NASH:

Today is April 21, 1975 and i am speaking to Dr. Alphonse Chaurize who came to the United States in 1938 at the age of 38. He was born in Mosul, Iraq. Could you describe Mosul?

CHAURIZE:

Mosul is a very large city inhabited by different kinds of people, speaking different languages. Before going to a school, languages we could learn, each one of us could learn five languages in the street. He could speak Arabic, he could speak Turkish, he could speak Kurdish, he could speak Syriac, and he could go to school and learn more, French, english, and in the old days until 1914 and '15, he was able also to learn German. With all this equipment, a man could be serving later on himself and others with languages. I say a man could do that. At least I did it. I did it and I never knew I would have been a linguist and to serve not only my country but even the United States because when I came to this country I was appointed as a teacher in Woodbridge Country Day School and later I was appointed in Yale University as a teacher of semitic languages, the living Semitic languages and I was a student also to learn the dead Semitic or ancient languages. And then the war started, the United States government called me from New haven, Connecticut in order to come to New York. My wife who was American and knew the way to bring me from New Haven, Connecticut to the general post office where they received me nicely and they said, "My goodness, you know so many languages." I didn't know how they knew about it, or rather I should have known because in the Immigrations they keep the file of each one of us and they know each one, what hobby he has and what he knows, this is an engineer, this is a linguist, this is a doctor. They write it and it looks like in the Immigration file they are classifying each one according to his field. That is why they called me and they said, "We need you." "For what?" "Well, you know so many languages, we will used you." "But I am not American." "Never mind, america could do miracle." In one minute they made me American and they accepted me and I was American citizen after one year and a half, and they put me in a very high post in the Censorship and I was the head over there in the Special Activity, and I did a lot of things helping the State Department in many capacities. Sometimes we go to jail, sometimes we go to boat, sometimes we go in some factory. They had called some man with different kind of papers, he doesn't know how to talk, and I had the privileges to visit all these places and really I was appreciating my background which was given to me in Iraq, in Mosul, and then later on I have to say I went to Europe also in Rome, in Paris, in Louva, in brussels, and then Salamanca in Spain, and then I added to my background --I forgot to say in Mosul we could had also learned the Hebrew, but for my own misfortune, at that time I did not have any idea of Hebrew until I came to paris and then I started my Hebrew and I understood it and then I learned it very well and when i came back to my old country, I went to the Alianza Elite and I taught Arabic and the French and at the same time I mingled myself with the Jews and I learned my Hebrew thoroughly and then I recited the Teheline, the Solters, the Psalms, and I know my Hebrew perfectly. And we come back to our State Department for the Censorship a year and a half later. They said, "We need you in another capacity." Well, they transferred me to the Office of War Information where we could broadcast every day two or three times. When the war was over we went back to our work, and at that time I noticed that New York is really my city. Why? Because it looks like a big Mosul. Instead of speaking one language, two languages or three languages, we could speak many, many languages. You have Italian, you have Spanish, you have Yiddish, you have German, you have French, you have, of course, English, and besides you have the english of Brooklyn which is a little different from the English of manhattan. Anyway, we had so many opportunities here and besides, I discovered that I could be of great use here in New York for the public and then I started to be interpreter in some company like life insurance company and other company, commercial, and then lawyers started to call on me and be interpreter, and then the court heard about me and I started to be interpreter in the courts until now I am official translator and interpreter in the criminal courts, immigration, in many other places. Of course, i don't want to sa I was useful, i was also paid. It is not that I did this for charity. No, in America they don't accept charity. They have this motto, there is nothing for nothing, so I was always paid and paid nicely. And then in 1948 I was acquainted with the newspapers, Arabic papers for which I was writing always some article and I was accepted by the owner of this actual newspaper , and in 1950 I became myself the owner of this newspaper and since that time it is in my hand. Now it added to my background that I became a newspaper man which means he has to be in contact with many people. Besides being a priest, besides being a teacher, besides being interpreter, I became a newspaper man so I had been in contact with almost everybody in the society.

NASH:

Let's go back to the place that you were born. Tell me something about your family.

