Immigrating to America!

Introduction | The Task | Resources | The Process | Learning Advice | Conclusion

Introduction

Think about where your family came from....for some of you, your ancestors immigrated to America from more than one country. As you have already learned, immigrants came to American for many different reasons. Franklin D. Roosevelt stated "Remember, remember always that all of us....are descended from immigrants and revolutionists".

The Task

Creative Writing:

Your goal is to create a story in which you immigrate to America from whatever country you choose. The country you emigrate from should reflects your own heritage. You will be immigrating during the time period of 1890-1924. As you research the following, feel free to incorporate any information that assists you in creating your story about coming to America to begin a new life. As you gather information for your story, think of sites, sounds, smells, tastes, etc.

Resources.

1. Joy Hakim's "Reconstruction & Reform"

a. "Immigrants Speaks"

b. "More on Immigrants"

• Ellis Island Use this to gather information for your immigration experience in coming to America.
• American Immigration: This is another source of information to give you ideas that you might use to create your story.
• immigration stories:This is a very interesting source of actual stories from immigrants who describe what life was like in the ghettos of America where they settled. When you click into this site, click onto the section "On the Lower East Side". This will pull up a listing of numerous stories. Feel free to browse through the various stories. Some are longer than others, but you should be able to find some interesting ideas that give you a picture of what life was like for these immigrants. The section "Lower East Side Tenements" has a museum section where you can click onto a tenement building and look at various families homes within the building. This also has short exerpts about the families who lived in the tenement building.

The Process

1. Read the two stories on immigration from Joyce Haikims book on as listed under the Resource setion. Make notes from these two stories that you find particularly interesting.

Make notes to yourself as you work through the following process of entry into America once you arrive at Ellis Island.

2. When you go to the internet, go to the Web site of "Ellis Island" This site has a series of short readings on the process of entry into America. Each time you move to the next step, you must click onto "Back" at the top of your computer screen, which will bring you back to the beginning page for this site. Then you are free to click onto the next step in the process.

3. Click on "Arrival": Which group was inspected at Ellis Island? From your readings, describe what this experience was like.

4. Next, go to "Medical Inspection": What were some of the fears of being "inspected by a doctor?"

5. Go to the "Mental Inspection": From your readings, do you think this process was a fair evaluation of individuals mental capabilities? Why or why not? (Put yourself in the position of being an immigrant, not speaking the language and being subjected to this process!)

6. Go to "Legal Inspection": Why happened to many of the immigrants names and why? On what grounds could an immigrants be denied entry at this evaluation step?

7. Go to "Detention": Why might you be detained or prevented from entering the country?

8. Browse the two other sites listed to gather information that will assist you in creating your story. There is a lot of interesting information in these sections, particularly the "immigration stories" site! Take your time here as there is a lot of information available.

Learning Advice

When reading the stories either in Haikim's book or gathering ideas from your observations on the internet resources, jot down notes that will assist you in creating your story. For example: if you read something from the "East Side Tenement Museum" that you find particularly interesting, make a note to yourself about that particular family you researched. You can then use this information to aid you in creating your story about your life. All the information you are gathering, from arriving on the boat to settling into a tenement building, should give you a "picture" in your mind of what your life was like back at the turn of the century. You might find a particular family in the "Museum" that you want to pattern your story after. That is perfectly acceptable to do so.

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Conclusion

When you have gathered sufficient information to begin creating your story, plan on writing a story that will be at least two type-written pages in length. Creativity is the key! Visualize yourself coming to American at the turn of the century with your hopes and dreams, and then picture in your mind what your life was really like once you came here. Have fun creating! In writing your story, compare your life as it is now to living back at the turn of the century. How are opportunites offered to you now, different than what was available to you back then?

This page written by Janet Wolf

This page was adapted from Bernie Dodge 's WebQuest_Template1.html by Tom March