I am Heidi Smith. My dad, my uncle, and my grandparents were living in Budapest not far from 60 Andrássy út. They fled during the 1956 revolution with no documentation or anything else. They were sent to Connecticut and ultimately settled in California, where I was born.
Both of my grandparents passed on too early, and I only had my grandmother until I was 13. I wasn’t raised with much Hungarian cultural influence or language, or at least nothing that was labeled as such. Now my own children are 16 and 18 years old, and we are exploring our Hungarian heritage and trying to make up what sometimes feels like lost time. I want to learn it all, experience it all, and hopefully take in enough to feel like my seeming foreign heritage is actually a part of me. I’m looking forward to the expó and meeting more people!
