Freddy Baez Interview, History 150 Spring 2017, Conducted by Lucas Baez, Immigration, March 11, 2017
a. I conducted this interview in person in my family’s apartment in New York City over Spring Break. Since my interviewee was my dad, it was convenient for both of us to have the interview conducted at home. I did not have to edit the recording very much – although there was one section where my dad got confused so, at his request, I edited out his first answer and kept his second one. I set up for the interview in my living room with my dad and me sitting in chairs with a table between us. I used my iPhone 6 with an app called Voice Record Pro to record the interview. I placed the iPhone on the table in between us so the sound quality would be the best possible. The overall sound quality of the interview was good and I was able to use the same app to edit my sound file and convert it to an MP3. There were no specific obstacles or exceptions to this interview other than the nervousness of the interviewee. Although the questions were reviewed and discussed in advance, he was less communicative in his responses than expected so the answers are somewhat short and less in depth than I had hoped.
b. Freddy Baez was born in Santiago, Dominican Republic in 1956. At this time, Rafael Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic as a dictator and it was a very dark time in the Dominican Republic. He was a powerful dictator and many Dominicans lived in poverty and in fear. Freddy’s family lived in the country, was very poor and had no way to make money. Many days they only had enough food to eat one time. His mother immigrated to Puerto Rico when he was only four to try to make money to send back to her family. His grandmother and older sisters took care of him until he was ten. His mom was finally able to get a visa to bring him and his sisters to Puerto Rico to live because the people she worked for sponsored them. Then after a year, they went to New York City and he grew up in Washington Heights, which is an NYC neighborhood known for a high population of Dominican immigrants. He has been in New York City ever since, got a green card and then became a naturalized citizen. In 1976, he joined the US Army. He was stationed in Korea for one year but never had to fight in a war. He has been married to my mom for the last twenty-five years and has two sons. Shortly after they got married, they moved to Astoria, Queens and then moved back to Greenwich Village (Manhattan) in 2004 and still live in the same apartment.
c. The late 1950’s and early 1960’s were a pivotal time for the Dominican Republic. General Rafael Trujillo was in control of the country from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. He was extraordinarily corrupt and was accused of many human right violations including the slaughter of 20,000 Haitians. He was an oppressive dictator who used a secret police force to torture and eliminate anyone who dared oppose his regime. While he did build up the Dominican infrastructure during his regime resulting in a more stable standard of living for many, his corruption resulted in riches for himself and his supporters but tremendous poverty for others, especially for the people who lived in the campos (country-side). In 1961, Trujillo was killed and the first free elections in almost 40 years were held in 1962. The United States became very involved in the Dominican Republic in the early 1960’s to ensure that communism did not take hold. In 1965 42,000 US Marines invaded the Dominican Republic. The death of Trujillo and the invasion of the Marines resulted in large wave of Dominican immigrant. Many Dominicans were tired of the uncertainty of the political and economic client in their country and left for America in search of more opportunity and a better life. Up to three quarters of these immigrants headed for New York City. Estimates say that from 1960-1970 the number of Dominican immigrants living in New York City increased from 12,000 to 60,000 and by 2000 the number was 1,121,000. The Washington Heights neighborhood holds the highest concentration of Dominicans outside of the Dominican Republic.
MLA CITATIONS:
Blum, William. Killing hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II. London: Zed , 2014. Print.
History.com Staff. “Rafael Trujillo.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.
Hoffnung-Garskof, Jesse. “Answers About Dominicans in New York.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2009. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.
d. Transcription:
LB: This is Lucas Baez conducting an in-person interview with Freddy Baez on March 11, 2017 in New York City. Thank you for letting me interview you and record your responses. Would you like this interview to be kept private or open to the public?
Freddy Baez: It could be open to the public.
LB: Thank you. Can you tell me your name, age and a little about yourself like where you grew up and how old you were when you came to the US.
Freddy Baez: My name is Freddy Baez. I’m 61 years old. I grew up in the Dominican Republic. I was ten years old when I first came to the United States.
