Topic: Immigration and Ethnicity - Minnesota Digital Library Search Results

401. Interview with Namgang Tsering

Creator:: Tsering, Namgang
Date Created:: 2005-08-20
Description:: Namgang Tsering was born in Tibet and later moved to India. He studied engineering at the University of Bangalore. Tsering moved to Minnesota in 1993 as part of the United States Tibetan Resettlement Project. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family, parents, school in India, grades, difference in engineering and technology between India and the United States, raising children, community, Buddhism, moving to the US, Minnesota weather, decision to come to the U.S., transportation, adjusting to life in Minnesota, Regional Tibetan Youth Congress (RTYC), preserving Tibetan culture.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

402. Interview with Nancy Jensen and Aurine Casey

Creator:: Casey, Aurine
Date Created:: 1999-09-04
Description:: Beginning in 1998, the City of Duluth (Minn.) Sister Cities Commission collaborated with the Iron Range Research Center to record a series of oral history interviews. Independent scholar Dr. JoAnn Hanson-Stone acted as the lead interviewer. The voluntary, self-selecting participants were second-generation Swedish Americans whose parents settled in northeast Minnesota in the early 1900s. The interviews were initiated to create supplementary material for a planned exhibit, "A Long Way Home: Swedish Immigrant Life in Duluth and Northeast Minnesota, 1890-1940."
Contributing Institution:: Iron Range Research Center
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

403. Interview with Naomi Silfversten and Ruth Silfversten Coppins

Creator:: Silfversten, Naomi; Coppins Silfversten Ruth
Date Created:: 1998-01-29
Description:: Beginning in 1998, the City of Duluth (Minn.) Sister Cities Commission collaborated with the Iron Range Research Center to record a series of oral history interviews. Independent scholar Dr. JoAnn Hanson-Stone acted as the lead interviewer. The voluntary, self-selecting participants were second-generation Swedish Americans whose parents settled in northeast Minnesota in the early 1900s. The interviews were initiated to create supplementary material for a planned exhibit, "A Long Way Home: Swedish Immigrant Life in Duluth and Northeast Minnesota, 1890-1940."
Contributing Institution:: Iron Range Research Center
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

404. Interview with Nathan M. Shapiro

Creator:: Shapiro, Nathan M.
Date Created:: 1976-05-12
Description:: Nathan M. (Nate) Shapiro was born in Minneapolis in May of 1911. His father had come to Milwaukee several years earlier and then moved to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, to work as a coppersmith for Leinenkugel Breweries. Next his father moved to Minneapolis, established an auto repair business and later owned a confectionary. Shapiro graduated from North High School and worked at a Snyder's drug store, later becoming its manager. When Prohibition ended in 1934, he and his brother Monroe (Curly) opened Curly's nightclub. When his brother died in 1945, he sold it and went into the theater business and later the insurance business. He married his brother's widow and adopted their son and daughter. Shapiro was a regional officer in the Sertoma Club and a community fund raiser. He was also a close friend of Hubert Humphrey and active in the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background, including his grandfather's supervision of a distillery in Russia and his work as a peddler - his own childhood and education - business experiences - the breakup of a theater owners' monopoly in the 1940s in Minneapolis - concerns about child-rearing and Jewishness - anti-Semitism - intermarriage and strong concern for the relationship between the Gentile and Jewish communities (he and his children are Unitarians) - friendship with Hubert Humphrey - leadership in the Sertoma Club - and activity in the DFL. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Schwartz was very ill with cancer at the time of the interview.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

405. Interview with Nayana Ramakrishnan

Creator:: Ramakrishnan, Nayana
Date Created:: 2001-04-03
Description:: Nayana Ramakrishnan was born in India. She immigrated to the United States with her parents in the early 1960s, and attended school and college in Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Early life - parents - journey to the U.S. - adjustments - education - food - dress - language - traveling to India - discrimination - home ownership - socializing with Indian community - comparing and contrasting Indian and Western culture and values - marriage - family values - School of India for Languages and Culture - participation in Indian associations.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

406. Interview with Neelam Naik

Creator:: Naik, Neelam
Date Created:: 1998-12-09
Description:: Neelam Naik was born in India, where she attended school and college. She immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1990s, arriving first in Georgia and later accepting employment in Minnesota. She works for a consulting firm. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Birthplace - parents - primary and college education - religion - early employment - traveling to the U.S. - Georgia - early adjustment - cultural adjustments - acceptance - values - Indian associations in Georgia and Minnesota - marriage - Indian community in Minnesota.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

407. Interview with Neena Gada, 2004

Creator:: Gada, Neena
Date Created:: 2004-07-24
Description:: Neena Gada immigrated to Minnesota in 1967. She was active in both the School of India for Languages and Culture [SILC] and the India Association of Minnesota [IAM]. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Coming to the United States after marriage - meeting other Indian families - involvement in early cultural programs - involvement with the Indo-American Association - participation in the Festival of Nations - involvement in SILC, including recruiting participants and teachers - involvement in the India Club - planning the first India Day activities - importance of teaching her children about Indian culture - recruiting members for IAM - involvement in MAIDA [Minnesota Asian Indian Democratic Association] - and retirement.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

408. Interview with Neena Gada, 2000

Creator:: Gada, Neena
Date Created:: 2000-03-15
Description:: Neena Gada was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. She is one of the founding members of SILC. She has served as a teacher, administrator and board member. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; founding of SILC; purpose and goals of SILC; first day; organizational structure tuition; student and staff recruitment; managing an all volunteer organization; teaching materials; experiences as a teacher; rewards and challenges of teaching; school board; enrollment; secularity; outreach activities; maintaining ties; important visitors; discipline; special events; Festival of Nations; programming for adopted children; parental perspective; SILC experience and trips to India.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

409. Interview with Nhia Vang

Creator:: Vang, Nhia
Date Created:: 2000-01-21
Description:: Nhia Vang is the mother of You Vang Yang and the grandmother of May Hang. Born in the Yang clan in Xubu, Laos, Nhia Vang reports she is 66 years old. She had eleven children, nine still living. She has lived in the U.S. and been widowed about twenty-five years. She is White Hmong. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Biographical information and religious affiliation. Childhood-school attendance, duties at home, community service, skills taught, social activities as a child, aspirations as a child. Hmong women's roles-decision making inside and outside of home and clan, women in leadership roles and how they are seen in the community, what women do to support their families, family planning, when women feel respected or disrespected. The war and living in refugee camps-memories of fleeing Laos, of refugee camps, difference in treatment of men and women in the camps. Adjustments since coming to the U.S.-skills needed to adjust, learning English, skills from Laos and Thailand that are adaptable or useable in the U.S., citizenship, leadership roles for women in the U.S. versus Laos, public contributions by Hmong women. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The interview was conducted predominantly in Hmong. The Hmong transcript and an English translation are bound together for this interview.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

410. Interview with Nhia Y. Yang

Creator:: Yang, Nhia Yer
Date Created:: 1991-11-15
Description:: Nhia Yer Yang is a shaman, 60 years old. Prior to immigrating to the United States in 1980, he was a soldier and the mayor of his village. He is Xeng Sue Yang's older brother. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Nhia Yer Yang describes his life and his duties as both a soldier and a mayor in Laos. Nhia Yer Yang also discusses his current role as a shaman and the help that he gives to people. He concludes the interview with a concern for the future generations of Hmong people. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Interview translated by May Herr.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

411. Interview with Niru Misra

Creator:: Misra, Nirupama
Date Created:: 2004-09-25
Description:: Niru Misra came to the United States at a young age and became involved in the India Association of Minnesota [IAM] soon after college. She served on the board of IAM for three years before being elected president. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Growing up in the United States - professional life - father's involvement with IAM and Niru's subsequent involvement - experience living in the United States during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement - presence of Indian culture in American media - involvement in the Festival of India - goals of IAM - reaching out to the non-Indian community - service projects and volunteer opportunities through IAM - involvement in School of India for Languages and Culture [SILC] - serving on the board for IAM - organizational structure - gender roles in India versus the United States - serving as president of IAM and the projects undertaken - difficulty in member recruitment - Indian performing arts - challenges faced by IAM - founding the Asian Indian Women's Association [AIWA] - issues dealt with by AIWA such as domestic abuse - immigration and discrimination - changing the name of India Club to India Association of Minnesota - and future challenges of IAM.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

412. Interview with Nirupama Misra

Creator:: Misra, Nirupama; United States
Date Created:: 1997-06-27
Description:: Nirupama Misra was born in India and moved to Minnesota as a young child. She attended college in Florida and Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents, familiarity with parents' language, traveling to India. Relationship with extended family, Arranged marriages. Experiences with Indian community in Minnesota, religion, family's values. Similarities and differences between American and Indian culture and values. Schooling, dealing with dual cultures as a parent. Benefits and difficulties of being a child of first-generation immigrants. India Association, experiences working for a state agency, experiences as a consultant and subcontractor.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

413. Interview with Noi Sinkasem

Creator:: Sinkasem, Noi
Date Created:: 2012-02-17
Description:: Noi Sinkasem was born in Bangkok, Thailand on September 20, 1961. At the time of the interview she owned a Sawatdee Thai restaurant in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Subjects discussed include: Early life and family in Thailand - education - coming to the United States - applying to immigrate and waiting - going back to school in Minnesota - moving to Saint Cloud, Minnesota - owning Sawatdee Thai food restaurant in Saint Cloud - difficult owning a business and being a minority - her children.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

414. Interview with Oke Flysjo

Creator:: Flysjo, Oke
Date Created:: 1990-02-08
Description:: Born in Boras, Sweden, in 1920, Oke Flysjo served as a truck driver in Sweden throughout World War II. He visited the United States twice before deciding to emigrate in 1949. He worked at a warehouse for Gamble Robinson Company from 1950 to 1962, and at H. Brooks & Company as truck driver and produce inspector from 1962-1982.
Contributing Institution:: American Swedish Institute
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

