Bottelier

=Phillip Bottelier=

Podcast
media type="custom" key="12457256"

BIOGRAPHICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE
 Mr. Bottelier came from Tanzania. He was born in Holland, and as a baby moved to Tanzania. Over holiday breaks, he and his family went back to Holland to visit his extended family. They mainly sailed between Holland and Tanzania. He came to America when he was five on a boat. Mr. Bottelier teaches science at the Dayton Regional STEM School.  Holland is a northern country in Europe. Holland is bordered by Germany, Belgium, and the North Sea. 50% of the population is Christian, and 42% is none. Holland is slightly less than twice the size of New Jersey. In the words of Mr. Bottelier, Holland "Smells like fish and manure." Mr. Bottelier also lived in Tanzania until he was five years old.

=Creative Writing=

By: Benjamin French
**Phillip Stefan Bottelier ** **by Benjamin French **

Mr. Bottelier immigrated from Tanzania. Born in Holland, he and his family moved to Tanzania while he was still a baby. He lived in a village, with a red brick house and a propane stove. He said that he was the “White, blonde-haired, black boy” of the village.

//“There is nothing about America that I would change, because it is impossible.” //

Today after dinner, my parents sat down with me to tell me some “big news” as they called it. We sat down on the couch, the cushions soft, like a kitten’s fur coat. The paint in the living room was sort of a peach colour, a few furnishings, and light coming from the kitchen. They say we are moving to America, but I do not know what this means. Practicing reticence, I gave them a blank stare. They look at me, expecting a reaction, but realizing that I do not understand, they explain what this means. “We will put everything in boxes and bags, and then load them onto a big ship and sail steadily to America, a place where you can get a good education and a job when you are older.” They went on more, but I found it hard to stay awake, with the soft cushions and the warm living room smelling of fresh foods one would find on a late fall evening. Thinking back on it, it was just like my mother to be altruistic and help me build my future. As my parents became insipid, I began to fall asleep, my head drooping like a scarecrow. Next thing I knew, my mother was asking me what all I wanted to pack and what I wanted to give to my friends. I sat up from the couch, and looked through everything. Toys and books mostly, and I found it difficult to choose. What to keep and what to give, where to pack it and whom to give it to. After that, everything was a blur. All I really know is that it became a very crazy time with packing, organizing, cleaning, unpacking and repacking things forgotten. I know my mother and father were very busy getting everything set up for when we got there. I get excited when we talk about the trip there, because I love to sail and I love boats. I want to sail with just my family very far, maybe even around the world. I always am asking about what kind of things we will do on the ship, for one can only go so long staring at the horizon with the ocean as the foreground and background.
 * The Big Sail **

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Ben French

Phillip Bottelier Ben- Ok, could you repeat your name for me please?

Mr. Bottelier- Phillip Stefan Bottelier

Ben- Could you tell me what country you immigrated from?

Mr. Bottelier- The Netherlands, which is Holland, or, yes

Ben-Ok, when you came here was your name Americanized or, changed in any way?

Mr. Bottelier, Only in its pronunciation. In Holland, my name is Philip, Stefan, Bottelier (changed pronunciation) and people have a difficulty saying Philip (C.P.). Because that’s not the way the English pronounce it, but no, just in pronunciation.

Ben- So in your old country, did your name have just a meaning, or was it just a name?

Mr. Bottelier- That’s a good question. It does have a meaning in fact,, the Greek meaning of Phylos, Phylos is to love. But Bottelier is an old reference to,, people who bottle, and in particular, our family immigrated from France to Holland, Back in the seventeens, and their name, they carried their name with them. They still are in France, bottling wine.

Ben- Ok. What age were you when you came here?

Mr. Bottelier- When I came to the United States I was five

Ben- Ok, do you still remember most of the process of moving here?

Mr. Bottelier- Yeah, yeah, sure we actually moved from Africa. Because I was born in Holland and moved to Africa when I was just a baby and we traveled between the two, but I lived in Africa but I remember the real crazy, just I dunno I lived in a very small village in Africa, and you know, we had friends who were local people. I played in the in the dirt a lot. And, all of a sudden there were sidewalks and houses with roofs, and, and I remember getting one of these Go Karts that you could pedal. Yeah it as a very interesting world shift.

Ben- Ok, could you tell me about any of the schools, or friends you had in Africa or Holland?

Mr. Bottelier- Yeah the African friends I had, which you know, I was just five; I was just, just a kid in the village. I as the white blonde hair black boy, so, yeah. I remember just playing, playing all the time in the dirt, and my mom was very happy with the villagers and everybody was pretty cool so. I spent a lot of time playing with the kids my age, and being a dirt boy.

Ben- Ok so you hadn’t had the much schooling up to that point?

Mr. Bottelier- No, no, I was uneducated, I didn’t speak English up to that point, I didn’t speak any English until we came to the United States,

Ben- Ok, do you have a specific memory, or is there a specific phrase or a smell or something that reminds you of that time? (Silence)

Mr. Bottelier- That time being the time of when I was

Ben- Before you moved to the United States

Mr. Bottelier- Not a particular one, no, no,

Ben- OK, do you remember seeing or smelling or hearing anything, as soon as you came to the United States?

