My father was over 50 when he brought us (my mother, my two brothers and me) to the US. One of my sisters was already married and the other one was in London completing her education. He had $20 in his pocket. The man who met us at the airport in Chicago was one of my father’s former employees. The first thing my father did was to invite him to lunch. Then he had $12 left.
My family didn’t try to scale a barbed wire fence or crawl on their knees through a forest with bullets flying over their heads, but their departure was dramatic nonetheless. There was a corrupt AVO agent (Hungarian Secret Police ) who was also very greedy. He was willing to secure my family airline tickets. In return, my parents signed over the deed to their home. They packed only a few small pieces of family silver and some clothes. Apparently this agent and my father were already being investigated: the agent for charges of corruption, my father for refusing to sign an affadavit of loyalty to the communist regime. Less than one day after we left the country, AVO came to arrest my father. At the time, there was a 12-year waiting list for Hungarians desiring to immigrate to the US. It took three years to get from Hungary to the States.
This photo was taken shortly after our arrival in Chicago, in the summer of 1960 at Brookfield Zoo. Note my father’s suit and tie…that tells you something about him. I often talk to my friends and family about our immigrant experience. But since I have come to Hungary to live and work, I’ve gained a new understanding of what it must have been like for my parents.
Some of my memories from our early days in America are sharp and distinct. We stayed at a rooming house the first few nights. The 5 of us slept in one room and it was overheated. There were many working people in that building which meant that they worked different shifts. There was always food cooking. To this day, when I walk into the foyer of a building and smell cabbage or other food smells, I associate it with poverty.
In those days, immigrants to the States had to have an American sponsor, proof of employment, and demonstrate that they were of sound moral character. My mother would rarely talk about the FBI interview, but it left her shaken and outraged. ( I guess they were just doing their jobs, but it was tough for my mother, a matron in her 40s and mother of 5, to respond to suspicions that she might have engaged in prostitution!) She worked for an engineering firm doing statistical calculations. My father was a traffic engineer and worked for the Illinois Bureau of Public Roads planning highways. (After he was naturalized, he worked for the US Department of Transportation in Washington, DC).
I realize that my memories of immigration were those of a child. Now, more than 50 years later, I can appreciate (but still not fully comprehend) the difficulties my parents confronted. Not seeing anything familiar, being surrounded by strangers speaking a language that, despite my parents’ education, was still extremely difficult, the sense of being in culture shock…of being overwhelmed. And they did it with three children ranging in age from 6 to 17!
The train passes through the city of Nyiregyhaza, my father’s birthplace, on its way to Miskolc. Everytime we pass, I say a little prayer. “Thanks, Dad. I am here.”
Thanks to you, too, for tuning in.
Best regards,
Marcsi
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