CHAURIZE:

The family's name is Chaurize. That is a Persian word composed of two words. It comes from Chev, which means darkness or night, and rize comes from richeton, in Persian. It means destroyer of darkness, and this destroyer of darkness, it is a very peculiar privilege in our family that we do not accept anything wrong. We want to uncover anything which is hidden and put it into public in the right way. There is no crook, idea, there is no confusion idea, there is no hidden work, everything should be into chaurize, knocker of darkness and bring it to light, and I think this kind of mentality was brought up not only in me but in all our family, but especially I who went to Europe and have my final education. When I went back to my old country, I remained only ten years and it looks like I couldn't stand it anymore because I as too much of uncovering darkness, a man who doesn't want to see something hidden or crook, the best way is leave my country, though I liked it very much, very much, leave my family whom nobody could say I don't like or nobody say I don't love the members of my family, but above everything, there is one thing should be put into consideration. The freedom of human being. I am a man who was created by god to live a free, and I think that I had heard from my wife who was American that america is the land of freedom where a man could live really like a real human being. So she came first, one year before me, and she prepared me the place here in America and I landed in woodbridge as a teacher and I discovered that really America is my place.

NASH:

Tell me something about your trip.

CHAURIZE:

As for my trip, of course, I left my country at that time in 1937 on a taxi, on a car, crossing the desert between Iraq and Syria and Lebanon. It was very interesting to know that in the desert some Arabs stopped our cars and like on an exhibition, we were standing by road and the man or the men came and said, "This is nice, this is good." I had a nice watch made of gold with golden chain and the man said, "Oh how beautiful is this watch." He said it two or three times and I just made myself as a deaf who doesn't hear anything. He said, "Don't you understand. This watch is beautiful." I said, "Know it is beautiful. It is a souvenir from my father and mother and my family." He said, "No, we said it is beautiful." "What do you mean by this?" "You mean you will give it to us." I gave it to him and another he had a coat, he gave it to them. And at the end they said, "You come under our tent and have coffee with us." We went and had coffee with them and while we were sitting over there they asked us, "What do you think of us? did we steal something from you? What do you think we are, thieves?" I was the older of the students, I said, "What do you want us to say?" They said, "Listen, you are going to some places where you have watches and the clock by a hundred and a thousand, but here we have nothing. suppose we took this watch from you. It is just a gift from a passenger to a man who is going to stay in the desert. What do you think of that?" I said, "Well, it is a solution. that is alright." Of course, we couldn't say more than that. And later when we came to France, i understood really. I really understood even now that those people were not wrong. they had their philosophy of life and I don't want to criticize anybody, but just I want to expose what do we do with our passport here, we pay ten dollars and fifteen dollars? For what? You are going to stamp it and I have to pay you fifteen dollars because I want to get out of this country or come back? Well, over there they took it in a very rough way, but after that we had coffee under their tent. Here we are in row and there is no room for me. I have to be in row and wait for my turn. Why? In a way maybe the word is too rough. Nobody will understand it. They say, "This is the passport fee." But isn't it a robbery a little. I have to be in line to pay and when it comes he takes my ten dollars, you are the thief, over there he take it in a very rough way. But just the same he took it and he told us, "This is a gift from a brother who is passing by the desert to a brother who is sitting here the whole winter, he has no watch, he has no coat." Well, I understand it. Anyway, we traveled until Beirut, from Beirut at that time we took the steamship called Roosevelt [sic, President Roosevelt]. I think it was an older steamship. I don't know if it exists now or not. We went to Marseille and no, no, no, I beg your pardon. from Beirut we took a boat, it was not the Roosevelt, and then Marseille and from Marseille we went to Le Havre to the railroad and from La Havre we took the steamship Roosevelt and then we came to 23rd Pier in New York, I had already cabled my wife telling her, "Please bring me ten dollars with you, I will give to the stewards and the servant of the boat who were nice to me," and she did that. The first thing I did, I remember, not because other people had done it, but I did the same thing, I knelt down after I finished with the boat on the Pier 23rd, I kissed the land of America where I hoped to be treated as a human being and I will do my best to serve this country and I did. So I went to school and I said all this. You asked me about my trip, this is how I ended my trip, by kissing the land of America.