415. Interview with Olga Viso

Creator:: Viso, Olga; United States
Date Created:: 2/16/2011
Description:: Olga Viso was born in Melbourne, Florida. She attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida as an art major. Viso later attended Emory University for graduate school and afterwards became a curator at the High Museum. She later held the position as director of the Hirshhorn Museum for twelve years before becoming the executive director of the Walker Art Center. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - art as her passion - childhood - education - lack of diversity in Melbourne - Cuban exile - Cuban cooking - museum experience - Latino artists - Latino community - networking - community involvement - local art - immigrants - Walker Art Center as a resource for artists - organizations - global image of the Walker - multiculturalism - and embracing her heritage.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

416. Interview with Ong V. Xiong

Creator:: Xiong, Ong Vang
Date Created:: 2000-01-17
Description:: Ong Vang Xiong is the mother of Yer Moua and is the grandmother of Mai Neng Moua. She is fifty-four years old and has been married twice. Her first husband was from the Vue clan and her second was from the Moua clan. She had three children with her first husband and two with her second. She was born in Mong Nha, Laos, fled to Thailand and then immigrated to the U.S. in 1990. She is a White Hmong. She received no formal education. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Biographical information and religious affiliation. Childhood-school attendance, duties at home, community service, skills taught, social activities as a child, aspirations as a child. Hmong women's roles-decision making inside and outside of home and clan, women in leadership roles and how they are seen in the community, what women do to support their families, family planning, when women feel respected or disrespected. The war and living in refugee camps-memories of fleeing Laos, of refugee camps, difference in treatment of men and women in the camps. Adjustments since coming to the U.S.-skills needed to adjust, learning English, skills from Laos and Thailand that are adaptable or useable in the U.S., citizenship, leadership roles for women in the U.S. versus Laos, public contributions by Hmong women. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The interview was conducted predominantly in Hmong. The Hmong transcript and an English translation are bound together for this interview.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

417. Interview with Oy Huie Anderson

Creator:: Anderson, Oy Huie
Date Created:: 2003-02-23
Description:: Oy Huie Anderson was born in Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family - childhood - Chinese community in Minneapolis in 1930s - Westminster Presbyterian Chinese Sunday School.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

418. Interview with Pacyinz Lyfoung

Creator:: Lyfoung, Pacyinz
Date Created:: 1999-12-17
Description:: Pacyinz Lyfoung is the daughter of Maykeu Vang Lyfoung and the niece of Song Lyfoung Vang. She is thirty years old and not married. She has no children. She has a Jurist Doctorate degree from the University of Minnesota and works as a policy specialist for the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, a state agency. She has lived in the U.S. for fourteen years. She was born in France and then immigrated to the U.S. She is a White Hmong. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Biographical information and religious affiliation. Childhood-school attendance, duties at home, community service, skills taught, social activities as a child, aspirations as a child. Hmong women's roles-decision making inside and outside of home and clan, women in leadership roles and how they are seen in the community, what women do to support their families, family planning, when women feel respected or disrespected. Living in France. Adjustments since coming to the U.S.-skills needed to adjust, continuing her education in English. Citizenship, leadership roles for women in U.S. versus Laos, public contributions by Hmong women. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: This interview was conducted in English. There is no Hmong transcript.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

419. Interview with Patricia Torres Ray

Creator:: Ray, Patricia Torres
Date Created:: 2010-12-17
Description:: Patricia Torres Ray was born in Pasto, Colombia. Ray attended law school in Colombia before getting married and moving to Minnesota. She was part of the Chicano Latino Affairs Council and worked for the Department of Human Services. Ray was elected as the first Latina senator of Minnesota and is now serving her second term. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - lack of diversity in Colombia - religion - friendships - Fundaci=n Social - Minnesota winter - Saint Frances Cabrini - community involvement - being bilingual in Spanish and English - Ethnic Heritage Act - helping families of color - Chicano Latino Affairs Council - Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio - Department of Human Services - growing Latino population - West Side - campaigning for office - politics - and immigration.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

420. Interview with Patrick Faunillan

Creator:: Faunillan, Patrick
Date Created:: 2010-12-22
Description:: Patrick Faunillan was born in Quezon City, Philippines but moved to the United States when he was three years old. He graduated as Salutatorian from the Main Street School of Performing Arts in Hopkins, Minnesota. He is a student at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and hopes to become a nurse anesthetist. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Childhood in the U.S. and Philippines - transportation - Filipino foods - family structure - education - high school - theatre - dance - college - Filipino-American Youth Organization - volunteering - heroes - race and growing up - goals.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

421. Interview with Paul C. Borge

Creator:: Borge, Paul C.
Date Created:: 1978-10-27
Description:: Paul Borge was born in 1904 in Narvacan, a town in Northern Luzon, Philippines. His father was a farmer who earned just enough from fishing and raising rice, corn, and vegetables to support a family of eight. Two of Borge's cousins were studying for the Methodist ministry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and for several years Borge pleaded with his father to let him go to the United States, too. The Borge family was devoutly Methodist, and finally his father agreed to let him go to the United States on the condition that he also study for the ministry. Borge's father sold a cow, a horse, and a piece of land to pay for the trip. Borge arrived in Seattle in 1926 and first worked at several jobs on the West Coast, including farm work with other Filipinos, and labor on the tracks for the Northern Pacific Railroad. In the spring of 1928 he arrived in Minneapolis on a railroad pass. He chose Minneapolis because his cousins had moved there, and because he hoped to enroll at the Northwestern Bible College to fulfill his promise to his father to study for the ministry. As the Depression deepened after his arrival, however, it became evident that he could never earn enough money to make the study possible, and he eventually abandoned the idea. In 1934 he married a Scandinavian American and became a permanent resident of Minnesota. During the 1930s Borge served as a butler in the home of Charles B. Sweatt, an executive of the Minneapolis Honeywell Company, and also in the home of Minneapolis businessman Cavour S. Langdon. In 1942 he got a job as a personal attendant in a railway car reserved for the president of the Great Northern Railroad, and he moved his family to northeast Minneapolis, where many Filipinos were moving in the early 1940s. After World War II the family moved to Columbia Heights, again consistent with a general trend among the Filipinos, many of whom were moving to the northern suburbs. Borge worked for the Great Northern until he retired in 1969. Throughout his many years in Minneapolis and the northern suburbs he had been active in Filipino community organizations, and since his retirement he has also been active in a number of church and civic groups, including the Community Methodist Church and the Kiwanis Club in Columbia Heights. In 1980 he was elected to the National Commission on Race and Religion of the United Methodist Church. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Paul Borge discusses his family background in the Philippines, the family's conversion to Protestantism, and the many stories he heard in childhood about the cruelty of Spanish rule in the Philippines. He also describes incidents of discrimination he experienced on the West Coast of the United States, the difficult economic struggle for young Filipinos in Minneapolis, and his work as butler in the Twin Cities homes of wealthy businessmen Charles B. Sweatt and Cavour S. Langdon. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Borge's experiences are typical of many young Filipinos seeking education in the Twin Cities in the late 1920s who had to take jobs as butlers in the homes of wealthy Minneapolis businessmen. His employment by the Great Northern Railroad in 1942 reflects a decision by the company to replace Japanese with Filipinos in service jobs on the trains because of anti-Japanese sentiment during World War II.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

422. Interview with P.C. Mangalick

Creator:: Mangalick, P. C.
Date Created:: 1994-06-14
Description:: P. C. Mangalick was born in India. He grew up in India and ran his own business there. In the early 1970s, he and his wife came to the United States. In the mid-1980s, he and his wife established a charity hospital in Agra, India. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: His business in India - marriage - the move to the United States - importance of discipline in Indian culture - his charitable hospital in India - the India Bazaar stores, import work, the startup of a wholesale business - Ashram group, the startup of the Hindu Society of Minnesota - vegetarianism - and the importance of helping other people.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

423. Interview with Pennamma Cherucheril

Creator:: Cherucheril, Pennamma
Date Created:: 1993-07-22
Description:: Pennamma Cherucheril was born in India. As a teenager, she and a sister traveled to Wisconsin to join a relative and to study nursing. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Background, arriving and adjusting to the United States, education, visiting India, marriage, family values, religion, mixing Western and religious customs, India Club, Malayalee group, North American Knanaya Catholic group, experiences attending Indian cultural events, future plans and aspirations.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

424. Interview with Peter Moreno

Creator:: Moreno, Peter
Date Created:: 1976-08-06
Description:: Pete Moreno was born Oct. 6, 1924, in Renville, Minn., moved with his family to St. Paul in 1925 and has lived in Minnesota his entire life. He has worked with a housing authority and the Ramsey County Office of Equal Opportunity, and at the time of the interview is state director of federal Migrant Education Program for children. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Experience in government agencies - goals, philosophies and activities of the Migrant Education Program - and directions in which the program is moving.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

425. Interview with Phiengtavanh Savatdy

Creator:: Savatdy, Phiengtavanh
Date Created:: 2012-01-14
Description:: Phiengtavanh Savatdy was born in 1981 in Vientiane, Laos. She enlisted in the Army National Guard, and attended St. Cloud College. Subjects discussed include: Early life in Laos - nicknames given to her as a child - coming to the United States - coming to Minnesota and going to public schools in Minneapolis - being different and wanting to fit in - educational achievements - becoming a citizen and enlisting in the National Guard - coming home from Iraq and going to college - being active in extracurricular groups in college - not being active in the local Lao community - personal, and career goals and goals for the Lao community.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

