My name is Margarita and I was born in Argentina. I came to the United States June 13th of 1967. That day I met my husband, my future husband. 

We are third cousins. His parents had come to Argentina to visit my grandmother, and my husband’s – my future husband’s – brother was getting married. So my in-laws invited me to come to the United States. And since I was going to school to be an English professor or teacher, whatever, I decided it was a good opportunity for me. So, I came. 

And when I got here, I guess my mother-in-law had told my future husband that this young woman from Argentina was coming to visit. He no longer lived with his parents. He had a bachelor’s apartment in Queens, and they lived in Roslyn. She said he should take her out or something. 

So he thought that, for some reason, I would look like his aunt, and his aunt was a big fat lady. Anyway, when I got there that night, my mother-in-law, the first night that I was in Roslyn, my mother-in-law had invited my future sister-in-law and my husband. So I dressed up. I mean in Argentina, you had all your clothes made, so you looked in Vogue magazine and you copied the stuff. So I dressed up very nicely, not like a party, just a nice skirt and top. And I was thin and kind of tallish. 

When I came in and he saw me – oh, he had made arrangements with his friends, especially one, to take me out – so when he saw me, he decided that I didn’t look like his aunt. Anyway, I went out with his friend, and his aunt who lived with them told me that he was miserable that day. And he never let me go out with anyone else! 

That’s how we met, the first night that I came to the United States. And it was funny because he would take me to Chinatown and have dinner for $6, $7. He thought, “Well, this little Argentinian, she must think that a $7 dinner is really impressive.”

And anyway, after three months, we got married. After four weeks, I called my parents in Argentina to tell them that I was getting married. I think my mother aged 30 years that day, because I’m an only child, and they were Holocaust survivors. And then at that time, they didn’t have the means to come and go, to come and go whenever they wanted. My grandmother was still alive, so they couldn’t leave her. 

That’s the story of my marriage. Well, now we are married 57 years, it’s going to be. And that’s the story of how I became Margarita M.