Babos Receptai (Part 11)

Here's a recipe in which my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, illustrated our tendency to mix the Lithuanian and English languages:

Tatjana also has written the telephone number and surname of a patient on the lower corner of the page. The patient must have called for Mom while Tatjana was baking.

Lithuanian newspapers regularly use English words in their stories (they do correctly conjugate or decline the words). For example: the Lithuanian word for "exhibit" is "paroda," and the word for "television show" is "programa." Articles now use the word "šou" (pronounced "show") to describe both. And "reality show" is "realybės šou."

Appreciation

New York, New York, 1952. Dad's mastery of the English language improves. This must have been a workplace outing because Mom does not remember the event.

Office Party

My Mom's first job in the United States was as a lab technician at Wyckoff Heights Hospital. Her diploma had not yet arrived from Erlangen, and hospital administrators did not believe that Mom was a medical-school graduate.

These were not especially happy times for Mom because some folks thought she was being pretentious when she said she was a physician. How, after all, could a woman be a doctor? Mom also had a bumpy road at this time because she was still learning the English language, and many slang phrases and nuances flew over her head.

Wyckoff Heights Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, 1950. My Mom, on the far left, tries to muster up a toast with her colleagues in the laboratory.

*     *     *     *     *

Wyckoff Heights Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, 1950. I don't know what was the occasion for the party, but it certainly looks like the male is in charge of this coop.

The Cohort of 1951

When my Parents arrived in Brooklyn, New York in 1949, neither one of them spoke English. They consequently had trouble finding work. Relatives who had emigrated to the United States earlier than my Parents urged Mom to scan the want ads in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Problem: she couldn't read English, and she didn't know how to fill out a job application.

There were no English-language classes for immigrants. Mom and Dad learned to read English by borrowing library books. They started with children's literature. My Mom felt that her English was proficient when she fluidly digested the works of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

Mom landed her first job at Wyckoff Heights Hospital. The hiring staff there didn't believe that she was a physician, so they initially placed Mom in the lab, where she worked as a technician. When her medical-school paperwork arrived from Germany, the staff acknowledged her diploma and started calling her "Dr." instead of "Mrs."

There were only three women in Mom's internship cohort. All three women were recent immigrants.

Brooklyn, New York, 1951. My Mom—the woman on the far left—sits among the other interns.

Ladies, please fold your hands.