426. Interview with Philip C. Ahn

Creator:: Ahn, Philip C.
Date Created:: 1979-12-07
Description:: Philip C. Ahn was born in Korea in 1928 to a family of third-generation Christians. His father owned a jewelry business, and his mother was a deaconess in the Presbyterian Church. When Korea was partitioned after World War II, Ahn's parents feared that the Communist government in North Korea would not look favorably on businessmen and Christians, and the family fled to South Korea. They arrived in Seoul at the height of postwar chaos and unemployment. At age 18, however, with five years of high school English, Ahn got a job as interpreter at the U.S. embassy. He also enrolled at a pharmacy school which later became part of the National University in Seoul, and he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1949. During this period a good friend, Young Pai, who was a student at Macalester College in St. Paul, urged Ahn to join him in Minnesota to continue his studies. Ahn was eager to do so and took the government examinations required for study abroad in 1949. He passed the examinations but did not have the necessary financial resources. With the onset of the Korean War and the arrival of United Nations troops, however, the demand for translators and interpreters increased, and from 1950 to 1951 Ahn worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army's 17th Regiment. In 1951 he joined the Korean Army and served as a lieutenant in the liaison corps, where he was an interpreter for the Korean Military Advisory Group, a group of American advisors. In 1953, at the end of the war, Ahn left Korea and enrolled at Macalester College just as Young Pai was leaving. Ahn majored in biology and chemistry and graduated in 1957. He took a job in Austin, Minnesota, as a junior scientist at the Hormel Institute of the University of Minnesota Graduate School. While in Austin Ahn married Betty Engel, also a graduate of Macalester College. Ahn stayed in Austin from 1957 to 1960 and then became an assistant scientist at the U of M Medical School in Minneapolis, where he worked as a physiological chemist from 1960 to 1962, a period in which the basic analysis of nutrition and heart disease was being launched. In 1962 he transferred to the nutrition division of the Home Economics Department on the St. Paul campus, where he worked as a lipid chemist. In the early 1970s Ahn became an associate scientist in the newly established Department of Food Science and Nutrition of the College of Home Economics and College of Agriculture. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Ahn discusses his family background and early experience in Korea during the post-World War II and Korean War periods - the close-knit group of Korean students at Macalester during the 1950s - interracial marriages - difficulties of childrearing in American society - Korean wives of American servicemen who have settled in Minnesota - and the history of the Korean churches in the Twin Cities area. Ahn provides valuable information on the early Korean students at Macalester College during the 1950s, who were the first significant group of Koreans to arrive in the state, many of whom remained as permanent residents. He also contributes useful insight into the acculturation of those who intermarried.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

427. Interview with Porfirio Diaz

Creator:: Diaz, Porfirio; United States
Date Created:: 2013-02-24
Description:: Porfirio Diaz was born and raised in Moroleon, Guanajuato, Mexico. He graudated from Concordia College with a degree in International Business. At the time of the interview Diaz resided in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family - Lutheran Social Services - education - community engagement - Mexican cultural retention - generational differences in the Mexican community - demographic shifts in Pelican Rapids.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

428. Interview with Prasanna Mishra

Creator:: Mishra, Prasanna
Date Created:: 1999-01-28
Description:: Prasanna Mishra was born in India where he attended school and college. He came to U.S. in the late 1970s. He lived and worked first in Pennsylvania, before moving to Minnesota. Currently, he works as a researcher. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Birthplace - parents - education - arrival and adjustment in U.S. - marriage - early work experiences - Indian community in Pennsylvania and Minnesota - family values - Indian associations in Minnesota.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

429. Interview with Preeti Mathur

Creator:: Mathur, Preeti
Date Created:: 2000-07-09
Description:: Preeti Mathur was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. She is one of the founding members of SILC. She has served as a teacher, administrator and board member. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; establishing SILC; newsletter; teaching experiences; personal benefits; school board; teachers; preparation; Festival of Nations; Femina magazine story; special performances; twentieth anniversary celebration.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

430. Interview with Punjabhai Patel

Creator:: Patel, Punjabhai
Date Created:: 2000-03-02
Description:: Punjabhai Patel was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. He has served as a teacher, administrator and board member at SILC. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; participation in SILC; experiences teaching yoga; tenth anniversary of SILC; teaching methods; challenges and rewards of teaching; enrollment and location changes; goals for organization; personal influences; parental perspective; experiences as an administrator and board member; school board; committee work; volunteers; social connections; Festival of Nations; outreach to adopted children; Indian caste system; long term success of SILC; future plans.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

431. Interview with Qi-hui Zhai

Creator:: Zhai, Qi-hui
Date Created:: 1980-01-04
Description:: Qi-hui Zhai was born in Shanghai, China, on December 16, 1927. Her father was a biology professor at Central University in Nanjing and traveled between research institutions in Nanjing, Beijing, and Shanghai during most of her childhood. In 1945 Zhai entered Suzhou University, located temporarily in Shanghai at the end of World War II. The next year she transferred to Yanjing University in Beijing, and she graduated in June of 1949, six months after liberation. She was assigned to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and in 1959 the government of the People's Republic of China sent her to Russia for two years of study. For the first year she studied at the Institute of Zoology in Leningrad, and later at the Institute of Biochemistry in Moscow. Zhai arrived in Minnesota in June of 1979, the first of many visiting scholars from China to arrive at the University of Minnesota following normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and China on January 1, 1979. She worked with Dr. James W. Bodley in the Department of Biochemistry at the University Medical School from mid-1979 to late 1981, conducting basic research on the reproductive system of the ladybug, in an attempt to develop a means of artificial rearing of the insect, a natural enemy of aphids, for control of aphids in agriculture. Subjects discussed include: Zhai discusses her father's background as a pioneer entomologist in China, and his work in establishing biology departments in several Chinese universities after spending thirteen years in study and research at Cornell University in New York - his many publications under the name C. Ping - problems of Chinese scientists in the 1980s in conducting basic research after the interruption of the Cultural Revolution - Zhai's research at the University of Minnesota on yolk protein synthesis in the ladybug, a continuation of her research in Beijing - her impressions of Minnesota - and her family in Beijing. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Zhai is an accomplished scientist from the People's Republic of China, and her visit to Minnesota is significant because it represents a new era of exchange between scientists in the state's research institutions and scientists in China. Her perspective is especially interesting because her father studied in the United States in the 1910s and was instrumental in advancing Western scientific knowledge in China after returning to his homeland in 1920.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

432. Interview with Rabbi David Aronson

Creator:: Aronson, Rabbi David
Date Created:: 1967-07-19
Description:: Rabbi David Aronson's father was from White Russia, and his mother was from Latvia. Aronson was born in White Russia and came to the United States with his family at age eleven. The family lived on New York's East Side. Aronson went to day school for one year, then high school, college and seminary. He became a rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis in September of 1924. At the time of the interview he was professor of rabbinics in the graduate school of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The 1924 replacement of crosses by Stars of David on markers along Victory Memorial Drive for Jewish soldiers killed in World War I - family history - Jews living on Minneapolis's North Side - first impressions of Minneapolis - the status of Jews in the community - and Jewish organizations including Beth El, Talmud Torah, and Menorah and Hillel at the University of Minnesota. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: MHS received the interview material in 1972 from Mrs. Nathan Berman of the Minneapolis Federation for Jewish Service.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

433. Interview with Rafael E. Ortega

Creator:: Ortega, Rafael E.
Date Created:: 2011-02-28
Description:: Rafael Ortega grew up in New York City. He received his bachelor's degree from Fordham University and his master's degree in social work from the University of Minnesota. Ortega is the first minority to be elected to the Ramsey County Board (5th district) and the first Latino to a county board in Minnesota in 1994. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family and early life - Puerto Rican parents - growing up on the Lower East Side - growing up in the era of social unrest and protest - being one of a few Latinos in college - student activities and organizations and racial issues in college - coming to Minnesota to do his master's - CLUES [Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio] - challenges facing the Twin Cities Latino community in the 1980s-early 90s - getting Latinos appointed to state wide posts - Ramsey county commissioner - his children - campaigning - Highland Park neighborhood.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

434. Interview with Rajan Menon

Creator:: Menon, Rajan
Date Created:: 2001-10-28
Description:: Rajan Menon was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. He has served in various capacities at SILC. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; participation in SILC; experiences as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and board member; curriculum; accommodating growing enrollment; cooking class; secularity; language instruction; volunteers; teaching methods; festival celebrations; Indian culture; personal experiences.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

435. Interview with Rajiv Shah

Creator:: Shah, Rajiv
Date Created:: 1997-08-22
Description:: Rajiv Shah was born in Uganda. He and his parents came to the United States, where he attended school in Minnesota and college in Massachusetts. Presently, he is the director of a nonprofit program and is attending medical school. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents' background - familiarity with parents' language - childhood memories of Africa, United Kingdom, and Canada - discrimination - family's values - volunteering experiences - future plans - travels to India - advantages and disadvantages of being a child of first generation immigrants.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

436. Interview with Ralph Delgado

Creator:: Delgado, Ralph
Date Created:: 1976-07-26
Description:: Ralph Delgado, his older brother, Ray, Jr., and his younger brother, Francis, run a 900-acre potato farm, one of the largest in southern Minnesota. They, along with their father, Raymond, Sr., started buying land in 1953 after many years of doing farm work for other farmers. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Management and operation of the farm - hobbies and interests - family - education - discrimination - and advice to future generations.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

437. Interview with Rama Padamnashan

Creator:: Padamnashan, Rama
Date Created:: 2000-03-12
Description:: Rama Padamnashan was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. She served as a teacher, administrator and board member at SILC. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; participation in SILC; experiences as a teacher, principal, and board member; curriculum development; personal benefits; Festival of Nations; language; arts; teaching materials; challenges and rewards of teaching; future plans; enrollment; social connections; demographics; Indian festivals; school board; twentieth anniversary celebration; outreach to adopted children; Ragamala Music and Dance Theater.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

438. Interview with Ramedo J. and Catalina Saucedo

Creator:: Saucedo, Ramedo J.; Saucedo, Catalina
Date Created:: 1977-04-06
Description:: Ramedo Saucedo was born in St. Paul in 1930. Catalina Saucedo was born in Maxwell, Texas, in 1930 and moved to St. Paul in 1943. They were married in 1956 and have two children. Subjects discussed include: Ramedo Saucedo discusses life on St. Paul's West Side - his education at the University of Minnesota and several graduate schools - his teaching career at University and Southwest High Schools in Minneapolis, including the Hispanic Cultural Enrichment Program in that school system - and his work as the state's Mexican consul. Catalina Saucedo discusses her work at the consulate and her career as accountant, tax consultant and real estate agent as well as her participation in the Mexican-American community in St. Paul. They also discuss travels to Mexico. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Ramedo Saucedo compiled Mexican Americans in Minnesota: An Introduction to Historical Sources"
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

