- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with Mary T. Mathew, April 25, 1999
- Creator:
- Mathew, Mary Thundyil
- Contributor to Resource:
- Varma, Rashmi
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1999-04-25
- Subject:
- East Indian American women--North Carolina
East Indian Americans--Cultural assimilation--North Carolina
Americanization
East Indian Americans--Ethnic identity - People:
- Mathew, Mary Thundyil
- Location:
- United States, North Carolina, 35.50069, -80.00032
- Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Mary T. Mathew left her home near Kerala, India, for North Carolina in 1970, remembering that "the second I disembarked in New York, I felt I had come home." After a period of adjustment, worrying about visas and financial stability, Mathew experienced four turning points that would define her life in the United States: she got her visa, began working, stopped wearing her traditional sari, and started to drive. Mathew and her husband embraced American culture, speaking English in the home and finding a place in a Christian community. As they formed new bonds, the ties with the fellow immigrants that had been so strong in their early days in America started to dissolve. In this interview, Mathew describes this transition and her forward-looking immigrant experience, one relatively unaffected by the pull of her homeland and marked by the release from the cultural norms and traditions of India. The most significant markers of this approach might be Mathew's children, whose desire to fit in with their American peers nudged Mathew and her husband toward reconsideration of the "pre-established cultural-behavioral expectations" they learned as Indians. The result, though it did not come without some anxiety, is a thriving family and a successful career. This interview will interest researchers concerned with immigration and assimilation.
The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata. - Metadata URL:
- http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/K-0815/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on Oct. 31, 2008).
Interview participants: Mary T. Mathew, interviewee; Rashmi Varma, interviewer.
Duration: 00:51:01.
This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.
Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers. - Contributing Institution:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)
- Rights:
-