NASH:

Well, tell me something about how it appears to you when you first came here.

CHAURIZE:

Unfortunately and fortunately, I who was attracted by the ideal, high ideal of America, unfortunately I fell down in a school where I and my wife, who were teaching, and we were not paid because we were boarding and rooming in that school and the head master, who was a revered and an American and a Ph.D., three qualities to make a man extremely civilized and with high ethics, according to me. That man had in mind to close his school and he took advantage of us, of both of us. He didn't pay us our salary for a few months and then at the end I had to go to the court and tell the judge that this man scandalized me because I came to America not to earn money, I came to America where I could enjoy my freedom and be nice towards everybody, and here I found a man who has three qualities, American, reverend, Ph. D., doctor, and yet with these qualifications this was a crook and that was not a good example for me, and I said it in front of the judge that if this is America, then I will not be so helpful because i will be discouraged, I would be disappointed, I dreamed about the beautiful America. That flag of America I cherished. I would say, there underneath this beautiful flag I loved because it represented freedom and justice for everybody. Under the same flag there are many crooks. he hurt me, that man, in such a way that the judge paid me immediately a check and he said, "Keep that high ideal of America in your mind and here are your eight hundred dollars. I take it from the man later on. But you keep on the beautiful ida you have of America." I did.

NASH:

What was surprising for you coming, well, you had been to so many countries before you actually came to the United States, but what seemed new to you in the culture?

CHAURIZE:

I have to say the first thing I admired here in America to see their windows wide open. I saw in the banks there is no iron bars. All over is open and I never saw such a thing in other places. Why is, who is taking care of all the, who cares about it. This is a free country. Really, I was surprised. Another time I was going in New Haven, Connecticut from Waley Avenue to the railroad station to buy a ticket. It takes, by going and coming back to that Waley Avenue, it takes about three-quarters of an hour. I had two bottles of milk in my hand, I put them under the lamp post, the driver tell me, "Where are you putting them?" I said, "I will ride with you, go to the railroad and take my ticket and come back." He said, "But they will take." "No, this is America. don't you understand." He said, "Well, okay, we will see." If he had been that same place as the driver, he would have seen that nobody took my two bottles. Three-quarters of ab fiyem those two bottles are white like two eggs in the nest of a hen. They were standing under the lamp post waiting for their owner, I. God Bless America. Isn't that nice? Thirty-two years later I cannot say that. I could see iron bars all over, on the stores, on the shops, my goodness, where is America? And then stealing, taking, my goodness I am talking to you right now and there is an iron bar behind my door. Why? What happened to America? I don't know. Did I diminish to love America? No, no, no. This is some kind of a storm or hurricane. We hope it will pass, and I hope that America will come back to what is a beauty where there is no iron bar, where there is no fear, where there is only peace and joy all over, all around us. This is my idea of today, and more, one day the State Department told me, "Could you write an article about America?" I said, "Certainly, yes." And the title of my article was, "Even the Animals Love America." "What do you mean, even the animals?" I said, "Listen, you rad it and you will understand what I mean." I meant by "Even the Animals Love America," and I took, for instance, that corner of Broadway which hits Seventh Avenue. There is a kind of a triangle of a land, two million people pass by that triangle of land and in that triangle there are about five hundred pigeons and they have their breakfast. I don't know who gives them that, those grays, but somebody is taking care of that, but the question is that you see those Americans passing and the birds do not run, do not fly. They are accustomed to the Americans and you should see the Americans watching a little afar from those pigeons as somebody who will take brother birds, excuse me, I will not bother you, enjoy your breakfast. I just want to pass. D Don't fly, no, no, no, I will go a little away from you. I think it is nice, delicate. And that other time I went to Central Park and I see, what do I see? A man sitting and he called the pigeons to come to his hand, he calls them by names and each bird knows his name, "Martin, don't eat too much. Leave for Peter. Get out from here." And Peter comes. And it was amazing for me, and then the squirrels and he sat down and he comes over, he doesn't run away, he is so acquainted. Don't you think it is nice? I think it is a beautiful. Joseph, the Turk, the terrific Turks, he came here with the squirrel and he lost it in the subway. He didn't know anything except me squirrel, me squirrel, me squirrel, and finally in the subway two hours later they found the squirrel and they to Joseph the terrific Turks in on Thirty-fourth Street, and he told them, "New York big, squirrel is small." And I wrote an article i my paper about New york big and the squirrel is small, but is greater than both, the small and the great the American spirit to give the squirrel, to give it back to its owner, into the subway, they stopped, they didn't, I don't know, where did they find it? They did. Now greatness of New York. I went to Empire State and look at New york all over until New jersey, oh my goodness all around there, very nice. go to Forty-second Street, underneath that Empire State there is a professor, I forget his name, unfortunately he died a few years ago, certainly it is well known and in my paper I have his pictures and I went to see the fleas dancing. empire State is great, New York is great, but there are fleas that a professor of Columbia had taught to play football, to pull a carriage, golden carriage, five hundred times bigger than that flea and they play football and Mrs. and Mr. Flea, they were dancing, having a little umbrella under their arm and he told them, "My goodness, what is New york what is America." America is great, America is great and it is a flea, America is grab in its Empire State. There is no small, there is no big, there is democracy. Everybody works, everybody goes to his own duty, to his own duty. We respect small, we respect great, and there is no great unless you put small next to it. Our big building of 102 stories or 110 of the Twin Towers, are not built with one block, they were built with one brick, with one brick, and they continued to go. Greatness is based upon the smallness, the smallness will make big, the big is made out of the small. God Bless America.