439. Interview with Ram Gada

Creator:: Gada, Ram
Date Created:: 1994-12-07
Description:: Ram Gada was born in India where he graduated from college. He also completed a graduate degree in North Dakota and then moved to Minnesota. Presently, he operates his own consulting firm. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Childhood years - experiences growing up in India - education - arranging to come to school in the U.S - arriving in and adjusting to climate in North Dakota. Marriage - family values - cultural differences - the Gujarati Samaj - religion - vegetarianism, activities of the Jain group in Minneapolis - India Club - School of India for Languages and Culture (SILC) - relations within the Indian community - recent political involvement - work history - imparting values to children, mixing Eastern and Western cultural values - plans for children's futures, the growth of Indian community in the Twin Cities - and maintaining family ties to India.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

440. Interview with Ramona Advani

Creator:: Advani, Ramona
Date Created:: 1998-02-19
Description:: Ramona Advani was born in Minneapolis. Her parents came to the United States as graduate students. Advani attended high school and college in Minnesota, and law school in Washington, D.C. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents, familiarity with parents' language, religion, school experiences, Indian community in Minnesota, similarities and differences in Indian and American culture, college experiences, difficulties of being a child of a first-generation immigrant, self-acceptance, future plans, Indian movies.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

441. Interview with Ramon Leon

Creator:: Leon, Ramon
Date Created:: 2010-08-23
Description:: Ramon Leon was born in Mexico City before moving to the state of Mexico. Leon worked as a journalist in Mexico, but relocated to California and dedicated his time to business. He later moved to Minnesota for an opportunity to open his own furniture manufacturing company. He would soon wed in Minnesota and continued to build his businesses and help the Latino community establish their own businesses. Leon formed the Joint Committee on Immigration and was the chair of the board for Mercado Central. He envisioned Latinos solving their social issues through community programs, businesses, and involvement. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family - education - jobs worked - climate and social differences of California to Minnesota - bonding with Latino community - business - financial struggles - religion - Mex-Am Vending - Latino Economic Development Center - financing - protecting the local Latino businesses - Latino Scholarship Fund - immigration issues - and the Institute for Economic Development of the Americas.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

442. Interview with Ranee Ramaswamy

Creator:: Ramaswamy, Ranee; United States
Date Created:: 1994-11-17
Description:: Ranee Ramaswamy was born in India, where she attended school and college. In Minnesota, she renewed her involvement with dance and also was active in the Tamil Association. She travels to India frequently to study dance and is a founder of the Ragamala Dance Theater. She has received several McKnight fellowships for dance, has performed widely, and teaches dance in Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Her childhood - family values and expectations - relations with family members, extended families - marriage - moving to the United States - participating in dance performances, and traveling back to India annually to study Bharatha Natyam, classical Indian dance - Minnesota Dance Alliance - winning fellowships and grants - poet Robert Bly - establishing the Ragamala Dance Theater - mixing traditional dance and innovative approaches - teaching Indian dance classes - future plans.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

443. Interview with Ravinder Manku

Creator:: Manku, Ravinder
Date Created:: 1998-12-17
Description:: Ravinder Manku was born Nairobi, Kenya to a family of Indian origin. Her family also lived in Zambia and Canada. She attended college in Canada. She moved to the U.S. in the mid-1990s to continue her education, and is currently working on her PhD as well as doing educational research. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Early life, parents - Indian communities in Africa - memories of Africa - adjusting to life in Canada - discrimination - her education - career choice - college education - Canadian GED program - JET program in Japan - traveling - teaching ESL - Dominican Republic - Indian and Western culture and customs - involvement in Indian community in Minnesota - future plans.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

444. Interview with Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin

Creator:: Haslett-Marroquin, Reginaldo
Date Created:: 2010-07-26
Description:: Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin was born in Puente de Pl_tanos, Guatemala. Hasslet-Marroquin attended the Central National Agriculture School and the University of San Carlos studying agriculture. He was the president of ENLACE Guatemala before moving to Minneapolis. In Minnesota he attended the University of Minnesota to hone his English. He then created the Peace Coffee Company, National Fair Trade Federation, Transfair, and the Rural Enterprise Center. Reginaldo is married with three children. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - civil war - organic farming - childhood - Mayan languages - education - experience at an all boys boarding school - Faith and Hope program - volunteering - Minnesota weather - organizations - co-ops - difficulties of learning English - 1995 Farm Bill - Peace Coffee Company - creating fair treatment towards farmers - atrocities of war - funding - Community Supported Agriculture - Latino community in Minnesota - and environmentalism.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

445. Interview with Rev. Dagoberto Aguilar

Creator:: Aguilar, Reverend Dagoberto
Date Created:: 1976-08-03
Description:: Born in Turialva, Costa Rica, in 1927 - studied and became a minister in Mexico City - worked as a missionary in Central America - received an assignment in Philadelphia, where he worked for several years - called to work in 1973 with Spanish-speaking people in Minneapolis, including some Mexican families. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: History of the Primera Iglesia Bautista in Minneapolis - religious and social activities and social services at the church - the need to maintain Spanish in that church - hopes of church members, including continued parishioner growth and construction of a church building of its own. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: In Spanish.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

446. Interview with Rev. J. Pablo Obregon

Creator:: Obregon, Reverend J. Pablo
Date Created:: 2009-07-14
Description:: Rev. J. Pablo Obregon was born in Lima, Peru. Obregon attended Lutheran Bible Institute in southern California for ministry. He later attended Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota on his path towards becoming a pastor. He accepted a pastor internship in Willmar where he would meet his future wife. Obregon would become the Pastor Chaplain for Bethesda Health and Housing in Willmar. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - Peru's religious stance - Peru weather and culture - Chinese influence in Peru introducing rice to diet - holidays and New Year's celebrations - playing the guitar - education - teacher strikes and social injustice - learning English by watching television shows along with classes - calling to become a pastor - Minnesota weather - dealing with stereotypes - immigration - racial tensions and discrimination in Willmar - ELCA - and educating the community of Willmar about God and understanding different cultures.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

447. Interview with Rita Mustaphi

Creator:: Mustaphi, Rita; Ramsey
Date Created:: 2000-04-03
Description:: Rita Mustaphi was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. She is one of the original founders of SILC, and taught dance at SILC for a number of years. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; establishing SILC; participation in SILC; experiences as a dance teacher, first class; Kathak dance, rehearsals, performances; individual instruction; teaching methods; costumes; curriculum; parental perspective; visits to India; Nrita Jyoti Dance Theater; Festival of Nations; social connections.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

448. Interview with Roberto Trevino Jr.

Creator:: Trevino, Roberto Jr.
Date Created:: 2010-12-15
Description:: Roberto Trevino Jr. was born in Eagle Pass, Texas. Trevino moved to Willmar, Minnesota for better educational and financial opportunities. He received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Baylor University. Trevino was the director of human resources at a turkey processing plant in Marshall, Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - farm work - religion - growing Latino community in Willmar, Minnesota - financial struggles - differences between Willmar and Moorhead - racism - childhood - family reunion - bilingual in Spanish and English - retaining traditions and cultures - economics - Ecumenical Council - County Fair Board - immigration - Willmar Area Multicultural Marketplace Group - politics - and community involvement.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

449. Interview with Robert Yu

Creator:: Yu, Robert
Date Created:: 1979-02-01
Description:: Robert Yu was born in about 1915 in the city of Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China. During his childhood his father was postmaster general of China. As the eldest son, Yu enjoyed a favorable position in the family, and his father set aside a considerable sum of money to enable him to study in the United States after graduation from college. While studying at the University of Nanjing, Yu met his future wife, Victoria (Yu), and after their marriage Yu's father agreed to send them both to the United States. Robert and Victoria Yu arrived in the United States in about 1939. Although Robert Yu had intended to attend graduate school after his arrival, he had not made arrangements with any specific university. In Seattle, where they disembarked, they met a Chinese graduate of the University of Wisconsin who suggested that Yu attend the University of Minnesota and offered to accompany them to Minneapolis. After their arrival Yu applied to the University of Minnesota and was accepted as a graduate student in the College of Business Administration, and he later transferred to the College of Agriculture, where he majored in agricultural economics. While Yu was a student at the university, two sons, Robert and Victor, were born to the family. Yu completed his master of arts degree in 1941, but because of the Sino-Japanese War he could not return to China immediately. He took a job for a short time at the Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis and then took a job in Washington, D.C., where a third child, Joyce (the interviewer for this oral history interview, and who was interviewed for the project as well), was born. In Washington Yu worked as a Chinese-area specialist at the Department of Agriculture. During World War II the United States planned (but never carried out) a landing on the Chinese coast, and Yu provided information on Chinese agriculture in the proposed landing area. In 1947, with the war over, the Yu family returned to China, where Yu took a job as vice-president of the Farmers' Bank of China in Shanghai. As rampant inflation and civil conflict made living in postwar China increasingly difficult, the family returned to the United States in 1949 and settled in southeast Minneapolis, the area where they had lived during Yu's time at the university. Yu again took a job with the Pillsbury Company for a short time, but next he became a vice-president of First National Bank of Minneapolis. In 1979 Yu retired from that job and accepted a teaching position in Taiwan. While Victoria Yu also decided to live in Taiwan, where many relatives live, all three Yu children have remained in the United States. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Yu discusses his family background in China - his first trip to the United States, and his fears that he and his wife would be turned away by immigration officials - first impressions in Seattle - Chinese student life at the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses during World War II, when the students were cut off from family resources - political views in the Chinese community in Minnesota - views toward normalization of U.S.-China diplomatic relations in 1979 - discrimination toward Chinese people - and problems of child rearing in the immigrant community. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Yu reflects the views of the intellectuals from northern China (Mandarin speakers), most of whom came either as students to the University of Minnesota or as political refugees settling in Minnesota after World War II. He is particularly perceptive about divisions within the Chinese community and about changing views of Chinese settlers over the years.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

450. Interview with Robert Zan

Creator:: Zan, Robert
Date Created:: 2011-05-11
Description:: Robert Zan is the son of Mahn Ba Zan who was a prominent leader in the Karen struggle for independence. In turn Robert Zan was a leader in Karen struggles for independence. He is the author of a concise history "Mahn Ba Zan & The Karen Revolution", published in 1993. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Early memories of Burmese atrocities against the Karen - family - his father Mahn Ba Zan founder of Karen National Defense Organization and leader of the Karen resistance - becoming a solider - fighting
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

