Life as an American teenager

Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Barbara is one step closer to being an all-American teenager in September 1951, when she becomes a U.S. citizen and starts high school. She goes on to become a cheerleader and captain of her high school’s swim team, emerging as a popular, busy, and high-achieving teen. While at home, Barbara struggles to understand her demanding parents. All teenagers experience family conflicts, but Barbara’s process of Americanization increases those tensions. She recalls: “I told my dad when I was a teenager I was unhappy, and my dad said, ‘You’re unhappy? You have a roof over your head and food on the table, you have no right to be unhappy!’”

A photo from Barbara’s high school yearbook, c. 1953. Barbara is in front, wearing a Central High cheerleading sweater.

Courtesy of Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Barbara became a U.S. citizen on September 10, 1951. 

Courtesy of Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Transcript

Barbara: So in-- in New York, my father was able to get a-- a position in Detroit. So again, that summer in New York I went to summer camp. My mother went to work. My cousin went to work. And -- and we ended up in September in yet another city, and a new school, and new people. And again, we all lived in a very small, furnished apartment in-- in Detroit. And I started school in Detroit. And my mother went to work for the Jewish Community Center as a cook. And the reason that I want to mention that is because the Jews in the Jewish Center didn't believe she was Jewish. And I remember my mother coming home, and she was in total disbelief. She said she didn't understand these American Jews. [LAUGHS] What did they think? My mother didn't speak Yiddish. My parents were--in-- in Hungary, not all people spoke Yiddish as the Russian and Polish Jews. They all spoke Yiddish. But Hungarian Jews did not. So my mother didn't know Yiddish. And the Jews that she had contact with in Detroit all spoke Yiddish, and they-- they didn't-- they never knew of a Jew that didn't speak Yiddish. So they didn't-- [LAUGHS] they didn't believe that she was Jewish. They also didn't want to hear about her experiences. And-- and they called her a greenhorn. The other Jewish people called her a greenhorn.

And as a matter of fact, that's-- that's really been my mom's experience in this country-- was that she was made very much aware that she was a greenhorn, and somehow or other, not as good as anyone else. And frankly, she was more educated than most of [LAUGHS] them. 

"The other Jewish people called her a greenhorn."

USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Interview 38619

Like most teens, Barbara can’t imagine her parents’ emotional world: “I never considered that they had this beautiful life, and then they had to go on the run to save their lives.” She knows her family is different from the families of her friends. Her parents speak English with thick accents. Their used furniture is mismatched. They dress differently. Margit works long hours at a time when married women are expected to be homemakers. “My mother would get up at 4, cut a grapefruit for us so when we got up, we’d have something ready for us on the table,” Barbara remembers, “and by 5 she was gone, waiting at the bus stop in the freezing cold to go to work. But she never complained.”

Her father had more difficulty accepting his diminished status. At times, Alexander became domineering in his efforts to control his daughters. Alexander forbid Barbara from cutting her long hair, even though short hair was then in style. When she was 15, a boy asked her to come to a party with him, and she accepted. As Barbara was getting ready, she saw her father getting dressed and putting on a tie. “I asked him, ‘Are you going somewhere?’ and he said, ‘Yes, I’m going out with you. What kind of father would I be if I let you out with a boy alone?’” Today Barbara laughs at the memory, but at the time she had to beg her mother to convince her father to let her go to the party alone. Alexander would sometimes ask his daughters at the end of a school day, “What have you done to justify your existence?” Barbara’s father sought to provide some meaning to what he and Margit had endured, she explains, “and my sister and I were his justifications for surviving, for being lucky.”

The Bandler family at the beach on vacation in Florida, c. 1954.

Courtesy of Barbara Bandler Steinmetz

Transcript

Barbara: She [Barbara's mother] and my cousin [Panni] worked at the Jewish Center, and my father worked as a cook. And eventually, after having been kicked out of so many jobs from Boston to New York and then went to cook in Detroit, he-- he is an incredible man. He was an incredible man. He truly became a great chef. And he had jobs in Detroit at the most prestigious country clubs. He was the head chef in those country clubs.

