I am part of the youngest generation of a family history and genealogy that can be traced back for more than six centuries and over at least 3 continents. In 2006, I emigrated from Birmingham, Alabama, USA, to San Diego, California. Push factors in justifying moving were largely due to cultural and religious and differences. Other push factors include the weather being so unbearable due to heat and humidity that it is very difficult to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle, as well as relative location to the coast line. The pull factors for moving to San Diego included the prospects of an education from San Diego State University, the weather, recreational opportunity from the geographical location relative to the ocean, mountains, and high desert, and my attraction via the gravity model to the opportunities of a larger city. In the mid 1970's, my father's best friend and close family friend moved to San Diego because of the weather and the booming architecture industry at the time. In the summer of 2003, my father, my brother, and I came to San Diego to visit “Uncle” Bill Behun as our last big adventure before my brother left Birmingham for Army boot camp at Fort Benning, Georgia in the coming fall. Visiting Bill and the support he was able to offer in helping me assimilate to the city illustrates an example of chain migration. It helped me recognize various pull factors which helped me arrive at the final decision to migrate.
My two parents Dennis Charles LaGatta and Adriana Gutierrez married in 1975. In 1986 they had my older brother Christopher Andres LaGatta and in 1990 they had my younger sister Monica LaGatta. As a family unit we have internally migrated within the United States several times. In the summer of 2000, my immediate family moved to Birmingham from Sarasota, Florida, USA. They were seeking economic opportunity in form of a new job with a construction firm, Heery International, and what my parents describe as a combination of boredom and genetically driven “wanderlust,” otherwise known as “itchy feet.” In the winter of 1995, my family moved from Washington, DC, USA to Sarasota stating boredom, curiosity, wanderlust, and a desire for a change of environment and a new job prospect with The Richy Organization (TRO) provided just that opportunity. In 1988, my family, without my unborn sister, moved to Washington, DC (a return move for my parents) from Atlanta, Georgia, USA for the economic prospects of a new job and wanderlust. My brother and I were born at West Paces Ferry Hospital in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia. In 1977, my parents moved to Atlanta from Washington, DC pulled by the economic prospects of attending graduate school at the Georgia Polytechnic Institute. The lower cost of living and the fact that they had already assimilated to Atlanta formed the justification for this move. In 1975, my parents moved to Washington, DC from Atlanta for their first jobs, which is where they met. My family has deep routes in frequent migrations which go back for centuries.
In 1970, the Gutierrez bloodline settled in North America. Driven by the financial needs of four of their six children entering college and the difficultly of supporting this on a Colombian income, my maternal grandparents, Oscar Gutierrez Pinzon and Adrienne Janeth Elizabeth Gray, moved back to the United States to Atlanta from Cali, Colombia, South America. In 1949, Oscar Gutierrez Pinzon married Adrienne Gray of the Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. In 1942, Oscar Gutierrez moved to New York from Cali after being accepted to Brown University. After arriving to register for classes at Brown University, it was quickly discovered that, at the time, my grandfather spoke no English and he was not allowed to attend the university. After one year, my grandfather was better assimilated with the culture and the language and attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York where he met my grandmother who happened to be the first female engineer to graduate from RPI. Ironically this also happened to be the same school which my father, born in Troy, New York and raised in Waterford, New York, attended 30 years later before meeting their daughter and my mother in Washington, DC.
After graduating college, my grandfather again migrated internationally and returned to Cali with my grandmother where, in true Colombian fashion, they had their six children on their small farm. Born to Oscar and Adrienne were Ricardo, Eliza, Peter, Adriana, Maria Elena, and Carlos Gutierrez. Oscar Gutierrez was born July 22, 1924 from Carlos Gutierrez Arango and Blanca Pinzon Suarez of Manizales, Caldas, Colombia. Carlos Gutierrez was born on April 10, 1888 to Emilio Gutierrez Alvarez and Emilia Arango. Emilio Gutierrez was presumed to be a grandson to Jose Maria Gutierrez Alvarez who, again in true prolific Colombian fashion, had 30 known children from his two wives, Dolores Arango and later her sister Anselma Arango. Carlos Gutierrez arrived circa 1918 to Cali, several hundred miles away and several days donkey ride to seek his fortune in cattle ranching, sugar cane farming, other commercial enterprises, and as Colombia's “Coffee King” buying and exporting coffee to the world. After establishing his enterprise, Carlos completed step migration and illustrated the gravitational model by moving from the rural Abejorral Antioquia, Colombia to the more populated but still agrarian, more accessible, city of Cali, where he returned with his 14 children. The Arango side of the family can be traced to Antonio Arango migrating from the Spanish province of Asturias Cartagena de Indias, Colombia in 1654 via the port of Seville, Spain, Eastern Europe. There he served in the military and then moved to Abejorral Antioquia where he began to get involved with cattle ranching and agriculture.