451. Interview with Romaldo Jimenez

Creator:: Jimenez, Romaldo
Date Created:: 1976-07-26
Description:: Romaldo Jimenez was born in Jalisco, Mexico, in 1912 and left the country in 1926. He worked in Texas and Kansas and arrived in Walters, Minnesota, in 1933. At the time of the interview he was living in Albert Lea. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Working in the beet fields - renting land to plant his own crops - and raising his 13 children. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: In Spanish, transcribed into English.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

452. Interview with Rosalinda Gonzalez

Creator:: Gonzalez, Rosalinda
Date Created:: 2010-02-15
Description:: Rosalinda Gonzalez was born in Mercedes, Texas. Gonzalez moved to Minnesota for opportunities to work on farms and for education. She attended two years of college at Moorhead State and works as a nutrition education assistant. Gonzalez is married with one child. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - importance of education - farm work - traveling - financial struggles - Migrant Farm Workers Program - Minnesota winter - racism - lack of Mexican stores - differences in churches in Texas and Minnesota - Moorhead Health Initiative - community programs - Creative Care for Reaching Independence - missionary trips - spending time with family - being bilingual in Spanish and English - and Latino food and culture.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

453. Interview with Ruben Garcia

Creator:: Garcia, Ruben; United States
Date Created:: 2013-02-22
Description:: Ruben Garcia was born in Hart, Texas in 1960. After serving eight years in the military, Garcia graduated with an associate's degree in law enforcement from the University of Miami. At the time of the interview Garcia was living with his family and serving as a police officer in Moorhead, Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family - childhood - language - Mexican cultural traditions - food - prejudice in the military - experiences with a family involved in the Ku Klux Klan - membership in Disabled American Vets.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

454. Interview with Ruby Ostrom Thomas

Creator:: Thomas, Ostrom
Date Created:: 1999-07-22
Description:: Beginning in 1998, the City of Duluth (Minn.) Sister Cities Commission collaborated with the Iron Range Research Center to record a series of oral history interviews. Independent scholar Dr. JoAnn Hanson-Stone acted as the lead interviewer. The voluntary, self-selecting participants were second-generation Swedish Americans whose parents settled in northeast Minnesota in the early 1900s. The interviews were initiated to create supplementary material for a planned exhibit, "A Long Way Home: Swedish Immigrant Life in Duluth and Northeast Minnesota, 1890-1940."
Contributing Institution:: Iron Range Research Center
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

455. Interview with Rudolph F. Runez

Creator:: Runez, Rudolph F.
Date Created:: 1979-01-17
Description:: Rudolph Runez was born in 1902 in the city of Caba, in the province of La Union, in northern Luzon, Philippines. He was the third of seven children of a government official in La Union, and although the family was not wealthy, all the children had good educations through secondary school, and several of them later went to the United States to continue their studies. Rudolph's older brother Sixto arrived in Minnesota with a cousin and two others from Caba in 1918, and Rudolph arrived in 1922. After three years of study at the University of Minnesota and the College of St. Thomas, Rudolph married Ruby Knutson, whose parents were Norwegian immigrants, and soon afterward left college to support his family. Even with several years of college education it was difficult for Filipinos to find employment in the Twin Cities, and with the onset of the Depression in the late 1920s almost the only employment open to them was service work in hotels or jobs as butlers in the homes of wealthy businessmen. From 1928 to 1938 Runez worked as a butler in the home of the John Pillsbury family in Minneapolis, and later he also served as butler in the home of the John Ordway family in White Bear Lake. With the onset of World War II he found a job in defense work at the Gray Company in Minneapolis, and he continued to work for the company until his retirement in 1967. While Runez was a student at the University of Minnesota, he was active in the Philippinesotans, a club organized by Filipino students, and the Cosmopolitan Club, which included a variety of foreign students. In 1925 he was one of the organizers and the first president of the Cabenan Club, a regionally based organization comprised of immigrants from Caba, and later he was the first president of the Filipino American Club. Both Ruby and Rudy Runez have been active participants in the First Lutheran Church in White Bear Lake since 1939, and since his retirement has been on the church's board of trustees and board of deacons. He has also been active in the Masonic Fraternity. The Runezes have two daughters, both of whom married men of Scandinavian heritage. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Runez points out that every year from 1918 to about 1928 several Filipino immigrants arrived in the Twin Cities from Caba, La Union, and that many of them were relatives or friends of the Runez family. He also points out that among those who remained in Minnesota, a large number eventually married daughters of Norwegian immigrants who had arrived in an earlier era. Runez discusses racial discrimination that caused interracial couples to experience severe hardships in finding jobs and housing, and the rude remarks and stares of bigoted individuals when the couples appeared in public. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Runez and his many relatives and friends who eventually immigrated to the Twin Cities illustrate the system of chain migration common to many immigrant groups, a system in which those who arrive first encourage others to join them in the new land through letters and offers of assistance. He also exemplifies the many Filipino students who were not able to complete their studies in the United States because of economic hardship. In the Twin Cities many of them married women of Norwegian or Swedish ancestry and became permanent residents of Minnesota. They were denied American citizenship until after World War II.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

456. Interview with Rudolph Saucedo Jr.

Creator:: Saucedo, Rudolph Jr.
Date Created:: 1976-08-09
Description:: Rudolph Saucedo, Jr., was born on the West Side of St. Paul in 1951. He was an active member of the Brown Berets, an organization of young Chicano men, from 1968 to 1973. He died in 1979. Subjects discussed include: History, goals and activities of the Brown Berets - community feelings toward the group - police harassment and other problems encountered - leaders - and the group's future.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

457. Interview with Rudy Gustafson

Creator:: Gustafson, Rudy
Date Created:: 1999-06-22
Description:: Beginning in 1998, the City of Duluth (Minn.) Sister Cities Commission collaborated with the Iron Range Research Center to record a series of oral history interviews. Independent scholar Dr. JoAnn Hanson-Stone acted as the lead interviewer. The voluntary, self-selecting participants were second-generation Swedish Americans whose parents settled in northeast Minnesota in the early 1900s. The interviews were initiated to create supplementary material for a planned exhibit, "A Long Way Home: Swedish Immigrant Life in Duluth and Northeast Minnesota, 1890-1940."
Contributing Institution:: Iron Range Research Center
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

458. Interview with Sai Nou Vang

Creator:: Vang, Sai Nou
Date Created:: 2015
Description:: Interview with Sai Nou Vang in which he discusses his work as General Vang Pao's personal bodyguard and house manager. He also discusses his role as Captain in the CIA Secret War in Laos 1961-1975.
Contributing Institution:: Center for Hmong Studies
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: Oral histories

459. Interview with Saksady Xai Song Kham

Creator:: Kham, Saksady Xai Song
Date Created:: 2012-09-23
Description:: Saksady Xai Song Kham was born in 1958 in Pak Se Champassak, Laos. He arrived in Minnesota as a refugee in 1980. At the time of the interview he was an active union representative and a dedicated supporter and organizer of the Lao community in Minnesota. Subjects discussed include: Crossing the Mekong River to escape to Thailand, living in a refugee camp - traveling back to Laos to help his captured family escape - life in the refugee camp - adjusting to American culture - adjusting to the Midwest - building and supporting the Lao community.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

460. Interview with Samphoun Em

Creator:: Em, Samphoun
Date Created:: 1992-07-31
Description:: Samphoun Em was nineteen years old at the time the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. He and his family were evacuated from their village and were separated. He and two siblings were sent to work in a camp about 50 kilometers from his home village. Many people, including his sister, starved to death. He developed asthma and required medicine so he escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand and later immigrated to America.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: Oral histories

461. Interview with Sandra L. Vargas

Creator:: Vargas, Sandra L.
Date Created:: 2011-03-14
Description:: Sandra L. Vargas was born in Los Angeles before moving to Minnesota. Vargas attended the College of Saint Catherine in Saint Paul studying business administration and later the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for a mid-career degree on public policy. She held positions working at the State Department of Economic Development and as Minnesota Department of Transportation Director of Administrative Services for the metro district. Vargas is currently the president and CEO (chief executive officer) of the Minneapolis Foundation. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Jobs held - family background - Latino community in Minnesota - immigration - religion - financial struggles growing up - childhood - importance of education - Set-Aside Program - relationships - Hispanic Chamber of Business - racism - English translators - Minnesota Chamber of Commerce - Minority Issues Advisory Council - Chicano Esperanza - Hispanic Women's Development Corporation - Latino parents conference - fellowships - and leadership.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

462. Interview with Sang H. Lee and Young Kim Lee

Creator:: Lee, Sang H.
Date Created:: 1979-12-19
Description:: Sang H. Lee was born in Taegu, South Korea, the first of six children. His father was a college teacher in Seoul during most of Sang's childhood. Sang finished college in Korea and then came to the United States for graduate study in engineering in 1969. He studied at Washington State University for two years and later at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston from 1971 to 1976. After completing his studies he accepted a position at Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M) in St. Paul, where he is presently a supervisor of research and development of engineering materials. Young Kim Lee was also born in Taegu, the third of four children. She graduated from Yonsei University and then came to the United States in 1973 to study to be a medical technician in Philadelphia. She met Sang at a Korean church in Philadelphia and moved to Boston after their marriage. The Lees are active members of the Korean Presbyterian Church in Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The Lees discuss the favorable social climate for Asians in Minnesota, the history of the Korean church and community in the state, and the problems of bringing up their children with an appreciation of their Korean roots. They also mention the Korean Association and the Minnesota chapter of the Korean Scientists and Engineers Association. Kim Young talks about the changing roles of men and women in the Korean immigrant community. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The Lees represent the many professionals among recent Korean immigrants to Minnesota, and the concerns of this group to develop a well-organized, active ethnic community in the Twin Cities.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

463. Interview with Santa Mies

Creator:: Mies, Santa
Date Created:: 1976-07-02
Description:: Santa Mies was born in 1945 in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, and arrived illegally in the United States in 1953. She lived and worked in Texas until 1963, when she contracted to work for the Jennie-O turkey company in Litchfield, Minn. She became a permanent resident of the United States in 1969. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Loyalty to the company - difficulties in becoming a United States citizen - help she received from her employer in making her residence legal, and cooperation of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service - assistance she gives to non-English-speaking employees - and limited involvement with the church. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: In Spanish, transcribed into English.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

