Interview with my Grandma

I took some time when visiting my family to sit down with my Grandma and ask her about her childhood and asked her about how she came to this country.





Q: Was it only your mom who wanted to come here?

A: No. My father and my mother both made the decision. But I don't think they made it just for us. They wanted to make a big change in their lives. They wanted to grow old happy and worry-free.

Q: How did you and your siblings feel about this? I know you had 2 brothers and 3 sisters so I'm sure you've all had fixed up feelings, right?

A: In a way. All of us being really young, we didn't exactly understand why exactly we were moving. We knew nothing about America and to be honest we knew other about any other counties outside Hungary. We were all scared and confused and all mom told us was "It's for the best" and we asked no more questions.

Q: Wow. That must be really scary. What was some problems you had when you got to America?

A: Everything was just a blur basically. We didn't know where to go, who to talk to or anything. Obviously speaking no English, we had major problems understanding stuff.

Q: How did your parents react to all this confusion?

A: They didn't even show one sign of worrying. Whenever I looked at their faces or talked to them, they were acting completely casaual and just like nothing was even going on.

Q: That must have been hard for them to do. How was everyone adjusting to life in America, once you all were settled. What did you do about jobs and having places to live?

A: It was. It was a difficult journey. We settled in fine, we still battled with confusion on a daily basis but we got through it okay. When we got there, we had a house. It was small, we were all cramped into the house together but we made the best of what we had.

Q: Would you rather have lived in Hungary your whole life, or do you think your family made the right choice to move to America?

A: I think we moved for the right reason. It made us all a stronger family and I don't think without moving we could have been as close as we are and maybe our family would have been different all together now.