How I learned of the MacJannet Realm: Guy Benveniste (Camp 1936, 1937, 1938; Elms)

Guy Benveniste 1938 right with his mother
on Lac d'Annecy and aunt and cousins. 

I was born in Paris into a large immigrant family that had fiercely adopted French culture and language. My mother was born in New York and my father in Salonica. My parents spoke French, my father did not know English. My mother attempted to teach me some English, I even had an English nurse for a year or so. My numerous cousins, aunts and uncles, all spoke French. I managed to speak and understand a little English. In 1936, my mother's sister moved to Paris and enrolled her two children at The Elms.

My aunt spoke English with them, they had been living in Prague and that was the first time I had English speaking cousins to play with. I was 9 at the time, attending the French Lycée. My aunt arranged with Mr. MacJannet to allow me to attend some classes and activities at The Elms on Thursdays and Sundays, when the French schools did not hold classes.

That summer, my cousins went to camp in Talloires, and I joined them. I went to camp in 1936, 37 and 38. I may have gone in 39 but the war started and I do not remember. I also went skiing with Mr. Foster and a MacJannet group in Caux and Font Romeu in 37 and 38. By then my English had improved. But I fear I taught more French to other campers or skiers than I learned English from them. Yet, I know I learned to sing "Our Indiana", the fight song of Indiana University. One of my camp counselors was a graduate.

In 1942, when my parents and I left France for Mexico, I was still flunking English in the French Lycée. But the MacJannet experience had changed my outlook. I had become aware of different cultural attitudes, of different ways of behaving and especially of American ways and styles. while in Portugal, I was quite able to learn to play spin the bottle with English and American kids, while waiting for our ship to leave Europe. By then, I was 15 years old.

In Mexico City, I attended the American School full time. Thanks to my experience with the MacJannets, I was able to transfer from the French program, directly into the American high school. I graduated in 1944, age 17, and was accepted at Harvard. By then, I was able to speak and write in English fluently.

Harvard was another cultural adaptation. I arrived there in 1945 due to a visa delay. Harvard was a University in a country at war. Again, I had to adapt. Not only to the food, but to Irish Boston, and to speaking English practically, continually. More importantly, I had to adapt to being, for the first time, away from home as other students were, but in a different country with different customs.

Once again the MacJannets came to the rescue. They were at Tufts, conveniently, just north of Cambridge. They invited me to garden parties where I met new friends. In fact I started dating a young woman student at Tufts, they introduced me to.

I graduated in 1948 (with Bobby Kennedy) and went on to have a complex international career that began in engineering in Mexico. I helped begin an International program at the Stanford Research Institute in 1954, served in Cultural Affairs at the State Department in the Kennedy administration,  went to Afghanistan in 1962 for the World Bank, and joined UNESCO in Paris in 1963. I obtained a PhD from Stanford in 1968 and became a member of the Berkeley faculty during the student turmoil of that year.

Looking back, I have to recognize the need for preparation in acculturation. That ability, including the languages, enabled me to have a career and a life experience, I never would have dreamed of, when I first attended The Elms in 1936. That is what the MacJannets did. They gave PhD's in acculturation. They taught me to adapt. Mr MacJannet was always the kind one. Mrs MacJannet kept things in order.

In our interconnected word of today, understanding and being able to deal effectively with other cultures, acquires far more importance. This is why the work of the MacJannet Foundation has so much more significance today than it had, even in 1936. This why more PhD's in acculturation are an essential  necessity.

Guy Benveniste. Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley May 2018.