LB: What was happening politically or socially in your country when you left to immigrate to the United States? Did that have anything to do with the reason that you immigrated?
Freddy Baez: Yes it did. It was really really bad. We were really poor. Trujillo was the president of the Dominican Republic. We had no money to eat. No money to buy clothes. We ate once a day. And it was really bad.
LB: What and who did you leave behind in your country and how did that make you feel?
Freddy Baez: Well I left my grandma and my dad. It made me feel really sad that I was leaving them behind because they were suffering too.
LB: What was your life like in the Dominican Republic before you left and how did it compare to life when you reached the US?
Freddy Baez: Well life in the Dominican Republic was really tough. If you didn’t have any money to eat you would go to sleep with no food in your stomach. Its really really poor. People suffered alot.
LB: What about when you got to the United States?
Freddy Baez: When I got to the United States, things was different. Way different. I had money to eat. My mother was working. And everything was beautiful.
LB: What was your experience when immigrated…um…immigrating?
Freddy Baez: Well my mom left the Dominican Republic. And then she went back to the Dominican Republic to pick us up. It was…I got confused. When my mom came to the United States, she was working to send us money. My mom went to Puerto Rico first to work to send us money and to help us. And then the people she was working for sponsored us to get the visa and we went to Puerto Rico. She came to pick us up.
LB: Did you speak English when you arrived in the United States? If not, what was life like for you when you first arrived and could you not really communicate effectively?
Freddy Baez: No, I didn’t understand one word in English and it was really really bad for me because I didn’t understand what other people were saying.
LB: After not knowing how to communicate with others, how did you effectively learn how to speak English?
Freddy Baez: I learned in school and I learned with friends and it was easier for me.
LB: OK. Describe the neighborhood you lived in when you first moved here. Were their other immigrants there?
Freddy Baez: Well most of the people there were Italian, Irish and a few Spanish people. It was really not good for me.
LB: Since you ended up coming to New York from Puerto Rico, where in New York City did you end up living?
Freddy Baez: When I came…when we came from Puerto Rico we went to Washington Heights – 200th Street.
LB: What were your expectations of life in America? Did your experience meet the expectations?
Freddy Baez: Well when my mom was working everything was better. We had money to eat. We had money to buy clothes. And we lived pretty comfortable. We were expecting to have a better life and more opportunity and it happened.
LB: OK. What was the culture in your family after you immigrated? Did your family keep the Dominican culture alive or did your family become more Americanized?
Freddy Baez: We kept…my family kept the Dominican culture alive.
LB: How did you end up keeping the Dominican culture alive between your family?
Freddy Baez: Well my mom used to cook Spanish food. We spoke Spanish at home and we followed our culture.
LB: OK. I know that you joined the Army after high school. Why did you decide to join the US Army when you were not even a US citizen at that point?
Freddy Baez: Well I was holding my green card. And I was joining the Army to get a better life also because where I grew up, where I was growing up, there was a lot of gangs around and it was really dangerous so I expected to go to the Army. It was better for me.
LB: When you came back from the Army, what was your experience when you looked for a job? Did you have any challenges as an immigrant?
Freddy Baez: No, I didn’t have any challenges because of being an immigrant because when you come from the Army you get better chances to get better jobs. So it was pretty good for me.
LB: After all of these years being in the United States, do you think it was worth it coming to the United States from the Dominican Republic?
Freddy Baez: Yeah it was worth it. It was very good. Life was different. I became a good man. I met your mom and I had you…especially you. I love you son. Good luck.
LB: Thank you.
CONCLUSION: I was very happy with my preparation, my questions and with the technical execution of the interview. I think that it was harder for my dad to answer the questions then he (or I) anticipated. He was somewhat intimidated while speaking into the iPhone and because of that, his answers were very short and he really didn’t tell the story that I was hoping he would. I pretty much stuck to the script so the interview felt a little more stilted than I had wanted and there was some dead air while he processed the question (even though we had reviewed them together in advance). If I could change something, I would have tried to go off script more to make my dad feel more comfortable telling his stories and so the interview might have felt more conversational.