?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  0:32  

Yeah, so we're from Mexico, the state of Chihuahua.

 

Max Bendsen  0:36  

Okay. How was your childhood there? Or just your childhood in general. I guess

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  0:41  

I don't really recall it. I think I was two when we left, so I don't, I didn't really have a childhood in Mexico.

 

Max Bendsen  0:48  

Okay, so you would have left in what, 2004? 

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  0:54  

2005

 

Max Bendsen  0:55  

2005

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  0:55  

Well, yeah, it was the it must have been 2005 because I turned three when we came to the US.

 

Max Bendsen  1:02  

How would you describe your childhood?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  1:04  

In general? It was, it was, you know, as an immigrant family, it wasn't easy. It was paycheck to paycheck, stressful, but overall, I think I had a very good childhood given all the hardship.

 

Max Bendsen  1:18  

All right, can you tell me about your educational trajectory? So where did you go to school?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  1:24  

Yep, so I went to Rappahannock county elementary from K through seven, and then Rappahannock County high school until 12th grade, and graduated there. During, I think, my sophomore or junior year of high school, I enrolled at Lord Fairfax Community College, which is now Laurel Ridge Community College, and I did some dual enrollment programs, and I got a Gen Ed certificate from that.

 

Max Bendsen  1:47  

Cool. Did you grow up with religion?

Agustin Garcia Prieto  1:49  

I did. My parents raised us Catholic, or whichever version of Mexican Catholic that would be. So, yeah, I think it played a major role when I was more in elementary school, and I sort of shied away from it when I entered high school.

 

Max Bendsen  2:05  

So would you say you're still religious at all?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  2:07  

I feel spiritual in some ways that I think is guided by Catholicism and how I grew up. But I wouldn't say that I'm a Catholic, but I would say that i i spiritually, spiritually align probably more with Christianity than anything else.

 

Max Bendsen  2:26  

Could you tell me about your journey from Mexico? How did you come to live inVirginia?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  2:31  

Yeah, so my dad, for many years before I was born, worked contract jobs in Rappahannock County on many apple orchards and grape vineyards, wine vineyards. So when I was born, they my parents had moved around back and forth from the us a little bit because of that. And then when I was born, and three years later, we came to move to we came to the US permanently so we could get my dad could be stable there at those jobs. So yeah, we we landed first in Orange County, and then we moved to Madison County, and we settled in Rappahannock just because it was close to the jobs. And my dad's brother, his oldest brother, had a business there. So that's how we ended up in Rappahannock.

 

Max Bendsen  3:18  

 Would you say you had like, one childhood home that you remember, or was it like you moved around a fair amount when you're a kid?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  3:23  

 Yeah, I remember two different houses when I was really little. We moved around quite a bit. I think we settled down permanently in what I would call my childhood home in 2007 when my little brother was born, it was a little farmhouse on a quite nice horse farm, horse ranch.

 

Max Bendsen  3:44  

So were you going to school at that time, or would you not have been

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  3:48  

I don't think I went to school until 2008 when I turned six.

 

Max Bendsen  3:54  

Do you have family members still living in Mexico? Are you still close to them at all?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  3:58  

Yeah, all of basically all of my family's in Mexico. Let's see. I think half of my dad's siblings, he's got seven siblings. Half of those are in the US. Half are in Mexico. One of my mom's brothers, she has two brothers, one of them lives in Denver, and the other one lives in Mexico. So the majority of my family still in Mexico. We're not very my mom and my dad are close to them, but I never really grew up with them. We know each other. We speak every once in a while on the phone, but I wouldn't say that we were close, other than there's the familial bond and that connection.

 

Max Bendsen  4:41  

 So do you have any family in Richmond, or is it is your all your family in Rappahannock?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  4:48  

Most of my, yeah, of most of my family that is nearby is in Rappahannock. So my my parents and my brothers are in Rappahannock. I don't have any family in Richmond that I that I know of. I. I know that, like a cousin or two came to VCU at some point, but they're not in Richmond anymore, and we're a little scattered. I have an uncle in Ruckersville. I have an uncle in Winchester, so it's not terribly far.

