A New Life
Many of the seniors we spoke with emigrated to the U.S. in the 1950's from Puerto Rico. They either came with their husbands or mothers and families leaving what they had behind.
Personal Experiences:
At that time, one had more companionship. Things were more well attached! And there was no discord. Now it's very different, everything has changed. At that time the only thing ... although the economy was very strong, the jobs did not pay enough. Work was everywhere! But when I came here I started to work within the week. It was summer back then, but I worked 40 hours for 16 or 18 dollars. And at that time, it was money that one could afford to pay for the room where you lived and to buy lunch... You know, it was not easy. The rent was not very expensive, but sometimes there were 6 or 7 people in a room... because, where I lived, some worked during the day and some at night. They paid their share of them, $3 a week ... and then those who worked during the day slept at night. And the ones at night, .... You know there was always a bed because they split it like that. Back then it was not so bad, because you come young. And everyone left the doors open! There was trust. But now you can not ... - Olga Colon
I came here when I was very little. I started school here. My mother and my aunt came here to work: they both sewed. And then they sent for us three, there were three of us. And the tradition I have and I learned from my mom and my aunt ... I do not know if everyone, but earlier when people came here, I was to work honestly. And that is what my mother taught us: to work honestly and to respect and not catch anything. And that's why the doors could be left open. They put things like bread and milk in front of the house and nobody stole them. So that tradition I still have carry with me: to respect. Something I learned from my mom is culture. And in the past, we almost never went to doctors, but we had the alcolado or green, the bengay ... We were never in the hospitals when we were sick.
- Nellie Velazquez
I always got to eat and pay rent. Look when I came in 1953, I started working for 50 cents an hour. And one lived very well! Because a subway ride was only 5 cents. And the money I made paid for what I needed!
- Gregoria Ortiz
Oh yeah there was a lot of security and not so much crime. As there was not so much radio, not so much television. You know that the ads were given once a day and you hardly heard them. And because you were out all day. At that time the television did not exist, nor the cell phones, none of that! And that was better honesty! There was not so much crime, and if there was we did not know it because we did not find out. - Olga Colon
I used to live in puerto rico very better than here, because my family had a business. Here we had nothing!
- Carmen Atanacio
Mi madre me trajo aquí, mi papá se murió cuando yo tenía 5 años. Entonces cuando yo vine aquí con mi mamá, porque mis hermanos vinieron primero que nosotros, tuve un buen trabajo, fui a la escuela de noche a aprender inglés, y conseguí un trabajo de noche en fisioterapia hasta que me retiré a los 62 años.
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Mi mother brought me here, my father died when I was 5 years old. So when I moved here with my mother, mi bother where already here and I got a good job. I went to a night school to learn english and worked at nights in Physiotherapy until I retired at the age of 62.
- Aida