Immigration to the U.S.

Dr. Pao-yu Ching Chou was born in Beijing, China, the oldest of three children. Though of royal descent (Qing dynasty), her father grew up an impoverished orphan; her mother was a very wealthy member of the Han majority. Dr. Chou's early life was influenced by the 1911 and 1949 revolutions in China, by the tension over finances between her parents, and by the rise of communism. After graduating first in her class with an economics degree, she received a scholarship to attend graduate school at Bryn Mawr. There she was struck by the gap between her expectations of the United States (as an ideal, democratic country of equality) and the realities exposed by the civil rights movement. Dr. Chou married, and continued to work while completing her PhD dissertation on inequities in milk production and government subsidies. For a long period, China's importance in her life was minimal, but now China and the rest of the world have become a major interest. She says, "I think Ive become a Marxist. I have to throw away everything I learned in graduate school...The hardest thing is to clean up bourgeois economics. Clean it up and relearn."

Sally Chung was born in Taipei, Taiwan. Her parents immigrated first and worked to bring Sally (age 3) and her siblings. She did not see her parents for nine years while she lived in Taiwan with her grandfather. When she came to the US, she struggled with the language and making friends. She worked in family restaurants. She met her husband when he was a customer at the restaurant in Dearborn. He returned to Taiwan after his student visa expired and they had a long distance relationship for three years. Eventually she and her husband opened their own restaurant.

Izzat Khapoya was born in Tanzania and raised in Mombasa, Kenya. She was the seventh of eight children born of Indian parents who were members of a small Muslim sect called Ismailis. She enjoyed a privileged childhood thanks to her father's successful scrap metal business. In 1965, a few years after Kenya gained independence, Ms. Khapoya's father moved the family to London. From there she enrolled at Foothill College in Los Altos, California, and then Oregon State University. She met her future husband Vincent at Oregon State. Because her husband was African he was not accepted by everyone in her family; her father was especially opposed to the marriage. She and Vincent eventually moved to Detroit so he could take a job at Oakland University; it was from OU that Ms. Khapoya earned her clinical psychology degree.

Dr. Khapoya talks about his early schooling, initiation rites and circumcision when he was a 14 year old boy in Kenya. In the interview, he recounts his fathers dedication to achieving an education for his children, including his sister who was not his sister, but his cousin. The continuity of tradition is noted in Dr. Khapoyas building a house for his mother, which is not his mothers house but his own house.

Marygrove College professor Dr. Chukwunyere Okezie was one of 10 siblings in his family's compound in Nigeria. After Zaira University in Nigeria was closed, he moved at the age of 22 to the United States to earn his undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Okezie married in 2001 and describes his growing family and academic life at Marygrove College.

Mr. Shakarnah was born in Bethlehem in the West Bank. He started to cook at an early age and was working as a chef in the Middle East. Mahar came to the United Stated for a visit in 1997. He traveled the country and eventually settled in Michigan to continue working as a chef.

• Date Interviewed: Sunday, 23 March 2008 
• Interviewer: Imad Attallah
• Marygrove Archives ARC-SP 0100 File #17