Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women
It was not only the New York winter that was hard for Rosa. “No one told me be careful, don’t do that, this is a bad area.” Since she was accustomed to a nomad’s life from her childhood, she rented one furnished room after another until she finally found a studio apartment on 46th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. “The first thing I bought was a sleeper sofa, and in a junk shop I got dishes and some old pans. Again, I was looking for work.”
When Rosa was hired as a secretary at the Caltex Petroleum Company in 1961, the job came with the condition that she must take courses in economics at a college. “This was not at all easy. When I applied at one of the colleges of the City University, I was told that I hadn’t even finished secondary school in Switzerland. The admissions officer cited a book that said that children in Switzerland didn’t go to school during the entire summer because they had to help with making hay! My grade reports didn’t convince her either. I was forced to write to the Department of Education in Washington which eventually confirmed that my schooling in Switzerland was equal to one fourth of the courses for a college degree; and this paved the way for me.”