Scope and Contents Ms. Cherry Lawrence was born in Morbihan, Louisiana into a large family. She and her siblings were raised on a farm where they learned much about cooking. Favorite dishes included mustard greens and okra dishes, biscuits, gumbo, and sweet potato pie. As she grew older, Ms. Lawrence carried with her this love of cooking. She and her husband owned and operated Hungry Po’ Boy in Houston for six years. After her husband’s death, Ms. Lawrence worked at the Medical Center del Oro as assistant to...

Scope and Contents Interviewer(s): Ernesto ValdesProject: University of HoustonCaptain Mack was born in Galveston, TX, graduated from Ball High School and went to Prairie View A & M for 2 ½ years. In this interview Mr. Mack discusses his job as a ferry boat captain in Galveston. Some of the highlights of the interview include his explanation of general emergency procedures, as well as evacuation and ferry guidelines during a hurricane. He also talks about the day to day...

Scope and Contents Interviewer(s): Ernesto ValdesProject: University of HoustonCaptain John R. Shaw was born in Flint, Michigan in 1952, and later served four years as a Navy Quartermaster. In 1981, Captain Shaw became a deck hand at the Galveston ferry and three years later became a Captain. During this interview Captain Shaw provides some history of the ferry system from the time it was taken over by the State of Texas. He also explains the positions and duties of each of the six...

Scope and Contents This interview includes several exchanges in Urdu/Hindi since Mrs. Ajgaonkar’s first language is Marathi. All such passages have been translated into English.The Ajgaonkars are from Mumbai, India. Praful came to Lubbock, Texas in 1964 to complete his BS in chemical engineering from Texas A &M University. He recalls ROTC being a central feature of the university as well as it being an all-male campus. He spent a short time in Houston in 1966, moved to Dallas for two years...

Scope and Contents Pradeep Anand came to Houston from Bombay in 1978. Born in 1950, his grandparents and ancestors were originally from Tamil Nadu. He attended a private Catholic school in his youth and trained as an engineer at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT). Like his relative, Mr. Anand sought a scholarship for an advanced degree overseas and because his sister had moved to Houston, he applied to the University of Houston. He worked toward a PhD in business marketing but ultimately decided to...

Scope and Contents Hailing from Punjab, Virinder Bansal came to New York in 1970. An engineer by training, Mr. Bansal moved to Channel view, Texas in 1975 to work as a supervisor on an oil rig. He worked for Lummus Company and worked briefly in Iraq in 1978, after which he found a job in Houston-based Kellogg Company. He lives with his wife as well as his adult son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren in an expanded house in southwest-central Houston. His son specifically sought an orphaned woman to marry...

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Vijay Bhuchar moved to Houston from New Orleans and Delhi in 1975. She enjoyed a multi-sites childhood since her father worked as an accountant for UN-WHO. After studying English at Delhi University, Bhuchar married a doctor-in-training and eventually settled in Houston’s suburbs. She worked as a homemaker and has devoted much time to charity work. She has two daughters and one son.

Scope and Contents Pankaj Desai enjoyed an affluent childhood in Bombay where his parents had migrated in the 1930s. Originally, his ancestors were from Kindergarten through grade 12, Mr. Desai attended St. Joseph’s, a private Catholic boy’s school. In 1974 Mr. Desai arrived in Houston from Bombay as a graduate student in chemical engineering at the University of Houston. He completed his PhD in 1979. In 1980, he married a professional Indian women already settled in Chicago. He and his wife have one child, a...

Scope and Contents Raised in Puna and Bombay, Sharad and Vasudha Kavadi have lived in Houston since 1980. Sharad Kavadi worked for several years as an architect before retiring. His wife, Vasudha, is a homemaker. Between 1968 and 1980, they moved to New York, Kentucky, and San Francisco while working for the same engineering company, Bechtel. They lived in Houston for a few months in 1976 but did not like the city. They found that a major shift in attitudes toward foreigners has occurred by 1980, largely due...

Scope and Contents Born in Rampur, India, Mazahir Khan migrated to Karachi, Pakistan in 1955 where he attended the University of Karachi. In 1966, he came to the US on a Fulbright Scholarship and attended Texas Tech University for his doctoral degree in Physics. While in Lubbock, he met his future wife, a Euro-American named Bonnie. He graduated in 1973 and found his job in Houston. Later, Mr. Khan worked for Mobil. He has three sons. For most of his life, he has invested much energy in his career and in...

Scope and Contents Vimal Kothari arrived in Houston from Bombay in 1979 to work on an MS in electrical engineering at the University of Houston, which he completed in 1981. In 1988 he founded Sytel, Inc., a now mid-sized company that builds industrial computers for sale in the US and Canada. His three children attended private schools in Houston and the family has lived in the suburbs for several years. In the interview, Mr. Kothari recollects childhood interactions between his family and Britishers in India,...

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Uday Mahagaokar was born in Kanpur, India. He attended IIT Kanpur and majored in chemical engineering. He then received a scholarship for graduate studies at the University of Houston and graduated with a PhD in 1976. He lived for a short time in Chicago before returning to Houston and joining Shell Oil Company where he worked for 31 years. His wife holds a PhD in the biomedical sciences.

Scope and Contents Sarosh Manekshaw was born in UP, India but attended a boarding school in Dehra Dun until high school graduation. He completed his BS at IIT – Kharagpur after which he earned an S in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He worked at Pennzoil Company from 1976 to 1999 by which point he was the Corporate Director of Environmental Safety and Health for Pennzoil. After taking an early retirement, Mr. Manekshaw established his own small consulting firm, commuting between Mumbai...

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Pradip Mehta grew up in Bombay, India and majored in Chemical engineering at IIT Knapur. He went on to complete a PhD at the University of Houston in 1978. He has worked for a company called Celanese Chemicals in Corpus Christi, Texas for over twenty years and moved to Houston and they have two children, a son and a daughter.

Scope and Contents Uma Rajguru is a retired medical technologist. She was born in Poona and raised in Bombay where she completed her BS. She earned her MS at UC Berkeley in 1965, returned to India and worked. After marriage, she and her husband, Anil, moved to Delhi and London, before settling in Houston in 1974. She has two sons, worked for over thirty years, and has lived in the greater Houston area since arrival. Her older son married a Mexican American woman. In the interview, Ms. Rajguru speaks in detail...