Full Transcript
my name is bonda arbetter and it is march 23rd 2021 and i am interviewing deanna free for the one story at a time project viva shalom celebrating latin american jews in dallas hello good afternoon diana will you please tell us where you are from originally i'm originally from mexico city and talk about when and why your family originally immigrated to your country of origin my grandfather my paternal grandparents came to mexico from lithuania around 1922 in my maternal grandparents around 1936 and both of them escaped europe because of what we all know what was happening at that time with the second world war what can
you share about their lives in early years in mexico city and by the way where did your mother's parents come from my mother's parents came from poland and they went to mexico city they were from a very humble background and actually i'm very proud to say that they started selling socks in the streets of downtown mexico city and from there with lots of hard work they were able to build a beautiful life for themselves and their family in mexico city my paternal grandparents were in monterey mexico because actually my paternal grandfather tried to come to the united states and couldn't three separate times so they
ended up staying in monterey and he had a furniture store i want names give me all their names my paternal grandparents were herman and deanna freakstar actually i am named after my maternal grandmother and my son daniel was named after my paternal grandfather my maternal grandmother and my paternal my maternal grandparents let's put it that way um they're schmulik and bronchadantos and now my granddaughter is named after my grandmother bracha and what's her name in english in english is neely and what is your grandson's name my grandson's name is guy very nice now now [Music] um tell us about your own life growing up in
mexico city and what was most memorable my life in mexico city i should say that was beautiful filled always with love um i yet i really thought that the whole world was jewish um i went to a jewish day school from day one preschool and i graduated in high school the name of the school is colegio israelita de mexico i went there my whole life i also whenever we wanted to have extracurricular activities i went to the jewish community center where we had camps we had all kinds of activities the only place that wasn't totally jewish for me was ballet and that's how i knew
that there was something um out there um the jewish community in mexico has always been a huge supporter of the state of israel and we all grew up learning at school yiddish in hebrew so besides learning it at school i was able to speak english to my grandparents and until this day whenever i have the chance to speak yiddish i do during my years going to school i also attended the jewish girl scouts and after i finished high school most children um in mexico city they used in mexico they used to go to israel for a period of three six months or a year we
would go in organized groups and we would go not for a vacation we would actually go in those days to kibutim which was the real life of israel to be able for israel to become what israel is today to work in the fields to work in the factories to take care of the children so we experienced first hand what life in those divorce team was do you still have family in mexico i have the cousins in mexico yes i do but my first family they're all here in america in california and in darkness and what are your parents names my mom is funny and my
daddy is dally and friendster and um how and why did you make the decision to leave mexico city growing up i had the opportunity my parents gave us the opportunity to come as some tourists to america and one of the places we came was dallas and we went also to different places in america but we did understand the the life here in america we experienced firsthand what freedom means freedom of religions freedom of choices and it was very appealing to me i heard from my parents go to the land of the dreams and um i grew up with that little seed planted in the back
of my head and naturally when i was um a young girl i met two different families from dallas that i consider family one of them is you panda are better but at that time i met aswanda chefs through a neighbor of hers that was a friend of my boba brancha my grandmother brancha from the same little town in poland and then i met beverly salaski's family zimmerman is their last name so that's how life works that we ended up leon and i my husband in dallas and arriving here in dallas we instantly had families how did you meet your husband i met leon in high
school and we became high school sweethearts and the rest is history did you go to israel together with him no actually leon finished high school he's older than me so when he finished high school he left for israel while i was still in high school and then when he came back in mexico he started with medical school and i left to israel um i came back we got married after he finished with medical school and that's when we decided it was the best time for us to come to america and start a new life here and what city did you come to before dallas we
had a long journey our first stop was new york we thought we were going to conquer the world we arrived to new york we couldn't afford living in the city so we ended up in queens in flushing new york um it was a wonderful experience because we grew up a lot as individuals and as a couple leon was able to study and present all the different exams that are required for a medical doctor to start a residency here i was meanwhile studying and taking different courses so he went to residency at what hospital well he never started residency in new we wanted uh to be
able to stay here in america so it took us a little longer because we applied and we did things the right way so from new york we went to atlanta where he um did have um an internship in moore house school of medicine where he was doing some research that actually he published there and we waited in a nutshell we waited six years to be able to get our legal residency here in once that happened leon started with his first residency at emory university as a pediatrician he finished pediatrics and when he finished that's when he decided he wanted to do a second residency in