And it-- it is an amazing thing that this guy, who really went from place to place, and somehow or other had enough gumption to learn something and learn it well, and be the best. In the middle of it all, he gave it up. He was in his-- well, in 1945 when we came to this country he was 43 years old. So in 19-- by 1950, he decided he no longer wanted to be a chef. Because again, because of the family-- and the family life is very important to my parents. My dad felt that as a chef, he was working all the holidays, all the weekends. And again, he didn't schlep his family all over the world for him not to spend any time with us. His daughters were growing up, and he wanted to spend more time with us.

So the reason I'm putting this in here is just to share with you this man's incredible determination. He put an ad--he-- he read an ad in the newspaper for salesmen in the advertising specialty industry. He didn't know a thing about the advertising specialty industry. But he answered the ad. And it was someone in New York that was hiring. And--and he-- he said he wanted to do this. They sent him a bunch of samples, and he was to go calling on customers. Now, he had no background as to what to do, how to do it, how to go out. But he read through the materials. And by golly, that guy went out, and he was a salesman. He started selling specialty advertising, and he ended up doing pretty well. But it gave him some free time. It gave him his weekends off, his vacations off. And he-- he would call customers, and he would say-- say who it is on the phone. And they'd say, well, I-- I recognize you by your accent. And my-- my father would say, what accent? I don't have an accent. And he was-- he was the most determined person in the world. He was just incredible.

And my mother went to work for Burroughs Adding Machine, in the kitchen. She always continued working in the kitchen. And then she became very heart diseased and got diabetes. And unfortunately, they both died very young. My mother-- my father was 62. My mother was 66. And so they-- they really never made it to the years where they would have gotten some pleasures out of life. But they left quite a legacy with their kids.

"... my father would say, 'What accent? I don't have an accent!' And he was the most determined person in the world." 

USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Interview 38619

The pressures and anxieties of immigration mean that her parents often fight with one another, too. “Kids of immigrant parents just don’t understand how hard it is,” Barbara says. Alexander works every weekend, every holiday, and as Barbara advances through high school, he decides to shift careers. He applies for a job as an advertising specialty salesman, even though he has no idea what the position means; he soon finds out that he will be selling t-shirts, pens, pencils, and calendars branded with a corporate logo. Companies give away the branded items as gifts or incentives to clients and employees. Alexander thrives as a salesman due to his natural charisma, and despite his heavy accent and total lack of experience.

Barbara and Howard, her older crush, begin dating seriously while she is still in high school and he is at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Alexander likes Howard, but his behavior towards his daughter’s boyfriend can be unpredictable. One day, Howard returns from college to visit Barbara while Alexander sits nearby reading the paper. Howard mentions that he no longer believes in God or in being Jewish. At that, Alexander jumps up, flying into a rage, takes Howard by the collar, and throws him out of the house. “My father had gone through all he had gone through because he was Jewish,” Barbara considers, “and here was Howard trying to deny [his identity], and my father just lost it.” Although the Bandlers are not religiously observant, the family always retained a profound respect for their Jewish heritage, and mourned the Jewish world that was destroyed in the Holocaust. For Barbara, the time she spent in Jewish summer camps helped her form an identity and a sense of Jewish community that has never left her.

Barbara graduates high school in 1954 and she and Howard make plans to marry. When the sweethearts announce their intentions to the Bandlers, Alexander responds, “Oh! My deepest congratulations to you.” He pauses dramatically. “Of course,” he says, turning to Barbara and lowering his voice, “your mother and I won’t be there. We couldn’t possibly attend a wedding we had not approved of.” Alexander’s objections are in part because he wants Barbara to go to college. Alexander had not had the benefit of a formal education, but he remains a life-long learner who hungrily borrows books in multiple languages from the local library.

Alexander often reminds his daughters how fortunate they are to be in America and have the opportunity to go to school. Once, he berates Barbara’s friend’s parents for not encouraging their daughter to apply to college. He storms over to their house and thunders: “How dare you not send your daughter to college!” Barbara applies and is accepted to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. (So is her friend.) After one year in Ann Arbor, Barbara transfers to the less-expensive and closer-to-home Wayne State University in Detroit, where she studies for three years.

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