Interviewer: How did you learn English? Or how did you adjust?

Mr. Chapralis: I did adjust. I was. . . . But it was a lonely time. It was really very lonely because I was thinking, “What are my friends doing now?” You know, I, I’m a dummy. I, you know, I don’t understand what they are saying. They were, they were very comforting, but people were talking to me. . . . It was a foreign . . . everything was totally different. I didn’t have. . . . My brother was in a different school. My sister was very young. I was, I was an attraction. After a while it became an unwanted attraction where they would say they, they, I realized that there would be talking if somebody came to visit the school and we have so and so. But it wasn’t welcome after a while. I, I don’t mean to make it sound that. . . . It was my personality. The age that I was and the things that I would be doing back home, even though I was delighted that my dad had moved to the United States and he was here for five years by himself, and my mother and my older brother and my younger sister, we were in Greece. And we were looking very much forward to coming to the United States. And it was very comforting that I saw books, because in Greece we didn’t have libraries, music instruments. People were trying to be very comforting but it was frustrating not being able to understand. It was as if, you know, you bang your head, “What . . . I don’t understand.” You know, of course, I’m over, I’m acting this way. I was very polite. It was always, almost at a tension to listen to what they were saying. You know, people weren’t very good with gestures. And also since that time, because I had the experience, when I meet, now being a teacher, with students that speak only Spanish or another language, I, I can help them. So it was, it was a good experience for me to go through that, because I can . . . I can make faces, I can look . . . whereas people, people would just talk to me. Or I can, you know, make faces, you know, to eat this, or to lighten it and make it more humorous.

Interviewer: Yes.

Mr. Chapralis: But at that time it wasn’t funny for, for me. The experience wasn’t.

Interviewer: How did you make friends?

Mr. Chapralis: And then I was invited, I didn’t know how to play basketball. I didn’t have tennis shoes. And by, just by watching other students, and I started, you know, you know making sounds. You know, in Greece, we weren’t very demonstrative. We were more formal in school. You, you had to stand up and recite lessons. And I was concerned, am I being a fool by . . . you know, at the same time, I learned from the outside in order to communicate with other students, that I had to, to improvise so I could, I could find my way. And it was, it was hard. But I think having a good ear, and I think I must have embarrassed people because I would look at them, uh, you know, as if to catch the word, so I can catch a word that they were saying. This actually, I’m an older, older person now, and this brings back memories. To catch a word that they might say, or to, a gesture, or . . . it was, it was hard. It was very hard. But eventually, I . . . kids would invite me, they would show me how to throw, how to shoot baskets, baseball was brand new. I was invited, I was the next person up to bat, and I threw, the bat went . . . They were very nice. They let me go around the bases. They took me under their wing. I think, if they hadn’t, it would have been very, very difficult for me. And I found American people to be very, very . . . very giving, whereas I think the culture that I was brought up, in Greece, because it was . . . everyone spoke the same language, you had to be Greek. I don’t know . . . I was a novelty but I don’t know if I would have been if I . . . if I was from the United States, or from another country. We’ve always had good relationships with the United States. Greece has always had good relationships. But let’s say if I was Hungarian. I don’t know how well I would have been received.