anesthesia and that's how he arrived in dallas he was accepted here to do anesthesia at where what school well i mean what hospital um apartment power plants i'm sorry senior moment okay and um um what year did you come to dallas to dallas 88 1988 and tell us about your children we arrived in dallas with a three-year-old daniel and a one-year-old jonathan right away solomon schechter at the time became a very important part of uh the growing up of my children uh solomon schechter became a family that's where i met most of my long life friends and um i guess the rest is history they
went until jonathan went to esd and daniel went to plano high school and how welcoming did you find the community as a new immigrant i have to say that have had the experience in two other cities before coming to dallas dallas is the most welcoming warm community i came here and two weeks after this was home people like panda like beverly they couldn't do enough for us people at solomon schecter welcomed us it really was home were the customs any different in mexico city than they were in dallas jewish customs in certain way i guess cultural wise i could not say jewish costumes because jewishness
in in my humble opinion it's always the core but depending on what country you are it might have a difference um one of the different things for example is that in mexico um every shabbos we had guacamole with our khala there was guacamole at the table um really our the jewish costumes were very much coming from poland or lithuania where my grandparents came from and um how i experience it here with friends you know i think that the my generation has been able to still keep that um which i think it's so important because we can never forget where we come from do you see
any of your traditions rooted in from in your um in daniel yes i do um but the one thing that is very different in mexico at least when i was growing up and in america is that kids really never left home until they got married they don't go away for college they really were part of the household until they started their their own families then the the the family unity was very strong i seen daniel that him with his with his wife eve family is very important which makes me very proud they speak spanish eve learned how to speak spanish that was her realm her
full name and where she came from eve is if wertheim and actually she is from atlanta daniel was born in atlanta it's a small world and she came here after college that's where they met and when we met her she really didn't know much spanish and she surprised daniel and us at the wedding to give her speech in spanish and it was very important for her and daniel for their kids to grow up having the gift of two languages so now my grandchildren are growing up with spanish and english and guy who is three is attending what was solomon schecter which is now levine like
his daddy and he is learning hebrew and tell us when they got married they got married five years ago in atlanta and um they decided to make their home here in and what does daniel do daniel is in commercial real estate that's fine and um and eve eve is a financial consultant for um for a firm yes yes okay um i guess that's most of the questions can you tell us anything else about uh we forgot to ask um what your father's parents did in mexico city when they arrived my dad's parents had a furniture store okay i think yes and what was the name
of it you know i don't remember that i really don't remember that but i will ask my dad do you want to show some pictures real quick sure these are herman and deanna fritsta they are my paternal grandparents these are brancha bracha and schmulik dantos these are my maternal grandparents beautiful this is my mom and i funny and she's a wonderful lady and this is my dad and actually this is my dad as a baby and this is their whole family when we celebrated his 80th birthday you want to turn it around this is my two sons daniel and jonathan with me jonathan is no
longer with us he passed away when he was 25 years old he had a beautiful life he loved his jewishness he loved family and he's still with us and i do have a couple of more pictures to show you you give me if you give me one second these are my grandchildren guy and elite she's how old now how many months old she's five today she's high five and this is daniel and this is eve beautiful just beautiful okay and there's one more on the back of one of those i want i think show these are my maternal grandparents when they were a little older
wonderful and this is uh okay well now that we've shown the pictures um anything else you want to wrap up say um your traditions your break the fast every year we try we really try to to keep our family rooted in who we are where we come from never forgetting being very involved with the jewish community um love my friends here in dallas they've become my family i like to host breaking of the fast for at least 40 people every year and we just like to celebrate who we are that's it well thank you very much it was great to talk to you and we
love having you in dallas i wish leon would come and and um i'm going to show you a picture of leon since he's not here there he is with his son and his grandbaby isn't that sweet he's a wonderful anesthesiologist he's like one of the best in the city thank you and when he first came here his first job after he became a doctor was with dr marvin nobles correct and he gave him first job in in anaesthesia anesthesiology yes anesthesiology and he's just gone straight up from there thank you very much panda yeah he's he dr nobles took a chance and he he got
him he got a good one anyway thanks so much for um being interviewed today and i am very happy that my interview was with a long life friend and thank you so much