NASH:

Well, I understand that you worked at Ellis Island for a time.

CHAURIZE:

Yes, I worked in Ellis Island. Of course, they used to take me and bring me and in those days people used to come by boat and before they come to New york they used to examine them. I don't know, not for their fleas, but certainly for other things. Maybe they had also fleas and lice. I don't know what they have really. They were ragged at that time. Oh yes, at that time they were ragged. And they used to keep them one day or two days over there and I used to go and be their interpreter and I saw many, many, many stories, many kinds of people coming to United states. They were not as lucky as I was because I spoke the language and I was educated in other places in Europe. My eyes were not so extraordinary blinded with greatness, or vision of America, no. I was , but these other people, they were certainly, to see this Statue of Liberty and they asked, "Who is this big lady? Is this a real woman or what?" "No, this is an island." "Why do they put it there?" Well, they don't understand why they put it because in their country in those days there was no statue. It is forbidden by the law, by the religion, to have a statue. Today there are statues, but in those days, no. And so this statue was the first admiration for these people to show that this is the statue, thee symbol of freedom, of liberty, and many times I showed them myself, "Yes, this land is free, yes this is the statue, Mrs. Liberty, the freedom. But remember one thing, the chimes with one right hand, but do you see what there is under the left hand? She has a book." "Oh, she has a book, what is the book?" "That book is the law." "Is the law?" "Yes, if you do something wrong . . ." "But you said we are free." "Free not to be crazy. You do what you like, no you like what to do and you do what you like until the limit that it will not bother your neighbor. The moment you bother your neighbor, they will stop you and you will see that you are not so free. You go to your desert if you want. If you want to shout after midnight, they will not accept it. You go to spit on the floor, they do not accept it. You peel bananas in the street and throw them, somebody will , though it is a free country. You go and make dirt in the wall here and there, don't do it." "But this is a free country." "No. We don't understand that." If you throw old ragged paper in the street, it is a free country. don't do it. They will stop you. Don't do it because there are many don't and don't and don't here in America than any other place, but it is the land of the freedom, but it is the land of where a free man who is reasonable, who will not harm his neighbor. I am here for the last thirty-six years. I never saw a policeman stop me. I don't know if Madame Liberty carries a book under her left hand or not. I am not interested in it. I do everything which is correct, I want to be likened with the torch she has. I don't want my name as destroyer of darkness. It treats me. I like light. Everything is uncovered, everything is right and clear. That is no hurting. The policeman is my friend. I love him. I joke with him. But in the other country the policeman is a boogie-woogie. The mother will tell his child, "If you don't stop your crying I will call the policeman on you." Here all the policemen stop in the four corners, "Sonny, come here," and then he take his hand, if he is a policeman and if she is a policeman, then she . . .