Mr. Bottelier- Yes it was loud, it was very green. You see we moved from Africa and I can go back, and I spent time in Holland, and still did growing up on Holiday, vacation. You see there are two distinct worlds I lived in, one was Africa, which was rural, and the other one was modern Holland, basically, of course there’s differences. I can tell you about the smell of my home country, fish, fish manure, not fish manure, cow manure. Yeah there’s a distinct smell in Holland and everywhere, as you drive through the country side, yeah that’s a distinctive smell. When I came to the United States it was a very clean smell, clean not like soap, but like no poop smell.

Ben- Yeah. Ok so you probably, you might not, might not be able to answer this question, but do you know much about the costs of moving, like,

Mr. Bottelier- No, I know that my father took a job with the World Bank which is a huge company, which sponsored the move, and helped us find a house, and so I know it was a very comfortable move, didn’t have for want of much,

Ben- Ok, what was the first school you went to when you came here?

Mr. Bottelier- Well I started in, what was it, nursery school, no I didn’t go to nursery school, I went to Kindergarten, and I went to a Kindergarten that belonged to the elementary school I went to, Yeah it was an ordinary, public elementary school education,

Ben- Do you think it would have taken more or less time to get used to the United States if you had been older?

Mr. Bottelier- Yes… More,

Ben- More time?

Mr. Bottelier- Oh yeah, being a child not speaking English, and, and being immersed in a world that was English speaking it was immediately, I was immediately learning English, And so it was very easy for me to listen and learn very quickly Yeah And I’d heard English, English is spoken around the world but I hadn’t… been educated in English, you know my parents spoke Dutch

Ben- So, could you describe your house, back in Africa?

Mr. Bottelier- Yeah, red tile, clay roof, not adobe, but sort of a wall made of not brick, but block. And then a sort of exterior, we had a garden, my mother loved flowers, it was very simple though, it was not a house with a lot of electronics, and this was from forty three years ago, but it was a very simple place, a small village and we didn’t have security or anything like that, it was just very comfortable way to life, the roads were not paved, the roads were dirt, and yeah it was, we had electricity, we had a stove, I think it was a gas stove, which was nice… I think. It was hot; it didn’t get cold, yeah.

Ben- have you gone back to that house?

Mr. Bottelier- No

Ben- After … You haven’t?

Mr.Bottelier- No. I haven’t been back to Africa since I left.

Ben- Do you, have you missed it at all, or…

Mr. Bottelier- Can’t say I’ve missed it I plan to go back to Africa, but not necessarily to Tanzania, which was where we lived. I’m going to try and sail to, Egypt, and spend some time in Egypt. Three, four months exploring all of the ruins, and temples, and pyramids, and great monuments there.

Ben- Where, where were you planning to start sailing from?

Mr. Bottelier- from New Orleans yeah, from New Orleans, you, you wanna know this? (Laughs)

Ben- So, did you start out living in an apartment, or, in your own house when you got here?

Mr. Bottelier- It was a home, it was in a, in a suburb, which I had never seen before. Suburbs forty years ago were not common in Holland, people lived in the city or they lived in the country, but having a suburb community was a very bizarre thing. So you know, sidewalks, street lamps. You know it was just an ordinary suburb, but ordinary for the United States, not ordinary for Holland.

Ben- Is there anything that you like or dislike about America compared to Tanzania or Holland?

Mr. Bottelier- Nothing physical, I like America for its space. You have a tremendous freedom due to the vast spaces that are available. There is something about food that I miss, and I make up for that because I grow a lot of good food and I spend money on good food, but I like food and eating really well, and I think eating dinner together, making that a tradition, which is common in many homes, but a lot of Americans don’t eat together every day, and I think that’s a vital piece that I brought with me, Yeah, food, yeah, food,

Ben- so, is there anything about America that you would take away, uh, not necessarily is there anything about America that you would change?

Mr. Bottelier- Nothing that I would change, because it’s impossible, but here’s the thing about America, it’s a good country, it’s vast and there’s lots of resources, but we’re isolated geographically, and in America, you have no sense of connection with the rest of the world, there’s Canada to the north, and there’s Mexico to the south but there’s no countries in between, there are no other countries close by, you know people think of going abroad, and you have to go literally thousands of miles to get to another country besides Canada and Mexico, and what that does in the mindset is that puts America in very, very isolated space geographically, and then, in person’s minds there’s the rest of the world, while in reality the United States is very much connected, though not physically, and I think that makes Americans, can I say, in a nice way, ignorant of the rest of the world. Because we don’t have that direct physical connection to many other countries,

Ben- Ok, so, is there anything, in general, that you remember that I haven’t asked about or you haven’t talked about?