 

Max Bendsen  5:24  

So what was Rappahannock like when you first moved there? Has it changed over time at all?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  5:29  

I think it has changed. It was from what I remember. It was very like isolated. It's still very rural. The farmhouse that we moved to in 2007 was it was pretty far from everything else. I think we were maybe half an hour from the nearest, what you would call a town. I lived in the area of Rappahannock called Amissville, which is very rural, very spread out. So that hasn't changed. There hasn't been a big population boom or anything. There's a lot of hesitance to develop Rappahannock. So it's pretty much stayed the same in terms of like businesses or like community hubs. There hasn't been that much difference. But yeah, I think it's the biggest change has occurred when we moved in 2020 to Sperryville, where, where my parents now live. That's like a an actual town that's got a main street and a Water Street, and there's like 300 people in that town, spread out a little bit. So Sperryville has changed a lot since we moved even in the last three years. There are much more, many more programs that are engaging with the community and building that sort of community aspect. There's concerts now, every summer that there have there weren't before. There's a annual festival for the town called Sperry fest, where the whole town comes in, basically all of Rappahannock comes in and celebrates the town. And then there's like, scaryville for Halloween that everybody comes to. So the biggest change they used to be the town of little Washington. It's just called Washington, but we call it little Washington because it's not like DC. Obviously. That used to be like the cultural hub for many years, just because it was the most developed, but then people moved away, and sort of the inner politics of that village made it so that it was very, sort of against people moving into the town, and Sperryville became the new spot. It was very open. It's very accepting. But that's sort of changing a little. There's more development. There's a new library and a food pantry in little Washington, and things are gonna even that, I think. So there's been change in the last three years, but the 10 years before, that was not very much change.

 

Max Bendsen  7:41  

How...I guess is there much of the Latino community in Rappahannock?

Agustin Garcia Prieto  7:45  

Oh yeah.

 

Max Bendsen  7:45  

How's your experience with them?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  7:47  

There are, there are a lot of us. I think it came down to, like I said, My dad worked orchards and vineyards, and there's a lot of that work still around. And people moved in, like in the early 2000s and they just found a place for themselves there. And there's always good work. So there isn't, for many years, there really wasn't a place for like Latinos to gather in Rappahannock, usually you would see family or friends or other Latinos at church. So when my parents and I would go to church. We used to go every Sunday when I was little. That's where, you know, the Spanish mass is where we would see everybody. Recently, I think within the last two years, there was a Latino store, a Latin store, in the town of Flint Hill, maybe twenty, fifteen, minutes from where I live currently. And that was nice. You could see a lot more people coming in to get products that we otherwise wouldn't have gotten unless we traveled 30 minutes to the nearest town. But that that store didn't really prosper very much, and it recently closed. But yeah, of the people that are there and that I know it's nice, Everybody looks out for each other. Everybody's making sure that people are taken care of, and they have a community if they want to

 

Max Bendsen  9:05  

Nice. How have your experiences been with people outside the Latino community in Rappahannock and I guess Virginia as a whole?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  9:12  

Yeah, my experiences, like in high school, was very positive. I don't think I really experienced any sort of racism, you know, from outside communities, maybe a little bit in high school, the more rural areas tend to be less accepting of Latinos. It's nothing like outward or brash, but it's a little cold sometimes. But when we moved to Sperryville, it's the opposite. It's super welcoming, super accepting and like people actively want to learn Spanish so they can communicate with us in Spanish, or they want to engage positively with our culture. So overall, it's been really good, with some few isolated moments of tension. I think that's changed a little bit, and people are a little more outward about, you know, not wanting Hispanic people there, given the political climate of, you know, the last eight years. But even then, it hasn't even been that bad.

 

Max Bendsen  10:10  

What would you say some of the biggest obstacles you've had living in Rappahannock and Richmond too?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  10:15  

Yeah, I think the most the biggest obstacles were in Rappahannock, because while we did have a good school system, it's it was hard to, like, get all the education that I wanted. The only reason I was able to do a dual enrollment at Laurel Ridge was because they would send teachers to Rappahannock. Otherwise it would have been an hour drive, or it would have been strictly online, which was also hard, because growing up in Amissville, we had really, really bad Wi Fi. We were in the middle of the woods, so it just wasn't an option. So that was a big obstacle. Once I was able to get into dual enrollment because of that program, it was it solved most of my issues, and it like enlightened me to the options I had for education. Other obstacles, transportation is a big deal for a long time, only my dad had the ability to drive. So you can imagine, like he's working a lot. He worked at a restaurant. He was a chef, and he also worked landscaping and like orchard work and all that stuff. He was probably working 80 hours a week, and then he'd be like, Oh, well, now I have to go get groceries. It takes all day. We have to do all these things. And I remember that being a big obstacle, especially for my mom, who couldn't drive. It was isolating for her, and I could see that that was stressful. And then, you know, it was an hour bus ride to and from school every day because of the bus routes. I think the isolating sort of rural area was the biggest obstacle in Rappahannock, in Richmond, it's totally different. I can walk to a store. I can basically do anything I need to do. Since I'm on campus, it's really nice to have a car this semester so I can do more. But even then, I haven't felt any of those obstacles in Richmond.