NASH:

. . . Ellis island and particularly about the people from arabic countries. Were there many who came during the time you were working?

CHAURIZE:

In those days in genera not so many came from Iraq, and I am from Iraq. Those who came to this country in general were Lebanese or Syrian, and this is how the immigration of the Arab countries was started, by the Syrians and by the Lebanese and the Syrians, and later by the Iraqi, and the Iraqi were very few in 1938. They didn't immigrate very much. And the few I received over there, sometimes they were from Lebanon, sometimes they were from Syria, sometimes from Turkey, and I used to go and meet them in Ellis Island. not knowing where they were coming, you would see them coming with their packages, different kind, different form, and the way they were wrapped was really amazing and to be pictured. Of course, this is evolution of any kind of packaging or making parcels. Even today we have different kind of packages. They are not the same as about thirty years ago, so we don't want to despise them or disgrade them when they came from those old countries. maybe the rope was torn into four or five pieces. You will see four knots here and there, but still was one rope, and the idea was to tie their things in it. You should have seen them come in with quilts, with pillows, with I don't know what. What is is for? Well, because in the old days in their country, these are the most necessary, useful things they had then. They couldn't imagine that in America they have some quilt like that, a blanket like this, pillow like this. Whatever they had, they brought it. It was really an exhibition for the Americans and many Americans used to look at them and laugh and smiling or put their hand on their noses so they will not see, the immigrant will not see them laughing at him. They look at them strange. What is it for? What is it for? This is facing the unknown land and so they brought many things, unnecessary perhaps, but for them they were a condition , a condition without which they couldn't live. And as for their languages, for their eyes, asking, demanding, questioning, what is going around them. All it was interrogation mark. It was a new land, new people, and not knowing anything about what is going to be for them. Later on when the boats used to come directly after the stopping of Ellis Island, there was another scenery in the boat. We used to go. I personally, they allowed me to go inside the boat.

NASH:

You mean when they docked it at the piers instead of stopping at Ellis Island?

CHAURIZE:

Yes, at that time when they finished. And so the boat used to come to the piers someplace and then I used to go and meet them there.

NASH:

What year was that?

CHAURIZE:

After '55 or '56.

NASH:

I would like to ask you why the group around 1939, 1940, what made those people come to this country?

CHAURIZE:

The Iraqi people were not so acquainted with immigration. They didn't have many people here from their country. but as for the Lebanese, they had many people living here and it is interesting to know and even interesting to say it. I don't think that I am saying something against the Lebanese or against the Syrian, but they say the Lebanese had built their Lebanon in Lebanon, each brick was a dollar of America. Each one was a dollar. To show that those Lebanese immigrants who came here, they worked hard and they sent back all by themselves, they went and rebuilt their houses for their fathers and mothers and little by little those neighbors who saw that this man had abroad some money and built his own house for his father and mother, it wa a nice excuse for him, a stimulant for him to come here and do the same thing and they did and that is how I would say the bricks of lebanon of their roofs, of their ceilings, were built by the American dollars. i think the Lebanese would accept that gladly. They can't deny it.

NASH:

Did they have much trouble when they came here? When I say "trouble," I mean were they ever turned away, did they have to go back on occasion?

CHAURIZE:

Well, the first, they came here with the intention to stay a few years, earn money, and go back, but in human being, just in our chest we have a tiny little piece, they call it heart, and that heart sometimes is attached to somebody and then the feeling toward raising a family and then engaged to some girl and then here is a family and the man who intended really to go back, he was glued here by the best part. That means his wife. And then he married and he had children. He settled here. Maybe in two or three years then I will take you and go back. they did and then when the children came the load became heavier, one child, three, four, take care of them, school, what do we do and the children have nothing to be Lebanon or other country, they became American and they speak English. Hardly they speak other things, also mixed, and I don't pronounce it well But, another generation, and today, my goodness, they are more American than any American. Who goes back? I don't know. Why should we go? This is America. And they are doing very well so they started by the idea to go back and the times, the circumstances, obliged them to stay here, settle here, to become one part of this country.