464. Interview with Sarah Imm

Creator:: Imm, Sarah
Date Created:: 1994-05-07
Description:: Sarah Imm was a member of a generation of Korean immigrants who characterized themselves as a 1.5 generation, in between the first generation of immigrants and the following generation who were born in the United States. This term refers to those who arrived to the United States at a very early age and did not retain much of their language or culture. At the time of the interview Imm was 23 years old and worked as a financial analyst for Piper Jaffery in Minneapolis. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Early memories of not understanding English - the cultural gap between her parents and herself - her identity crises as a Korean American woman.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

465. Interview with Sarat Mohapatra

Creator:: Mohapatra, Sarat
Date Created:: 2005-06-25
Description:: Sarat Mohapatra was born in India and came to the United States in 1972. After moving to Minnesota, he became involved in the India Association of Minnesota [IAM] and became president of the organization in the late 1990s. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family - education in India - immigrating to the United States - completing his PhD program - getting married - moving to Minnesota - meeting members of the Indian community in Minnesota - involvement in the School of India for Languages and Culture [SILC] - participation in the Festival of Nations - serving on the board of IAM - major projects undertaken during his time on the IAM board, such as the fiftieth anniversary celebration of India's independence and work on the Asian Indian Community Directory - involvement in the Minnesota Asian Indian Democratic Association [MAIDA] - service and community outreach projects done by IAM - involvement in the Trustee Advisory Committee, which is part of IAM - future challenges and future leadership for IAM - politics - balancing local commitment with the commitment to India - and the need for more volunteering and service-based activities.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

466. Interview with Satveer Chaudhary

Creator:: Chaudhary, Satveer
Date Created:: 1997-03-27
Description:: Satveer Chaudhary was born in Minnesota. He attended high school, college, and law school in Minnesota. Presently he is serving in the Minnesota legislature. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents, familiarity with parents' language, schooling, extracurricular activities, travel in England, India, and South Africa, political work and law school, running for state office. Importance of education, loyalty to family, friends, hospitality, and Indian-American identity.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

467. Interview with Sebastian J. Hernandez

Creator:: Hernandez, Sebastian J.
Date Created:: 1975-07-08
Description:: Sebastian Hernandez was born in 1930, served in the military, taught in St. Paul schools from 1961 to 1971 and became the Mexican-American consultant to the school system in 1973.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

468. Interview with Sebastian R. Jara

Creator:: Jara, Sebastian Ramon
Date Created:: 1976-08-08
Description:: Sebastian Ramon Jara was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, in 1906 and immigrated to Texas a year later with his mother. He spent his next seventeen years on a ranch, "Los Quinientos Acres," near Edinburgh, Texas. He and his mother left the ranch after a feud, and he worked as a chauffeur in Edinburgh for some time. After another controversy, they ended up in North Dakota, where Sebastian Jara worked the beet fields for one year and later worked in a mill. Next they came to St
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

469. Interview with See Lee

Creator:: Lee, See
Date Created:: 2000-01-23
Description:: See Lee is the mother-in-law of Sua Vu Yang and the grandmother of MayKao Hang. Her maiden clan name is Lee and she married into the Yang clan. She is eighty years old and has seven children. She did not attend school. She married her husband when she was sixteen and he is still living. They immigrated to the U.S. in 1980. She was born in Thaj Thoos, Loom Heej province, Laos. She is a Blue Hmong. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Biographical information and religious affiliation. Childhood-school attendance, duties at home, community service, skills taught, social activities as a child, aspirations as a child. Hmong women's roles-decision making inside and outside of home and clan, women in leadership roles and how they are seen in the community, what women do to support their families, family planning, when women feel respected or disrespected. The war and living in refugee camps-memories of fleeing Laos, of refugee camps, difference in treatment of men and women in the camps. Adjustments since coming to the U.S.-skills needed to adjust, learning English, skills from Laos and Thailand that are adaptable or useable in the U.S., citizenship, leadership roles for women in the U.S. versus Laos, public contributions by Hmong women. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The interview was conducted predominantly in Hmong. The Hmong transcript and an English translation are bound together for this interview.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

470. Interview with Sen and Helen Fan

Creator:: Fan, Sen
Date Created:: 1979-12-01
Description:: Sen Fan was born in 1927 in Haimen, a rural village in Jiangsu Province, near Shanghai. He was about ten years old when the Japanese invaded China, and his father died during the Sino-Japanese War. After the war he went to Shanghai for about a year, and in 1948 he moved with his mother, sisters and brothers to Taiwan. He attended normal school in Taipei, and after he received a bachelor's degree he taught mathematics and ecology at Ching Kung University in southern Taiwan. In 1958 he accepted a position at Nanyang University in Singapore, where he taught mathematics until 1960. He then decided to continue his studies in the United States. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1960 and 1961 and received a master's degree, and late in 1961 he accepted a job at the University of Minnesota at Morris. With the exception of about three years, Fan has continued to teach in the mathematics department at Morris. In 1965 and 1966 he furthered his graduate studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and from 1966 to 1968 he taught at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. In 1958 Fan married Ying Ying Hsu (Helen Fan) in Taiwan, and the couple moved to Singapore together. Helen Fan was born in 1931 in the city of Changzhou in Jiangsu Province. Her father was a clerk for the railroad in Jiangsu. In 1948 she moved to Taiwan with her sister and brother. She attended normal school there, and after receiving a bachelor's degree she taught elementary school for three years. After the couple's marriage and move to Singapore, their first son, Paul, was born. When Sen Fan decided to go to the University of Illinois, Helen Fan and Paul remained in Taiwan until arriving in Morris in late 1961, by which time Sen had finished his studies and taken the job at Morris. Another son, Robert, and a daughter, Grace, were born after the family was reunited in Morris. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: They discuss problems they have encountered in raising their children in an isolated town in central Minnesota where few other Chinese live - differences in Chinese and American child-rearing practices - and adjustments they have made. They also point out that they and their children have been well-accepted in Morris, aside from some name-calling in elementary school. Although they would like their children to interact with other Chinese with whom they could identify, both agree that in the larger university settings such as the University of Illinois and Brown University, where there are many Chinese students and faculty, they found far less social intermingling between Americans and Chinese than occurs at Morris. The Fans point to the fact that they are frequently invited to the homes of faculty and other staff as an indication of the warm reception they have had in the university community in Morris. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Sen and Helen Fan are representative of the many professionals among the Chinese who have settled in Minnesota since the early 1960s. As the first Chinese to live in Morris, they provide an interesting commentary on the process of acculturation in an environment very different from what they had known in China.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

471. Interview with Seng Prom

Creator:: Prom, Seng
Date Created:: 1992-07-31
Description:: In 1975, Seng Prom was living in Battambang City with his younger siblings while his parents lived on a farm outside of the city. He was an unlicensed primary school teacher. The Khmer Rouge separated the family into different camps, working in agriculture or building dams for most of the daylight hours with very little food. He arrived in Thailand in 1979 and corresponded with a man in St. Paul who served as his sponsor to come to Minnesota in 1981. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Why Minnesota.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: Oral histories

472. Interview with Shanti Shah

Creator:: Shah, Shanti
Date Created:: 2004-10-29
Description:: Shanti Shah moved to Minnesota in 1974 and began meeting members of the Indian community. She was involved in the School of India for Languages and Culture [SILC] and the India Association of Minnesota [IAM] and became president of IAM in the 1990s. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Moving to Canada - getting married - coming to Minnesota and meeting members of the Indian community - becoming involved in IAM and SILC - funding for SILC - participation in the Festival of Nations and working in the cafT and the exhibit - participation of Indian children in the Festival of Nations - inception of the Festival of India - European views of India - involvement in the Trustee Advisory Council, which is part of IAM - serving on the board of IAM - gender roles - involvement in the Asian Indian Women's Association [AIWA] and the Minnesota Asian Democratic Association [MAIDA] - events involved in while serving as IAM president - importance of the arts - reasons for the success of IAM - and the younger membership of IAM.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

473. Interview with Shanti Shah

Creator:: Shah, Shanti
Date Created:: 2000-03-19
Description:: Shanti Shah was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. She is one of the original founders of SILC and has served as a teacher, administrator and board member. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; participation in SILC; experiences as a teacher, language instruction; facilitating outdoor activities; establishing SILC; first day; motivation; music instruction; enrollment changes; teaching methods; curriculum development; challenges and rewards of teaching; geography instruction; volunteers; organizational changes; social connections; outreach to adopted children; Festival of Nations; contributions of SILC to Indian community.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

474. Interview with Sheila Chin Morris

Creator:: Morris, Sheila Chin
Date Created:: 2002-10-02 - 2003-02-23
Description:: Sheila Chin Morris was born and educated in Minnesota. She is a graphic designer. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Childhood - impressions of mother and father - reaction to learning about father's past - education and career.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

475. Interview with Shepsel (S.R.) Roberts

Creator:: Roberts, Shepsel R.
Date Created:: 1976-03-05
Description:: Shepsel Roberts was born in Russia in 1914 and came to Minneapolis in 1921 with his parents and older brother and sister. He was educated at Yeshiva (Jewish school) in Chicago, married his wife Tibey at age 21 and has four children. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Immigration and poverty - his family's chicken business - selling newspapers as a boy - peddling - the Depression - his work as a shochet (ritual butcher) and mohel (ritual circumciser) - and the role of religion in his life.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

476. Interview with Shruti Mathur

Creator:: Mathur, Shruti
Date Created:: 2000-07-09
Description:: Shruti Mathur was born in the U.S. Her parents emigrated from India. Her mother was one of the founding members of SILC. As a child, she attended SILC for about 10 years and later served as a teacher's aide. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Personal background; participation in SILC; parents as teachers; experiences as a teacher's aide; experiences as a student; language fluency; General Knowledge; cooking; yoga; Indian movies and music; Festival of Nations; Indian dances; social connections; trips to India; milk and cookie break; attendance demographics; Indian culture; SILC Day; future plans.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