 

Max Bendsen  12:03  

It's a bit of a big question, but what kinds of resources have you found here to help with your life? I suppose it's leading into asking about, have you like, received help from any specific organizations or individuals?

Agustin Garcia Prieto  12:16  

Yeah, I've gotten some really good grants from the School of Nursing, that's been like the biggest helping organization for me. They're very keen on helping, like, minority students from rural areas, especially of my demographic. You know, men are not usually in nursing school. Rural Hispanic men tend to not be nurses, so they've been help helping me a lot. The Virginia Department of Education has also supported me a lot financially. I know that there are like, other resources for like Latinos. I know there are clubs at VCU, but I haven't really felt myself gravitating towards those

 

Max Bendsen  13:02  

Can you tell me about your current job?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  13:04  

Sure. So I would I put down in the form that I'm self employed. So I do like 1099, contract work over the summers. There's a an architecture firm that my dad also works, that, he's got a lotta different jobs, and they contract me out with him, where we go around their their farm, and we cut down trees for them to mill so they can use on their projects. So I do that. I also do I work at a nature camp called Rapp nature camp. It's been going for like 30 years now. It's really cool. I'm a counselor slash camp medic, which just means that I do the first aid stuff whenever, whenever a kid gets hurt. So that's my main source of income, when, when I'm home over the summer or for winter break. Every now and then, I'll pick up some odd jobs and whatever. I would say that the most like quote, unquote work experience that I have has been volunteer work as an EMT in Sperryville.

 

Max Bendsen  14:10  

So I suppose, how did you end up...um I suppose what came first? The EMT or nursing.

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  14:18  

The EMT thing came first. Yeah, I wanted to be a doctor in high school for a little bit. When I was as a freshman, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna be a paleontologist, or be a chef, or I'm gonna do all these different things. It was mostly STEM related. For a bit, I wanted to be an engineer. I very quickly found out that I'm so bad at math that I would never be an engineer. I would not like it, at least. When we moved to Sperryville it, it was the summer before my senior year, and it was COVID, and everything was virtual for that first semester, so I didn't I didn't really know what I wanted to do, just because I hated being virtual and I didn't like being so isolated. Even though Sperryville was a tight-knit community, it was still COVID So we were all very nervous. And after a little bit there, after a full semester, I had, like zero idea what I wanted to do, and I live maybe a three minute walk from the rescue squad. I'm on the top of the hill, and the squad's at the bottom of the hill. And my girlfriend, at that time, her dad, was an EMT, and she was getting into the program so that she could be an EMT as well. I was like, oh, that's that's really cool. I wonder if I could do that. So I went down and put an application, and I started doing ride alongs, and after five ride alongs. So it's like, healthcare is where I want to be, 100% so they paid for my EMT education. I did it. It it was a hybrid program. So it was mostly online, and then I did some in person work, and once I became an EMT, it was like, oh, I want to do more. And I what I remember thinking was I taking in critical patients and then having to leave. It was like, oh, it'd be nice if I could learn what happens after I leave the patient. So then I was like, I could be a doctor, I guess, but I liked patient care so much that I could not bear the idea of four years of undergrad without working in the hospital and then getting into medical school and then taking years to get with a patient then. So I decided nursing was the route for me. Yeah.

 

Max Bendsen  16:14  

Alright, so in terms of your, I guess both, EMT work and nursing, but I suppose it's kind of looking more for what you've been doing, volunteering, EMT. Have you had any major issues to deal with?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  16:33  

I don't think I've had any major issues speaking on like about my heritage and my race, people tend to overlook it when it's an emergency. It certainly helped me in some scenarios. There was one example that jumps out to me was we were responding to, I think it was a six year old boy who was having seizures, and he had had a fever for a while, and it seemed pretty serious, and they dispatched us and the another unit, and they called to our unit. We were medic seven, and dispatch said, Medic seven, do you have somebody who speaks Spanish? And because that's what the patient's family speaks, and I was the only person in in the rescue squads in the county that spoke Spanish that they knew of. So they asked us, even though we weren't the only unit responding. So that helped me a lot. We communicated very well, and I think it helped the family to know that there was somebody there that was Hispanic and knew Spanish and could communicate with them without having to use a phone or truncated English. So it's helped me in that regard. I think it helps me be sort of more understanding that people come from different places and just to meet them where they're at. And yeah, overall, it's been very positive.