NASH:

Did they have any particular problem in staying here? Were there reasons why any Lebanese, for example, would be turned away at Ellis Island?

CHAURIZE:

They had no problem at all because Lebanese, and in general all the Arabs are very adaptable people. They apply themselves to any kind of work and they become really a part of the land where they are. They are very sociable, and this is not something amazing because their land, their native land, is a flat. It is a flat country. And so it means we are all together. there is no difficulties, there is no mountain to go up, there is no valley to come down, there is land, the land is ours, the land is theirs. They apply themselves to every work, they are sociable, they like everybody, and I think everybody likes them. They don't find any difficulty, and if they find a difficulty, certainly we have many immigrants who have written books about immigration and you should see the trouble, the endurance, the suffering they had to suffer or carry in boxes on their neck going from one door to another, peddler, call them anything you want, and they work hard. And they earned their money and they were able to do things. and where there is a hope there is a work, and they continue to do that. They endure all kinds of difficulties and they suffer with a pleasure because that suffering will bring them to some end and they do it and they are always victorious. I noticed one thing. That the children of these Lebanese, of these Arabs, as a teacher I myself, I notice that we have brilliant students, better than the American, excuse me to say, better than these brats, spoiled American children. Our Arab students, they come and they know what to do. In this school they are sent over there to study, not to joke, not to play, to earn later a profession and earn more money for his father and mother and we send them to grandma where she is waiting. Our children are almost among the first students.

NASH:

Do you remember the closing days of Ellis Island? Do you remember as they, could you describe that?

CHAURIZE:

Well, in those days there was no maxi, there was no mini, they were well covered, and this is also one of those modest people who used to come to this country. They were covered. if they were Moslems, they were covered from their eyes and down. you could see only two eyes, no nose, and you will not see the toes because though it was a shame for a girl or a woman or a lady to show her legs. Today it is completely different, but in those days they were wrapped and their arm completely, and if the sleeve was a little short, certainly they will cover it with some shawl and nothing will be shown. the clothes, they were not also tied on their body so that this culture could imitate exactly nature. On the contrary, where there is a little hill, they will cover it and make it flat and there is no bump in here, no bump in there and that was all one piece. It was just like a bottle and cover from top to down and there is no feet, there is no arm. it is one single bottle walking in the streets.

NASH:

Well, actually that is an interesting answer, but my question was the closing days of Ellis Island.

CHAURIZE:

I thought you were talking about the clothing. The clothes. The closing, I don't remember exactly very well when it was closed, but I very much interested because I used to have a good ride to go onto Ellis Island and enjoy that Island. It bothered me that way. Otherwise, I didn't care about the closing and I was not an historian to write the story of the immigrants and their relation with Ellis Island. That was not my duty. I could have taken notes, but I didn't know that some day a nice lady like Margo will come and ask me questions about it. If she had told me, she was not even born when i came to this country. anyway, I miss some notes, but we have some other things to do that this note of Ellis Island, I didn't keep them. I didn't have them in the first place. so you will excuse me if I don't know exactly what day it was the closing. You could refer that to the Immigration. they will give you that.

NASH:

No, I know when the closing was. I just wondered if you remembered how they began to end the services there or what the whole changed.

CHAURIZE:

No, really, I don't remember very well.

NASH:

What happened when you started to go to the airports after that, around 1954?

CHAURIZE:

