Oral History Transcript Kyle Chittal
Citation Information
Nalini Chittal Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Kyle Chittal, Immigration, March 12, 2016.
Transcription
- Overview: This interview was conducted in person in the family room at my grandmother’s house in Dumfries, VA. The only thing I needed to edit was the volume. The steps I took to set up the interview was I let my grandmother read over everything first, then I opened my laptop and made sure the volume was good enough for us to hear, and then I clicked play on the Audacity once we were ready. We prepared a quiet space, but then the phone rang, then I paused it. For Audacity, how it works is first you find a type of file to edit such as MP3, then you Import the MP3 file into Audacity, then you look at the way the waves look in the recording to see if their loud enough, then you listen to the recording, then the file is exported, then you test audacity to see if it works. After the interview, I thanked her for taking her time to do the interview.
- My Grandmother, Nalini Prabhu was born in India in 1934, married in 1955 to Mohan Chittal and had 3 children. Her husband came to the United States for his MBA and she followed, and immigrated in 1963. She has lived in the Washington DC area since then.
- Immigration to the United States can be good, but it can also be sad. When you immigrate, you come for better opportunities, but you also leave what you called your whole life “home”. My grandfather wanted to come to America for a better life, and unfortunately that meant leaving lots of family in India. Immigration is really a toss up, do you like your culture and family and want to stay or do you want to try to move to a different place for better opportunities. -How did you feel about you husband wanting to bring the family to the US and leaving a country where you grew up?
“I was excited to come over here but I was sad to leave my family back home because it was so far away.”
-What did it feel like when you got off the plane in America?
“I felt is was so big and a lot of people and I was kind of scared. People were very helpful at the airport which made me comfortable but because we were in a different country and I didn’t see my husband because I thought he would be right there but we had to go through US Customs so that’s why I didn’t see him that made me scared when I didn’t see him.”
So once you saw him was everything good?
“Oh yeah I was excited, I was really excited, but the kids, my son didn’t recognize him so he didn’t go to him and he was clinging to me because it was a three-year gap that he had not seen him. My daughter was ok and we were happy to see him.
-As it pertains to the first question about you felt about you and grandpa wanting to bring the family to the US leaving a country where you grew up, is there any way you can go into more detail?
“First I want ready but I wasn’t ready I wanted him to come. but he said I would like you to see the country, it’s a beautiful country, I want you to come here to see the country and then we will go back. That is the reason I thought it would be really nice to come and see the country. I think he missed them when he saw all the kids and the toys especially that was the main thing. It is a beautiful country to travel around lot of things for the children especially that’s the main reason I think I was ready to come. Staying away for three years is a long time. I was alone staying not with anybody and taking care of two little kids is a lot of responsibility.”
-What did you think of the living conditions in America vs. India when you first arrived?
“It was clean it was beautiful everything was good but we didn’t get our food which I was a little upset about; I wasn’t aware of it We had never seen the big apartments we always lived in a one or two room apartment, and that’s about it. There might be 4 kids in one room, its not like everyone had a separate room, so that was kind of exciting that the children would have their own rooms and they had so many toys.
What was the question again?”
-The question as What did you think of the living conditions in America vs. India when you first arrived?
“In India its like everywhere it is really dirty, there’s a lot of dust, there are animals walking around, there are cows walking on the street. Here it was so clean (the roads) except for cars and buses. [i.e., the roads are only meant for cars and buses versus being used by everyone including animals in India]. We were always looking and we watched all these things from the windows and the kids were really excited about that. Especially the parks, the kid were excited about the parks, I was excited about the parks because we don’t have parks there like we have here, swings and things for the children”
I can definitely see how it would be more exciting and at the same time you are used to what’s going on in India but its good to have a new experience of.
“It was a really a good experience for us as we had never seen we didn’t imagine, because sometimes (in India) we do see on the news or in the movies some things but they don’t show all these things (we see here), so it was really a good experience.”
Yes, alright that’s good, the next question is,
-Even though you were educated and exposed to English, how did you think the language differed in America vs. India when you first arrived to the United States in 1963?
“Well right at the airport only I had a hard time understanding the porters and everybody because our accents were different and here they are also different. So I had a hard time right there. Then we came out (of the airport) and of course my husband also had an Indian accent but being in this country 3 years he adapted at least adapted to the accents here being in school (getting his MBA at American Univ.).
It took us a little time when I went to grocery (grocery store) or when we lived in an apartment, we couldn’t understand what they were talking (saying), certain words we could understand but the whole thing (the sentence or phrase). was so different in the same way for them to understand me it as different as our accents were different.
That part (the accent) was there, even now we have that part, that thing is going on (the ability to speak without an Indian accent). We (as adults) can’t adapt to an American accent, my children can. My children talk like others here, but I came here as a grown up so our accent will be like an Indian accent.”
So how long would you say it took for the accents to not be so hard like to figure out?