Max Bendsen  17:52  

All right, so I know you said it was just kind of being an EMT was sort of on a whim,

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  18:04  

Yeah.

 

Max Bendsen  18:06  

Was there, like, any specific moment when you were doing those ride alongs where you were like this it?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  18:10  

Yeah, I remember there was one specific moment before I decided to do it, because I did think it was cool to just, like, give, give it a shot, because they knew people there. And what made me like, take the final step to apply was seeing, like, all the healthcare workers during COVID having to do so much. Like, even if they're sick, they have to do so much. And I thought to myself, you know, I'm not sick, I'm young, I'm strong, I can do this. And I said, if, if I am able to, why am I not helping? And that was what this, what made me jump into health, like do it and try out healthcare. During the ride alongs, I had a patient who was Hispanic. He mostly spoke Spanish, and he was, it was very serious, and we were able to help him, and I was able to translate. And it went from like a really dangerous area a moment for him to a not so dangerous area, because we were able to communicate, figure out what's going on and to treat him, and it helped him. And that's when I said, I want to do this

 

Max Bendsen  19:14  

Very nice. So sort of following up on that. I gonna ask some questions about COVID.

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  19:19  

Okay.

 

Max Bendsen  19:20  

So where were you living when the pandemic started?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  19:22  

We were in Amissville at that time, when that happened, yeah, I remember it was my it was like March of my junior year, and we were still in Amissville.

 

Max Bendsen  19:33  

Do you remember, like when you first learned about it?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  19:35  

Yeah, I remember it was like February or something, when we were sort of hearing about a few cases, and we were still joking about it at that time. We're like, Oh, whatever. It's just like, there's no big deal. And then in March, I think it was March 14, because the next day we were gonna go on a band trip, and they canceled everything that day, and they sent us home. And it's like, this is serious. Yeah.

 

Max Bendsen  19:59  

So how did you and your I guess, yeah, how did you deal with abrupt changes orders?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  20:09  

Yeah, the abrupt change at first wasn't that bad, because we thought it was two weeks, and then we thought it was another two weeks. In the beginning, it was okay. We were nervous, but we were healthy and we had, like, the means to be okay for a little bit. My we were lucky my parents didn't lose their jobs. My mom would clean houses nearby, and she was able to, like, get transportation for them. So that didn't change. My dad's restaurant stayed open for a little bit. Eventually, that closed for a while, but he had enough outside jobs that he was able to continue supporting us. After, I would say, two or three months, it got really difficult, because we were already in an isolated area. I was very far away from everybody. I had really bad Wi Fi connection, so I couldn't really like distract myself very well. So I think by May, I would say, by May, it got really difficult. Just felt really isolating, trapped and sort of disconnected. Yeah

 

Max Bendsen  21:13  

And when did that start getting better?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  21:16  

Um, I think it got better... That's tough. I think it got better when I got my vaccines, yeah? Because in June, the June after lockdown, yeah, we were evicted from the house in Amissville. We landed in sperryville, and that was, it was acute stress that got better after a while, but we were still, like locked down. So I wouldn't say that I felt very good at all, until I got vaccinated and I was able to see people again.

 

Max Bendsen  21:53  

And how was school? How was taking classes online?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  21:56  

It was awful. I hated it. Yeah, it was terrible. I was able to do dual enrollment classes which were fun. I remember my dual enrollment US government class, or maybe it was AP gov. It must have been AP gov. I loved that class very much. I think, I think I liked learning about government. I liked learning it was also US history, so I was taking those in tandem, and those were fun. I mean, you just read a bunch of things and you write a bunch of things, so it wasn't that difficult. And when we were in Sperryville, I had really good Wi Fi connections. I could just take classes online. That was okay. But what was really hard was the classes that I didn't like. Like I had to take doing dual enrollment statistics, and I am so bad at math that it was, it was a really difficult class. I ended up failing, I think, the first three exams, and people were dropping out all the time. I couldn't, like, get with my teacher and go over things, because they were overwhelmed with all they had to do, and it was virtual. And I think the hardest part was that I just couldn't see anybody. It was I would wake up, I would go to my desk, and I would just study by myself, which was not very fun.