That's right. For the airport, I receive in general after the '50, '54, '55, the immigration of the Iraqi increased. In 1947 we had about forty-seven, forty-eight, fifty families in Detroit. Later on we started to have about two hundred, five hundred. Today we have two big churches with two priests, and the immigration continued to be larger and larger. The reason I don't want to enter in it right now, because it will make me touch a question which I don't want even to open it. I don't want to touch any politics. I have nothing to say except that in 1954, '55, I used to receive a call from Detroit, "My father or my mother or my wife is coming." "On the what?" He says, "On the airplane." "What airplane?" he asked me. I asked him, "What plane?" he said, "Don't you understand what a plane is?" "I know, but what company?" He said, "What company? How do you want me to tell you what company? All of what I know she is coming or he is coming on an airplane. Do you think he is coming on a camel?" I say, "I didn't say that, but what company?" "How do I know." And so, "What is the name?" He gives me the name of, the first name of his wife. He doesn't say Mrs. So and So because even after he married her, that wife does not become his. It continues to be the daughter of her father. and so she will carry the name of her father, not her husband. And so what is her name? Let us say he will say Camillia. "Camillia, Mrs. Camillia what?" He said, "How do I know Camillia what?" Camillia So and So. he give me the name of her father. "Please don't do that. What is your name?" He said, "But she is not of our family." I said, "But you are Mr. So and so. Is she your wife?" He says, "Alright, but what right she has to carry my name? She is the daughter of So and So." And this will give you the idea of how much hard it was for me to go to all these kind of airplane and ask them, "Do you have Camillia?" They say, "Which Camillia?" I said, "Camillia, the daughter of Mr. So and So." And he said, "But what is the name of her husband?" He said, "The husband doesn't know exactly if she carries the name of her husband." Oh, I had lot of difficulties, and days after days I used to go and call until finally Camillia from Baghdad, Camillia until we discovered that she is coming by Dutch Company or , I don't know what. We found her okay. "Does she speak English?" "Oh, no, what do you think, her father was English?" "No. What does she speak? French?" "No." "What does she speak?" "Well, she speaks our language." "What is your language? Is it Arabic?" In general, those who come from Iraq, they don't speak Arabic. They speak Aramaic. it is a language like Hebrew. It is the language of Jesus Christ. Now where do we go to bring Jesus Christ to come and teach us that language, but these people continue to speak it. Even in Iraq of today they speak it in their houses and more than that, the Aramaic is spoken toady in one thousand, five hundred families in Detroit. And if they marry an American girl, that American girl is today speaking Aramaic. English, of course, she knows it, but it is forbidden at home to speak other than Aramaic. As for the English, they will learn it outside in the school, in the street, anyplace they want, but at home they speak Aramaic. And so I ask the husband, "What does she speak?" He said, "She speak Aramaic." "My goodness, and that is all?" He said, "That's all." "Okay, with what company?" He doesn't know. I ask, I ask, finally I discovered it was with the French Airlines. The French people are very nice. I was brought up with them. I know perfectly what they are. They love to joke, they love to laugh, they are very sociable. French people are nice. Oh, certainly they are nice. Are they nicer than Americans? I would say a thousand times better. Why? Because an American is called, an American, he will tell you, "Mind your business." The Frenchman will not tell you mind your business. The Frenchman will come with you, and ask you what you need. And American, he will pass next to you, he will not ask, he will not bother. And this anyway bothered me plenty here in America. so I come back to my French people. I know them very well. They like to joke. I said, "Listen, there is a lady by the name of Gorgia. She is coming by you." "Alright." "And will you please give her the message?" "Okay, in English?" "No." "In French?" "No." "In what language we give her the message?" I said, "She speaks Aramaic." "Oh, but we don't know Aramaic." "Well listen. I am going to teach you right in English, in the French, letters, what I am going to tell you." They said, "But what is it?" I said, "I don't tell you. You don't understand it, so write what I am going to tell you." They said, "Okay." "The name Gorgia." They wrote Gorgia. And then, " ." They said, "What is this?" I said, "this is the message." "But who is going to read it?" "You read it. Don't you read French?" He said, "Okay, I read it for you, read it." "Gorgia, ." He said, "What is this?" I said, "It means please don't move and don't go very far from your place until Father Alphonse comes." "Repeat it." He repeated, the Frenchman repeated it for me and he was very good. "Gorgia, ." He read it in the French way. It was nice. And I said, "That's enough. That is good." And for my own pleasure. All for making this story more flavored. the French people took that message for me for joke or for service, that is my business. Only what I want that the message was delivered in the air. And why sitting over there and someone of these French gentlemen said, "Gorgia, ." " ," she answered. And this story I am telling you, it was tape recorded in Iraq, in many places, in Detroit. Everybody knows it and I am the author of that. To give the message for a foreigner. Believe me, I was one of the first pioneers to know how to jurt it right, or they tell me, "Go and find my mother. She is coming." "How old is she? How does she walk? How heavy she is, round, tall, gray hair?" They give me. All the details, something, and I don't know, I stand over there and the passenger pass. "Zera." This is the name of the lady. I don't know her. "Zera" The one I have a little suspicion, "Zera, Zera." This is not Zera. Another one will come and say, "What do you want?" I say, "I am looking for Zera. Are you Zera?" "No." Okay, "Zera." "Yes, I am Zera, ah." And then she comes and talk with me. I say, "I am hero." "But how do you know me?" "I know you, oh, I know you." And she is happy. "And what is this with you?" "This is salt." "Salt for what?" "And this other." "This is vinegar." "Salt and vinegar for what?" She said, "You know, my son loves salads and I brought the salad, i brought them the vinegar for salads for a long time, he didn't eat it from my hands." Now we have to make condolences for this lady and cry with her or laugh, we don't know. Only what she said, "But we have salads. We have here salt, we have vinegar, we have everything. "Well, he knows what." "Good." Anything you want to expect of these people, they did it and simply and nicely they would, and now the way they come down from the airplane. I remember once she told me, "Are we going to another railroad?" She didn't know if she were in an airplane. She thought she was in a railroad. I said, "Okay Madame, I am going to put you in another railroad." Exactly I was lying. But I am not going to correct an old woman according to if it is an airplane or it is a Mercedes or what. She has a mean of transportation. She came here now by airplane or by railroad, she calls the airplane, she calls it a railroad, and so I said, "Are we going to sit down another railroad to go to Detroit?" "Yes Madame." I took her to an airplane. I said, "Enter the railroad." That is all. And she goes and her son will meet her and after that I had, of course, to phone them, tell them that she is coming in such a way, go and meet her and have her. And we have so many stories like this, by hundred and hundred and hundred. Do you want more? I will tell you more.