477. Interview with Sia Y. Thao

Creator:: Thao, Sia Yang
Date Created:: 1999-12-01
Description:: Sia Yang is the mother of Khias Yang. Her clan name is Yang and her husband's clan name is Vang. She is fifty-five years old and has seven children, five are living. She is widowed. She did not attend school. Her family immigrated to the U.S. in April 1980. She was born in Phuam Yav, Laos. She is a White Hmong. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Biographical information and religious affiliation. Childhood-school attendance, duties at home, community service, skills taught, social activities as a child, aspirations as a child. Hmong women's roles-decision making inside and outside of home and clan, women in leadership roles and how they are seen in the community, what women do to support their families, family planning, when women feel respected or disrespected. The war and living in refugee camps-memories of fleeing Laos, of refugee camps, difference in treatment of men and women in the camps. Adjustments since coming to the U.S.-skills needed to adjust, learning English, skills from Laos and Thailand that are adaptable or useable in the U.S., citizenship, leadership roles for women in the U.S. versus Laos, public contributions by Hmong women. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The interview was conducted predominantly in Hmong. The Hmong transcript and an English translation are bound together for this interview.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

478. Interview with Simi Ahuja

Creator:: Ahuja, Simi
Date Created:: 1998-04-10
Description:: Simi Ahuja was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in Minnesota. She graduated from college in Minnesota and works in health care administration. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents, familiarity with parents' language, involvement in a women's group of second-generation children - family values - Indian community connections - spiritual life - self-acceptance, holiday celebrations - family trips to India - university experiences - future plans, advantages and challenges of being a second-generation child - struggle to balance cultural and familial expectations.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

479. Interview with Sinmin and Betty Wu

Creator:: Wu, Sinmin
Date Created:: 1979-12-02
Description:: Sinmin Wu was born June 1, 1931, in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu Province, China. Betty Wu (Yun Aur) was born December 15, 1938, in the city of Tianjin, in Hebei Province. Both left China for Taiwan during the Communist Revolution in the 1940s. They were married in Taiwan in 1959 and soon left for Malaysia, where Sinmin became a teacher in a Chinese girls' high school. Their first child was born in Malaysia. Sinmin went to the United States in 1961 for graduate study in mathematics at Southern Illinois University. He received a master of arts degree and accepted a teaching position at the University of Minnesota, Morris, in 1965. Betty and their daughter arrived in Morris in 1966. Two additional children have been born to the family in the United States. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The Wus discuss the experience of Chinese Americans in small towns outside the Twin Cities area - their activities and sense of acceptance in university and community affairs - development of their children's identities in an area where few other Chinese live - and the role of Asian families in resettlement of a Vietnamese refugee family in Morris in late 1979 and 1980. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: This interview focused on acculturation in a small town as opposed to an urban area, on family life, and on the concerns of a transplanted Chinese family for the future of their children. It should be noted that although they have no worry about the Americanization of their children, they also want their children to know their own cultural heritage and language.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

480. Interview with Sister Jancy and Sister Tresa Jose

Creator:: Sister Jancy
Date Created:: 1995-01-21
Description:: Sister Jancy and Sister Tresa Jose were born in India where both attended school and college. They immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1970s at the request of their church superiors. Both attained graduate degrees from a Minnesota university while working. Sister Jancy is the assistant principal and Sister Tresa Joe is a teacher at a Catholic school in Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Their decisions to become nuns - travel to Minnesota - family reactions to their immigrating to America - arriving in Minneapolis - teacher education in Minnesota - involvement with Malayali groups - differences between life in the United States and life in India - learning American teaching techniques - keeping in touch with family in India - being viewed primarily as nuns rather than as Indians - sharing responsibilities around the house - learning to drive - cooking American and Indian meals - values - changes in Catholic teachings - retirement plans - and trips back to India.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

481. Interview with Slovie Kissen-Marver

Creator:: Kissen-Marver, Slovie
Date Created:: 1986-11-07 - 1986-11-10
Description:: Slovie Kissen was born April 23, 1905, in St. Paul. Her father was Rabbi Wolfe Kissin, who came to St. Paul from London via Kansas City, Missouri, to open a private Hebrew school, Rev. Kissin's Parochial School. Later he became principal of the newly organized Capital City Hebrew School. Slovie Kissen had three sisters, Leah, Sternie and Sarah, and two brothers, Joe and Alfred. The family moved to Duluth in 1911 and returned to St. Paul in 1913. Next they lived and farmed on a five-acre farm called Slingerlands, Mahtomedi, White Bear Lake. Kissen graduated from Mechanic Arts High School, and on December 28, 1924, she married Bernard Bernstein. (He changed his name back to Marver, his family's original name, in 1940.) They have three sons. The family operated various clothing and general stores in St. Paul and South Dakota. Kissen-Marver was also involved in many community service organizations, including the Ramsey County Mothers' March on Polio, the state and national boards of the United Nations Association, the St. Paul Inter Club Council, and the board of the St. Paul YWCA. She also was a dramatics teacher for community playgrounds and in Catholic schools. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background and religion - family involvement in farming - family life and child-rearing - her father's career as a rabbi, fundraiser, businessman and horticulturist - her education - her courtship, marriage and three sons - Bernie Marver's businesses - her life in small towns - and work on various community services. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Two male voices on the tapes are Bernard Marver and one of the Marvers' sons. The MHS manuscripts collection contains one folder of letters and other documents from Slovie Kissen-Marver.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

482. Interview with Sok Yorm and Phorm Phuong

Creator:: Yorm, Sok
Date Created:: 1992-07-31
Description:: Sok Yorm and Phorm Phrong are a married couple who lived and grew up in Battambang. In 1975, they were farmers and had two children, ages 11 and 12. They were separated by the Khmer Rouge and not allowed to see one another. Mr. Yorm had to bury three dead bodies from their village who were killed by the Khmer Rouge. The family was reunited after the Vietnamese entered Cambodia in 1979 and spent five years in Khao I Dang refugee camp. Their eldest daughter was delayed in coming to America, but they are all now living in Minnesota.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: Oral histories

483. Interview with Sova Niev

Creator:: Niev, Sova
Date Created:: 1992-07-30
Description:: Sova Niev was born in 1968. She, her parents and four siblings were sent by the Khmer Rouge to a different village and were then separated into different work camps. She survived despite not receiving any treatment when she was very ill. Her mother and brother were beaten by the Khmer Rouge for attempting to grow and find other sources of food and both of them eventually passed away while they were still in the Khmer Rouge camps. Niev came to the United States in 1982 and has worked for the Khmer Association in Minnesota. She visited Cambodia in 1992.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: Oral histories

484. Interview with Stanley V. Chong

Creator:: Chong, Stanley V.
Date Created:: 1979-06-28
Description:: Stanley Chong was born in 1912 in Yakima, Washington. His father, Sam Chong, had immigrated to the United States from a rural village in the Taishan District of Guangdong Province in South China. His mother, Yut-tai Lee, was an American-born daughter of a Chinese pioneer immigrant to Portland, Oregon. Stanley lived on his parents' ranch in the Yakima Valley until the age of about seven, when he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents and a widowed aunt in Portland. He attended Shattuck Elementary School and Lincoln High School in Portland and graduated from the University of Oregon in 1933. In 1934 Chong moved to Minneapolis, where his aunt operated a small enterprise known as the Chinese Gift Shop. Later he managed the shop with the help of Marvel Hum, whom he married in 1941. (See interview of Marvel Hum Chong, also in this oral history project.) During World War II the shop was closed when Chong was drafted into the army and the couple moved to the West Coast. In 1944 they returned to Minneapolis and opened the International House of Foods, a successful wholesale and retail business in Asian and Middle Eastern foods that they operated until 1981, when it was destroyed by fire. Chong was one of the organizers of the Chinese American Club in the Twin Cities in the post-World War II years and became the first president of the Chinese American Association in Minnesota (CAAM), organized in the 1960s. He was also active in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, organized in the early 1970s. The Chongs have one daughter, Sui-linn, born in 1946. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Chong compares the differences in childrearing methods of early immigrants such as his parents and maternal grandparents, and those used by himself and his wife in rearing their own daughter - he also describes the Chinese community in Minnesota from the 1930s to the 1970s, including community organizations of the post-World War II years. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Stanley Chong is one of many Chinese from the West Coast who have settled in Minnesota. He makes several observations about the differences between the West Coast and the Midwest in terms of discrimination and business opportunities for Chinese during the pre-World War II years.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

485. Interview with Stefan Peterson

Creator:: Peterson, Stefan
Date Created:: 2003-10-02
Description:: Stefan Peterson married an Indian and thus became involved in the Indian community. He became actively involved with the Festival of Nations and was later appointed president of the India Association of Minnesota [IAM]. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Education - meeting and marrying his wife - becoming involved in the Indian community in Minnesota - volunteering for the Festival of Nations - learning about Indian culture and traditions - visiting India - being approached about the presidency of IAM and activities involved in during presidency - membership - India Day activities - support for service projects - organizational structure and political involvement of IAM - reasons for success of IAM - changing IAM's name from India Club - immigration - and the future of IAM.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

486. Interview with Stella Alvo

Creator:: Alvo, Stella
Date Created:: 1975-07-24
Description:: The main interest of this interview was Ms. Alvo's organization of Mi Cultura, a bilingual and bicultural day care center for children in St. Paul. Subjects discussed include: Mi Cultura Day Care Center - the human resources to be found in St. Paul's West Side community.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