Mr. Bottelier- Ohh, yeah… I mean tons. I mean both my mother and father both came from big families, so I have lots of aunts and uncles, nephews, and cousins, and that’s really kind of a cool thing, I haven’t been back in years, ever since I got married I haven’t been back, since eight, nine, ten years almost, so I think that’s a big one, because most of my memories are of childhood holidays St. Nikolas actually not St. Claus, Santa Claus is totally different, it’s totally different, it’s not about presents, there’s a present or two, and there’s stockings, which are actually your shoes, and that’s a really cool memory, where you don’t actually celebrate Christmas at all the same way, you do it in a totally different way very warm, very warm feelings, so I think you have a very good sense of it, you know my immigration wasn’t as an adult, so it’s not like this huge, grand story of me fleeing some sort of horrid conditions. My sister in fact, who is the most Americanized of all four of us, of my brothers and sisters, she lives in Holland, she married a Dutchman, they have three children my brother, who was my oldest brother, he studied in Holland, and now he lives in England, and married a Dutchwoman, so the connections are still pretty good, so it’s not like we became American and that’s it, there’s a lot of desire to stay connected, which is an important piece for an immigrant to have I think, to have some sort of link to the past,

Ben- Ok so, did you travel, by like a boat, or

Mr. Bottelier- Actually we did, interestingly enough, this is back in 1972-73, but I am pretty sure, I know we did several trips across the Atlantic, we also did several trips from Europe to Africa on boats, and that was cool, and this is why I want to sail to Egypt because I the Dutch have a tremendously strong tradition of sailing, and they are very good sailors, along with the French but yeah, there’s definitely water in my blood. Well, there’s water in your blood to,

Ben- so, are back to the sailing from here to Egypt, would you sail on, like a big boat, or

Mr. Bottelier- No, no we’re talking and looking at boats right now, not to buy them yet, but boats between thirty-five to forty-five feet, is enough to handle with two people, even single handed, you can manage a boat that size, anything bigger and you would need a large crew. So it’s going to be myself, my wife, and my daughter, and we’re probably going to live on the boat for two years, skip sixth and seventh grade for my daughter, and me I don’t know, a couple years of teaching, well, yeah.

Ben- So, what are the concerns about the sailing that you have?

Mr. Bottelier- storms, of course. I’ve had to experience a hurricane in a sailboat, in the middle of the ocean, and it’s pretty dicey. That’s all pretty important to be prepared for, survival if we have to abandon ship, but, food, and beautiful nights, and beautiful days, and no concerns about pirates, of course, for where we’re traveling, except on the coast of Egypt, there might be quite a few pirates by then, but yeah we have to figure that one out, we might have to carry bazookas or something.

Ben- So I’m trying to remember the questions,

Mr. Bottelier- Do you have a set list of questions, is that what you have?

Ben- We had a list of questions that we were suggested to go over, but she hasn’t printed them out yet,

Mr. Bottelier- Well, on that trip we might have the time to zoom in and go up the English channel, and visit Holland too, that might be the first time my daughter has visited Holland, she is half Dutch, and she has a Dutch passport, and I actually maintain my Dutch citizenship, although I should get an American citizenship, although I will try to become a dual citizen, and then my daughter will also have dual citizenship, so that we have less trouble traveling, you know some places, American passports are not so welcome, and some places it would be better to have an American passport,

Ben- So after moving here, have you ever considered going back to stay in either Tanzania or Holland?

Mr. Bottelier- Yeah, I’ve considered it, but I like space, I need space, I’m a space person, I need dirt, and I need a yard that is big, and in Holland, space isn’t premium, there might be fifteen million people living in the six of Connecticut, and it’s developed, not everything is a city, but probably at least sixty percent of people live in cities. There are suburbs, but not as many and there’s farmland, but not a lot of wild land. I think I need that space; I need to see and feel the freedom of open space.

Ben- Ok, how do you think your life would have been different if you had come here at an older or younger age?

Mr. Bottelier- I think I would have been more American if I had come here when I was two, or one, obviously. I still would have that Dutch heritage, and my parents would still have tried to raise me as Dutch as they could, had we moved here later, I don’t know that’s a good question, cause we spent four years abroad when I was eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, and that was awesome, because I was over in Indonesia, a very different country, same sort of situation, living in a village and home, in a very comfortable, safe place. I think I might a little bit more of a homebody, had I stayed in Holland a little bit longer. More inclined to go back and stay in Holland, or move to Holland. But I have no inclination to move to Holland. Not for permanently anyway, I mean we may go back for a little while.

Ben- Ok,

Mr. Bottelier- When is your interview due, like when do you have to have it finished?

Ben- We have to have it done by next Tuesday.

Mr. Bottelier- Well I have to help my students, but you know my email, so if you have any additional questions, you can email me over the break, and I can get you the answers if you missed some questions

Ben- Ok. Thank you.

Mr. Bottelier- You’re welcome.

ANALYSIS
In this quarter, we learned about Ellis Island and Angel Island. We learned about what different tests and examinations Immigrants have to go through. We learned about the medical, legal, and historical examinations and tests to become a legal immigrant. We learned about the prejudice against the Irish immigrants.

Mr. Bottelier’s immigration experience was similar to what we learned about in class. He came on a boat, and remembers going through a “crazy” time before and after his trip on a large boat. When he arrived he went through all the legal and medical examinations, but did not go through Ellis Island. He did not experience much prejudice or racism as a new arrival, and he went to some normal American schools, if they can be called “normal”. His father got a job with the World Bank, and they decided to fund his family’s move to America.