My
father had to flee Argentina when I was around one year or a year and a half
because he was an outspoken critic of the military that was in power there.
And he came to the United States, which at that point was at war against fascism
and my father felt very comfortable coming to a country which, in spite of the
fact that it was an imperial country for Latin America, for Argentines in particular
and for my dad in particular who was the first economist who had studied the
history of the industry in Latin America and who proposed the idea of independent
industry that was not dependent on American multinationals to develop. In spite
of all of this my dad felt very well here in the United States because it was
a country where he was able to join the fight against Nazism and fascism, which
was the main struggle at that moment. And I followed him some time later in
the sense that I was sort of carried along. And when I arrived in New York in
February of 1945, I contracted pneumonia. Pulmonia in Spanish. And I didn't
contract pneumonia, I contracted pulmonia because I mean I didn't know the
word pulmonia or the word pneumonia certainlyÑthese words come out of Greek
and I had no idea about that Ñbut what I mean is that it was a little Spanish
speaking boy who contracted that sickness.