Full Transcript
yes hi there my name is joe rheingold today is sunday march 1st 2020 and i'm interviewing anna davidson hello anna hi how are you this is for the latin american jewish project here in dallas and tell us where are you from where is your family from and how is growing up there i'm from mexico city originally my father came from poland from mexico my mother emigrated from russia from mints with her parents when she was like a few months old and 1924 95 and they settled in mexico city and my mother got married in mexico city and i'm the firstborn of six kids growing up
we have a very good jewish background and i went to a jewish school since kindergarten all the way to the last year of high school and it was a very good experience and the community is very close at the jewish community center in synagogues and most of my friends were jewish what was your family involved in growing up they were in business luck they had a hardware store toy store and they were working very hard i lost my father when i was seven years old sorry so another father and your mom remarried so we're married and we have two more kids we were four and
then six oh okay and they were involved with the jewish community and went to synagogue all the cinna the holidays and celebrated everything at home kosher home and my grandparents were very much involved with us so it was a nice growing up what was the jewish population like back then very close you know everybody came from immigrants grandparents or parents and it was you know everything was geared to all the holidays and got together for everything what were some of your favorite activities when you were growing up in school at school or in school or a lot of sports i did play basketball soccer and
you know a lot of the dancing i enjoyed that very much and school you know with half hebrew english jewish spanish and then later on english wow so we were pretty busy and i enjoyed being with friends and doing things together did you feel any kind of anti-semitism at all growing up no i didn't have any any you know part in my life that i felt that i'm sure it was there that i was not close to anybody that would be anticipated okay and what did you do after high school after high school um i studied english in another school i started university but the
university wasn't on strike and then later on javi was away already doing his residency internship and he came back and we got married so where and when did you meet your husband in 1970 1960s got married 1969 in mexico city mexico he was already away almost a year and he came back we got married november 1st 1969. oh very good so i immigrated to the states and started working volunteering in the hospitals learning more english and trying to you know be part of the united states what kind of work and volunteer work did you enjoy the most well i was in the hospital at the beginning here at methodist i did some social work public relations and then i did in temple texas i did i was working in medical records and all that then i had my first child and when we came back to the to the when we moved to dallas then i started to be a travel consultant so i'm working
as a travel agent oh okay and how did your family grow when you were here uh we had two boys one was born in temple texas one in indianapolis indiana okay and we came back here to dallas and search for the jewish environment for them and they joined they started in akiba academy did they go all the way through no they went one went through sixth grade the other one went to third grade and then moved to green hill high school at their fairy hills school okay and they grew up you know involved in jewish organizations bbyo jcc played all the sports what kind of
things did you like about dallas when you came here i like the city as a city you know if there's activities if you wanted to do i i thought the community was very warm and got a group of friends you know also some of them from israel some of them for latin america america so it was a nice circle a mix mix and used to meet at the jcc and do things together too do you have any family still in mexico and if so have you kept in touch with people there yes i have a lot of family in mexico city two of my sisters
are there and one brother my mom wow i was living there so i try to go as much as i can to visit i kept i keep in touch with a lot of my friends from high school oh good we just celebrated our 50 years of high school where did you have a junior in mexico in the new year i went to a jewish school all the time jewish school of mexico city and they have a new venue so the reunion was in the new venue and it was very nice wonderful and we still keep in touch now you know that's beautiful it is nice
have you ever tried to get your family to come here or are they satisfied to stay in mexico at one time they were thinking about it because mexico had their problems too so they really were thinking to move here but it's not easy to start work and do something here but they did look at the possibility so i have one sister that moved here i introduced her to her husband oh good we both are friends here's his sister and me so we introduced them and she's been living here 30 years now oh wonderful so they got married and they're here jaime has a sister too
the sister that was in mexico city moved to dallas like 30 years ago some more almost 40. wow so we do have family here everybody's happy and he likes the city are you involved in anything else besides the jewish community well we go to the opera we have season tickets to the opera we try to do different uh activities when they're possible the museum the art museum we belong to that too okay and i try to help in different organizations when i can i i was in the board of security israel too for a year or two and i do different activities when they have if you can think back how do you think the jewish community accepted you and welcomed you when
you first came here when i first came here they were very amazed there's the first thing they asked are there jewish people in mexico they weren't sure mexico jewish people i said yeah i went to a jewish school all my life and yes that's the first thing they asked you know but i was accepted pretty well and i believe you know sometimes you feel your accent is different but that's part of who you are did you ever feel any type of anti-semitism here i haven't no no incidents at all not incidents for me okay that's good some people said yes some people no i don't
i haven't had any any occasion where i felt that and i'm sure it's there maybe they just it hasn't come up so tell me where about your children where they are and what they're doing okay i have two sons we have two sons one in maya they both are in miami one is a lawyer and the other one is being involved with sports work broadcasting and doing different soccer games and they've been living there ten years any grandkids yet two grandkids okay we have two granddaughters one is nine years old and the other one eleven their names are sasha and samantha so how often do
you get to see them every couple of months we try to fly to miami and be with them that's good spend three weeks you know now in december with them not enough but it's all right it's wonderful yes has your family grown in any other way since since uh coming here well my sister has one son he lives in miami as well and harne's sister has two kids they both are living here in dallas and they have the son has family too three kids tell me besides family tell us something that you are very proud of in your life i'm very proud of the life
we have done i'm proud of my kids and my husband that's wonderful you should be you you're helping me yes this is you
