Anna Greenberger - August 24, 1982
Arriving in the United States
So that's what we ??? 'til we came. When we arrived to United States, I tell you I almost kissed the ground. When we arrived to Miami Beach my uncle was waiting for me--my mother's brother--with a big table food everything. But we were so hungry in Paraguay, we didn't see--I bought on black market for Erica a apple. She was so sick and I didn't have money for a doctor. Then my mother got sick. Whatever I made and Alex we paid everything the doctors. Everything went on the doctor. My mother was very sick. When we arrived to Miami Beach, uncle was waiting and all the, you know, rye bread and white bread and pumpernickel. My mother was crying and she said to my uncle, "You have here so much to eat and we were so hungry." So he said, "You're right. I could have help you more, I didn't." So we came here and I said right away I get a job. Alex had ten jobs.
He came to Detroit right after you?
Yeah, from Miami. Oh, my uncle wanted us to stay in Miami Beach, because he had a business. And uh, my mother told him, "Brother dear, we'll be very good relatives if my son-in-law will not work for you." Because we were speaking Spanish and that time all the Cubans came there--all the tourists--the millionaires...
Mm-hm.
...and we were speaking Spanish. Alex went to help for a few days in store and my uncle Albert, you know. And they took out apartment for us, and they brought grocery and we ate. You know, I weighed two hundred five pounds when we came here for one year. In one year, we--I baked and cooked and ate uh, so much. After one year I went on a diet and I lost sixty-seven pounds. So that's our life. And my mother died here, she had cancer. She was sixty-two.
In Detroit?
Yeah.
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