“Within six months or something, once we started mixing (with other people) in the apartment you can mix with people, when we went to the grocery store together (we only had one car so we went as a family), when we went to the laundry mat to wash clothes everywhere we went together.
On the weekends we took the kids to the park so they could mix with the kids. They also had a hard time understanding the accent but they could speak good English because they had gone to British schools in India; their accents were somewhat British.
All of us took six months to understand and be comfortable with them (the language and people) and once school started I was more comfortable because I used to go with the kids and mix with other mothers and it made me really understand how good people are in this country. From far away you really don’t know who they are.”
-Were you able to develop a support system in America with other people from India?
“No we didn’t for a long time we didn’t meet (many Indian’s) because my husband had worked for the Embassy and new a few people but he worked for an American company so we mixed with always with Americans only. With Indians we did mix at certain time and with Indians we do stick together but I didn’t have that many Indian friend for about six or seven months.
We had a few friends that we would get together every weekend.
So we felt comfortable to talk about what we do and have done and it made us feel comfortable. I think that is the support for each other.
For cooking or things (Indian groceries) like hot peppers, coriander or other things, where did we get those; we would discuss things like that (there was limited Indian grocers at that time). Things like that were helpful and thus it was the support we had. There were only three families (Indians that we knew) at that time.”
-Did you feel comfortable asking Americans for help and support?
“Yeah I did, and they were very good, if you ask anything they will help you and guide you. And sometimes they didn’t even hesitate to give us a ride. At first I was scared to go because I didn’t now the. Once I got to know some mothers in school and went on school trips, I became comfortable enough to accept rides”.
-How do you think it was difficult on your children when they immigrated in America?
“It was really difficult because they didn’t mix (with other kids) probably because of their accents. The kids were also scared also but later on they started going out, but they had a really bad experience with kids in that some of them beat them and made my son cry. But once they got to know more about the country and the schools and people, it was better for them, but it was hard on them. I used to talk about it to the teacher and the teacher talked about it to the class. That even though we are from a different country, they are just like you. So that time was a little hard on them”.
-How was everyday life different in America such as going to the grocery store and food prep?
“It was difficult because we were used to our food, our vegetables and things, but here everything was so clean and neat and well kept. We weren’t used to frozen foods so we didn’t eat any frozen foods. We weren’t eating certain meats, some meat we did, but I wasn’t making meat at that time because I didn’t have the proper spices to make (the Indian dishes) the meat dish.
Some of the vegetables we got, we used to go to Chinatown. The Chinese people they carried a lot of our types of vegetables including hot peppers which we use a lot. I think that made us happier, so every week we had a trip to China town so that was an outing for my children and me also”.
Once a month there used be an Italian store at 18th and R. St., and over there he used to get a lot of Indian stuff like grains and flours for our breads. Most of which was for the Embassy personnel; any leftover would be sold to us (others). We would go there and wait until we got something from him, that was our proper Indian grocery we used to get. That was nice because it was at least something of ours, because over here we did not have lentils or anything. Once we went to the grocery store we didn’t now what to do, so we bought some soups and added spices to make curries and things to try to make it like a curry. Even chickpeas we got and made curries (very common in our country), other than that we used certain canned vegetables. We also got cream of wheat which we mix with spices as we do with cream of rice. We eat a lot of rice and we got whole wheat flour to make like a tortilla; so we did get a few things (from back home). Everything here was so clean and nice. For a while I couldn’t eat yogurt and milk which is pasteurized, we weren’t used to it, in our country we get fresh milk and make our own yogurt. So it took a long time for me and the children to get used to it. Of course now we are, but back then it smelled different to us.”
-I know that you and Grandpa were involved in Indian classical music concerts, when attending these events, how did it make you feel about being so far from home?
“I felt good that we are bringing our culture to our people in this country because nobody took initiatives to bring the music that a lot of Indians enjoy. It’s a classical music and my husband used to sing back home so he learned music so that was his passion.
Once he came to know a few people over here that were also interested, they began forming a group and organized the first concert at Univ. of Maryland. It was a small program and only a few people. Once musician was playing a drum and a harmonium and a tambura. I brought all 3 of these when I came.
After that once a month they would practice. That was nice exposure. We also met singers and others. Then my husband started getting people from India over here, because he has such a passion for music he would do anything for music. It made me feel good because its like being back home and its our culture.
We do hear American music, but it is totally different (from Indian Classical music)”.
We have time for one more question,
-What advice did you give to other families that were also immigrating to America in the mid 1960’s?
“Just get used to it (life here), give it time. Now the country has improved a lot (in terms of), there are lots of different nationalities and countries represented here so be open to being here.”
- I think the interview overall went well. What I would do differently was I could have had no pauses and just flows with everything better. I feel it flowed slow at first, but then it got progressively better as she gave more detail of the questions and we were on the same page. I did have trouble staying to the script because I didn’t have enough time to ask all the questions. I wish we had done more to stay on track at the beginning, even though we got it together in the middle and end.