 

Max Bendsen  23:03  

Yeah, would you say any like family or close friends were drastically impacted by COVID?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  23:10  

Yeah, I think my little brother was very drastically impacted, because he was he was really young. He was just entering high school when that happened, which is like the formative time to make friends and relationships, and he was then suddenly very isolated, and I know that it impacted his mental health a lot.

 

Max Bendsen  23:31  

How do you think Latinos as a whole were impacted by the pandemic?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  23:34  

I think it I think it was very bad for our community. I think since we have a relatively low level of health literacy, there were people spreading like serious misinformation, not that they wanted to hurt people, it's just that they just didn't know. And there was nobody really reaching out and sort of addressing this misinformation, at least for us, all of this stuff from the CDC and the government was in English. Of course, they had translations, but people wouldn't seek out those translations. So it felt, we felt like we were sort of forgotten in a way. And so all the negative aspects of that came out, and I think it hurt us. I think it made us less of a community, and it made us less trustworthy of each other.

 

Max Bendsen  24:26  

So I know you said you got vaccinated. Many people you know, got vaccinated?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  24:29  

Yeah, my whole family got vaccinated as soon as possible. I remember I got an email saying to sign up. I was like, Oh, that's great. So I went to my family, my parents phones, and they got the emails, and I took my parents to get vaccinated, took my little brother to get vaccinated, and everybody got it. Everybody in Sperryville is super pro vax. Thank goodness. So everybody got vaccinated. Of course, the rescues, I was just joining the rescue squad then, of course, they required the vaccines. Everybody there got it, and it felt very good.

Max Bendsen  25:00  

So just got a few final questions. This is the last section. Do you feel like you belong in Richmond?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  25:06  

Yeah, I think I do. I feel like this is my like new home. I still have my hometown where my parents are. I consider Sperryville now my new hometown, but I feel better about living in Richmond at my age and then because of my friends and the communities here. Yes.

 

Max Bendsen  25:30  

Do you feel like there's anything that is stopping you from feeling you could fit in more?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  25:35  

Not really. I don't feel anything really barring me from that.

 

Max Bendsen  25:40  

Do you ever feel like you've ever sort of omitted like parts of your culture to fit in before?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  25:47  

Um, I never felt like I've had to.

 

Max Bendsen  25:51  

Yeah?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  25:51  

Yeah. I, um, I, you know, I think my my friend group is very accepting. I feel comfortable and safe expressing my culture. So, yeah, none. I've never had to really hide anything. I'm trying to think, no, I feel like it's all been pretty open. I feel lucky that Richmond's very, very open about that.

 

Max Bendsen  26:18  

So with what you're seeing in terms of the general public and politicians talking about immigration, how do you feel about that? Is there anything you want people to know?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  26:29  

Yeah, I just it's very concerning obviously, I'm sure you've seen in the news that people are just being deported with even if they're citizens, just because they're Hispanic. That happened very recently, and then there's just a whole litany of stuff that's becomes very concerning for Hispanics, because even if you've got nothing to worry about, everything's in order, you could still be arrested and detained. And I if I want anybody, if I want people to know anything, it's that it's not like appropriate to say you have nothing to worry about if everything's in order, because there's still very many things for us to worry about. Yeah.

 

Max Bendsen  27:18  

What would you feel like you would want just the general public to know about your life story? If anything at all.

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  27:26  

I think I would say that even though I wasn't like born here, I'm Mexican. I have lived here my whole life. I think I speak rather good English. I feel like I'm able to integrate myself into or assimilate very much into American culture and retain my Mexican culture, but I, you know, there's no reason to think of me as anything else but just a guy who's here. You know, is it my me being Mexican is a big part of me, but it doesn't define necessarily who I am, and there's no like, don't feel like you have to look at me different, you know, just because I'm not from here.

 

Max Bendsen  28:12  

Is there anything else that you would like to add that we haven't talked about?

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  28:18  

 No, I think that. I think that covers it.

 

Max Bendsen  28:21  

Okay. Thank you so much.

 

Agustin Garcia Prieto  28:24  

Yeah, thank you.