487. Interview with Sua V. Yang

Creator:: Yang, Sua Vu
Date Created:: 2000-01-22
Description:: Sua Vu Yang is the mother of MayKao Hang and the daughter of See Lee. Her maiden clan name is Vu and she married into the Yang clan. She is fifty-one years old and has five children. She has graduated from high school and completed other courses. She studied for two years at Northeast Metro. She is employed making hearing aids for the deaf. She is separated from her husband whom she married when she was fifteen. She immigrated to America about twenty-three years ago. She lived in Huab Xis Vees, Seng Khouang, Laos. She is a White Hmong that wears Phuam Paj. Subjects discussed include: Biographical information and religious affiliation. Childhood-school attendance, duties at home, community service, skills taught, social activities as a child, aspirations as a child. Hmong women's roles-decision making inside and outside of home and clan, women in leadership roles and how they are seen in the community, what women do to support their families, family planning, when women feel respected or disrespected. The war and living in refugee camps-memories of fleeing Laos, of refugee camps, difference in treatment of men and women in the camps. Adjustments since coming to the U.S.-skills needed to adjust, learning English, skills from Laos and Thailand that are adaptable or useable in the U.S., citizenship, leadership roles for women in the U.S. versus Laos, public contributions by Hmong women. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The interview was conducted predominantly in Hmong. The Hmong transcript and an English translation are bound together for this interview.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

488. Interview with Sudhansu Misra

Creator:: Misra,Sudhansu
Date Created:: 1993-06-07 - 1994-05-05
Description:: Sudhansu Misra was born in India where he attended high school and graduated from college. He continued his studies in Ohio and Michigan. He came to Minnesota where he and his wife operate a heath care facility. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: His early desire to live abroad - education - family reaction to his travel to America - extended families - arranged marriages - departing India and traveling to Ohio - education experiences in Michigan - communicating with family in India - efforts to make him feel comfortable in Ohio - making friends with Americans - early work experiences, seeing discrimination, decision to remain in U.S. - experiences acquiring visa and security clearance - visits to India in early 1960s. Marriage, differences between American and Indian child rearing practices - instilling Indian culture - involvement in the India Club and School of India for Languages and Culture (SILC) - experiences in Florida - organizing Indians in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area - India Club in Minneapolis - work with Council of Asian and Pacific Minnesotans - Hindu community - Indian dancing - social activities - separation by language groups - benefits and disadvantages of belonging to Indian associations - his current work - impact of being an immigrant on work - important family values - mixing of Eastern and Western values - changes in the local Indian community - older immigrants - and retirement plans.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

489. Interview with Sumaya Yusuf and Bibi Abdalla

Creator:: Abdalla, Bibi
Date Created:: 2004-06-02
Description:: Sumaya Yusuf and Bibi Abdalla have both worked with the Minnesota Historical Society by conducting interviews for the Somali Skyline Tower Oral History Project. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Respect for parents and elders; how Somalis in the United States are losing their culture; uniqueness in Somali culture; the importance of poetry and songs; trying to maintain Somali language and traditions; Somali culture relating to African-American culture; Somalis and Americanization.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

490. Interview with Sunanda Iyengar

Creator:: Iyengar, Sunanda
Date Created:: 1999-01-20
Description:: Sunanda Iyengar was born in India where she attended school and college. She immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1990s, and works in the health care industry. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - early life - school days - family values - cultural values - first impressions of U.S. and travel remembrances - experiences in college level schooling in India and the U.S. - first job in India compared and contrasted to first job in U.S., impressions of current employer - future plans - benefits and opportunities compared and contrasted to those in India - maintaining Indian culture - Indian associations and activities.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

491. Interview with Sung Won Son

Creator:: Son, Sung Won
Date Created:: 1979-12-19
Description:: Sung Won Son was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1944. He was the fifth in a family of six children. His father was a banker. Son arrived in the United States in 1962 to study at the University of Florida. After his graduation in 1966 he entered a graduate program at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and completed a master of arts degree in economics. He also earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Pittsburgh. From 1969 to 1974 he taught economics and business at Slippery Rock State College in Pennsylvania, and in the 1970s he served as senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors in Washington, D.C. In 1974 Son joined the Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis, becoming the senior vice-president and chief economist in 1977. Son was married to the late Barbara Stevens and is the father of two daughters. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Son discusses the reasons he came to the United States, and to Minnesota in particular - the harsh Minnesota winters as a factor in the open social climate for Asians in the state - the unusually high number of large business corporations with headquarters in the Twin Cities - the lack of significant discrimination against Asians - and the unique situation of the early Korean community, considered to be well-organized and stable compared to larger Korean settlements on the West Coast. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Son is well-known in Minnesota and elsewhere as an economic forecaster and has made numerous television and radio appearances. His analyses of national and state economies also appear frequently in the press.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

492. Interview with Suruchi P. Kelly

Creator:: Kelly, Suruchi Patankar; United States
Date Created:: 1997-10-03
Description:: Suruchi Patankar Kelly was born in India. Her family moved to Minnesota in the 1970s. She attended high school in Minnesota, then college and medical school in Massachusetts. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents, experiences living in London, pride in Indian heritage. Family values, schooling, religion, experiences at college, Bharata Natyam dance. Plans for the future. Advantages and disadvantages of growing up in two different cultures.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

493. Interview with Susana de Leon

Creator:: de Leon, Susana; United States
Date Created:: 2010-04-08
Description:: Susana de Leon was born in northern Mexico, in Zacatecas. De Leon attended normal school for four years for teaching. Afterwards she moved from California to Minnesota. She continued her education at the University of Minnesota and is currently an immigration attorney. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - childhood - education - Latino food and culture - jobs held - financial struggles - bilingual in Spanish and English - friendships - immigration - personal relationships - teaching - Minnesota winter - college recruiting - working with people with disabilities - West Side Latino community in Minnesota - folkloric Mexican dancing - and being proud of her heritage.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

494. Interview with Susan March

Creator:: March, Susan
Date Created:: 2011-01-02
Description:: Susan March was adopted and grew up in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. She received her bachelor's degree from Mankato State University. She currently works as an Executive Administrative Assistant at Deluxe Corp. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Adoption - growing up in a Caucasian family - being Korean child in a predominately white neighborhood and school - her Korean identity - Korean Adoptee Ministry Center - going back to Korea - Americans adopting Koreans - finding her biological parents - her career - differences between adoptees and immigrants.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

495. Interview with Sylvia Garcia

Creator:: Garcia, Sylvia
Date Created:: 2010-12-22
Description:: Sylvia Garcia was born in Crystal City, Texas but grew up in a migrant farming family. She married and settled in Moorhead, Minnesota where she raised her two children. Sylvia has a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Moorhead State University. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family - migrant farming - education - community - Latino and American culture - raising her children - Latino foods - prejudices - Latino education in Moorhead - Spanish/English language barrier and medicine - Somali and Latino relations.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

496. Interview with Sylvia Peilen, United Jewish Fund and Council Oral History Project Phase 1, St. Paul, Minnesota

Creator:: Sylvia Peilen, 1896-1986
Date Created:: 1978
Description:: Audio file of an interview with Sylvia Peilen conducted by Ann Greenberg. The interview includes: Peilen family history, including growing up on the East side and moving to the West side of St. Paul; Jewish-gentile relations; Sylvia Peilen's schooling and early employment history. Peilen also recalls her work with several different community service organizations, including Sholom Home, Youth Allyah, United Jewish Fund, the St Paul Jewish Community Center and Temple of Aaron.
Contributing Institution:: University of Minnesota Libraries, Nathan and Theresa Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

497. Interview with Tashi Khongertsang

Creator:: Khongertsang, Tashi
Date Created:: 2005-08-24
Description:: Tashi Khongertsang was born in India and moved to Nepal with his parents. He attended school in Kalingpong, India. Khongertsang moved to Seattle as a teenager to live with family. He then moved to Minnesota in 1996. He is the owner of Tibet's Corner, the first Tibetan-owned restaurant in Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents, family, attending school in India, moving to the United States, adjusting to life in the U.S., weather, first jobs in the U.S., opening a restaurant, generational differences within community, Tibetan food, educating Westerners, running a business, community, stereotypes, differences and similarities between Tibetans and Westerners, citizenship, preserving culture.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

498. Interview with Tashi Lhamo

Creator:: Lhamo, Tashi
Date Created:: 2005-09-08
Description:: Tashi Lhamo was born in India and grew up in Mysore. She studied Tibetan medicine at the prestigious Tibetan Medical and Astrological Center in Dharamsala. Lhamo has practiced Tibetan medicine in India and in the United States. She moved to Minnesota in 2002. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Parents, family, Tibetan medicine, studying at the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Center, moving to the United States, nursing, practicing Tibetan medicine in India and the U.S., teaching at the University of Minnesota, similarities and differences between Tibetan and Western medicine practices, common ailments of Tibetans, changes in Tibetan health, preserving culture, Tibetan Cultural Center, similarities and differences between India and the U.S., living with parents.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

499. Interview with Tashi Lhewa

Creator:: Lhewa, Tashi
Date Created:: 2005-08-28
Description:: Tashi Lhewa was born in Mussoorie, Uttaranchal, India. He moved to Montana at the age of 17 and later moved to Minnesota. Lhewa obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota and is attending the University of Minnesota Law School. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family, parents, attending school in India, moving to the United States, differences between schools in India and the U.S., diversity, deciding to move to Minnesota, college experiences, community, challenges, deciding to study law, parental influence, future plans, similarities and differences between living in small and large Tibetan communities in the U.S., Student for Free Tibet (SFT), overcoming cultural challenges, similarities and differences between Tibetan and American culture, Tibetan Cultural Center, Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota (TAFM), expanding community, Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), obligations of being Tibetan, civic duty, preserving culture, economic differences within the community, assimilation, parenting.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

500. Interview with Ted Guerrero

Creator:: Guerrero, Ted
Date Created:: 2010-04-19
Description:: Ted Guerrero was born in Saint John's, Michigan. He was drawn to Minnesota to work on the farms and stayed for financial support offered by Moorhead State University. Guerrero received his bachelor's degree from Moorhead State University in guidance and counseling. Guerrero later worked for the University as a recruiter for minority students for over 35 years. He served as president of the Hispanic Caucus of Minnesota Education Association promoting bilingual education and ESL (English as a Second Language). Guerrero also served four years on the Minnesota State Board of Health under Governor Rudy Perpich. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - education - moving to Minnesota - jobs held - Minnesota winter - Hispanic music - speaking Spanish and English in the family - Latino culture - Tejano band - his five sons - education system in Minnesota - comparing North Dakota to Minnesota - cascarones - religion - Mexican food - diversity - racism renting a home - immigration - and networking.
Contributing Institution:: Minnesota Historical Society
Type:: Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:: Oral histories

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