I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 30, 1961. My father was in a medical residency at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and I was born at the hospital at his medical school. My mother was both born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 12, 1943, and my father was born in nearby Camden, New Jersey, on June 10, 1929. 

My paternal grandparents were born in Russia, somewhere near the border of Poland. I do not have their exact birthdates, but they were born in the 1910’s. They came to Camden, New Jersey after arriving at Ellis Island as young teenagers. They came separately but settled in the same community which was a large Jewish immigrant community with many other families from the same part of Russia. 

My maternal grandparents were both born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My maternal grandmother’s family had arrived in the US from Nottingham, England where they were skilled lace workers. They came to the US with the lace weaving machines as they were skilled laborers who were brought to use the machines in factories in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. My maternal grandfather’s family came to Philadelphia from Muchenstein in Alsace, Switzerland. My maternal great grandfather was a skilled cabinet maker who had learned his trade from his own father when growing up in Switzerland. 

At home, my family spoke English. Because my father spoke Yiddish until he was school aged and entered primary school, where he was introduced to English, he believed that all children should study another language and attempt to become proficient. He worked as a physician serving a Puerto Rican immigrant community in Philadelphia, and so decided that my brother and I should learn Spanish. He found tutors for us and we learned from an early age. We also learned Spanish in school. While I am not fluent in Spanish, there have been points in my professional life where I worked largely in Spanish, particularly when I was a social worker at the Puerto Rican Family Institute, a social service agency in New York City. 

At school, I learned to speak, read and write Spanish and took a few French language classes as well. 

Growing up, my mother spoke only English. However, in her retirement she moved to Basel, Switzerland, where she currently resides, and learned to speak Swiss German. She became fluent in Swiss German and has spoken it daily for the last 20 years. Swiss German is an Alemannic dialect that is rooted in German language and is spoken widely throughout Switzerland, including Basel which is where my mother lives. An example of the Swiss German language, also called Schweizerdeutsch, has many local variations, can be heard here:

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