Ms. Shimmi Chandra (At Risk Stories)

Description

Shimmi Chandra, 85, is a retired real estate agent and one of the pioneering members of the Indian American community in the United States. She arrived in 1959 with her husband and they founded Indian associations in every city they went, from Toronto, Canada to Buffalo, New York. The interview includes discussion of her husband’s unique research speciality in Physics, which took them to several different cities and back to India for a few years before they settled in Chicago in 1971. She describes developing her career as a real estate agent after her three children were grown, experiencing racial discrimination in the South, and her husband’s passing. Other topics discussed include: founding the Network of Young Indian Americans, traveling by ship and airplane, and the collegiality of university communities.