Simon Kalmas - May 25, 1982
Feelings Toward Living in United States
What was your uh, feelings, uh, your first initial feelings towards the United States?
Not good, not good. I uh, like I said, I, I got s…slapped in the face by coming into Nashville. If I would have come into New York, Detroit uh, Cleveland, you know, Chicago, it would be a different story. But if you come in to New Orleans and you see what’s going on there, that this, this is for blacks—the segregation, okay, the same thing that—ghetto! I probably coined the word ghetto here.
Well, how is it that you came to New Orleans? Everybody else came through New York.
Because I—there was no uh, we came with the, with the military transport ships. And there was a ship going in this—in…into this port or whatever it is there. So I was on it. For fourteen days, fourteen days on the, on the, on the war ship. And it’s no fun in a, in a, in a transport ship, let me tell you so. No fun. It’s a, it’s a chapter by itself. It’s a chapter by itself.
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