NASH:

Are you up to it?

CHAURIZE:

Oh, I could say more. well, the immigrants are nice people. They are just fresh land. They are like tender clay. They come to this country attracted by what they heard, attracted by their own son and children to gather together. The family will be united. That is very true. But they are tender clay. They have all eyes open on America. The little thing which is not right, it will bother them, it will blacken their beautiful memory, beautiful ideas they have of America. It is in the church it is in the street, it is all over. They are watching they are studying, and then they go back and compare themselves with what they were in their own country. And many times I heard these immigrants say, "I wish I did not have come to America. I was much happier with the little I had than this scandalous things I am seeing in front of me. What is it for?" Some are able to digest, some are unable to digest. For me, I ask all the Americans to go back to the hatchet of their fathers of the country. That means Washington. And don't lie, don't lie because the lie is the product of the devil and we don't need devil and demons in America. We need the truth and that the truth will make us free. But to be liar, America the great, America the strong, to shelter herself under liar and lies, that makes her very weak, and all those people who were attracted by her, they are suffering for her. America the beautiful, what happened to you? Please come back. We want to see America for which we left our country and where we intended to live better life. Please America, don't spoil our life here. We sacrificed everything for you and I come to myself. I came here when I was thirty-nine years of age. I did not come here certainly for money. At thirty-eight years I was well established in the society. The last position I left was a professor of law in the faculty of law and I left everything with a house that I built for my father and mother. Money ran into my hand like water run in the rivers. I didn't come to America for money and, in fact, until now I am not rich, but I am the richest man because I am living nicely and suffering for what I see every day going from worse to worse in America. America I love. America that I wish the whole world could be like America that I love. America, don't spoil your reputation because there are many immigrants who loves you really, who will do their best for you and we want to be proud of you. It doesn't mean we are not loving our countries, old countries. No, no. we love it. We wish our old country, native country, to be like America that we know. America the beautiful. Leave it like that, don't spoil it, and bring it back to its own glory, to its own beauty. I thank you Miss Margo Nash. I think I talked plenty.

NASH:

Okay, I thank you very much.