First of all, great job today everyone! What a great experience it was to hear all of your family histories. Comment here on the following:
Describe the complexity of the American immigrant experience. What were some of the commonalities that emerged? What were some of the things that surprised you?
Throughout the readings, I realized many of the immigrants traveled by boat. I remember someone specifically say how the person they wrote about didn't realize how crowded the boat would be. Personally, my immigrants journey was by train. However I was not the only one who traveled by train. Adam, in fact also wrote about coming from Canada and his immigrant took the train as well. Also, many of the stories said how they immigrated to find a better life and/or job opportunities. My story was about finding a better life, but also finding a job to care for the family. One thing that surprised me was how many of the same places people came from. I realized that there was more than just me coming from Canada, a couple people came from Italy, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe complexity of American immigrant stories varied by the country the immigrant was traveling from. For example, Dylan described his immigrant’s story as a life or death situation. His immigrant in search of safety while on the other extreme Natasha came to the United States by adoption and Liam's father came here like many others, in hope of a better life with more opportunities. Christian described his family having decent money in the Azores but still chose to move to the US because it offered them even more than they were offered there. Struggles for jobs and places to live was a commonality among several different people’s stories, including my own. Another commonality was how Tim and a few other students had to live in Canada for some time prior to coming to America. I think the most reoccurring means of travel was in search of a better life and more opportunity. Like Ari said, the most common ways of immigration was a huge boats filled with many people who had few belongings. I was surprised by Randa’s great grandparents story about how they had to hide their Russian Nationality because prior to their travel, the United States set a 3% cap on Russian immigrants, so in order to be able to come into the country they had to hide the truth. I was also shocked at Erika’s uncle’s immigration story about how he was tricked and teased. This was easy to believe because he was too naive to understand American humor or sarcasm. It was interesting hearing everybody’s story and realizing how similar our ancestor’s immigration stories were.
ReplyDeleteThe complexity of the immigrant experience changes from case to case, like Kirsten said. For some people it is a life or death situatiion and for others it was to find a better life for themselves and their family. Some of the commonalities that I noticed were that most people came to America in search of a better life. That seemed to be common throughout the immigrant stories. I also noticed that lots of the immigrants described came here by boat. That can be attributed to most coming from overseas. The last commonality I noticed was that most of the immigrants came here to have more of an oppurtunity to succeed in life. The thing that suprised me was the amount of different places immigrants had come from. There was a wide variety of places. I also was suprised about where some of my classmates immigrants had come from. For some poeple, I wouldn't have thought they had ancestors from those places. It was kind of interesting seeing some of the heritage of my classmates. I also was suprised that more than just my immigrant came from Canada. Ari and John's immigrant also came from there. I thought this activity was very helpful in learning about the immigrant experience and discovering the background of students within our class.
ReplyDeleteHearing all the different immigration stories in class you realize that everyone has their own unique story and no two are the same. But many of the stories we heard were similar or their immigrants came to the United States for the same reasons. There was always that always classic, “for a better life” reason that many immigrant stories contains. But there were more than I expected stories about escaping wars, like Dylan’s story about (his mom I think?) escaping her near death situation. Most of the war stories you hear and see in movies and don’t really get to hear what it was actually like. Even though parts of these journeys were made up it was socking to hear how harsh conditions were for people in their home country. More commonalities were that much of our class (or it seemed this way) were from Italy and many descended from a long time ago 1800’s- early 1900’s. Only a few had recently descended like Liam’s dad from England for example. I think that even though everyone’s stories are different they can all related in some way.
ReplyDeleteAfter today's class and listening to people's immigrant stories i noticed there were a variety of different types of immigrants that have descended here from all over the world. Some people were from Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Britain, Germany e.c.t. Through each of these stories it seemed as if the reason for coming here was very similar to one another which was coming to America so they could have better jobs and more opportunities. However, there were some who also mentioned the arrival to do the freedom of war reason. Lots of immigrants were scared of what was happening in their home countries like Tim and myself included. I noticed we had the same feeling and experience in our home country being all horrible and wrecked to do war. Furthermore, i recall that among my piers, there was a lot of reoccurring means of travel and feeling during their journey. Many like Ari's and Cassandra's immigrant, traveled by boat under difficult circumstances. In addition, during these stories, i was very surprised on some of the reasons why these immigrants were coming to the United States and how they came about. For example, in Tyler's narrative he explained that only one child got to go to the United States a year because of the inability of funds and that his immigrant ending up going because the person who was to ended up sick. This surprised me because it was such an unique reason to how people came here. Many came here because they decided to go and have a better life while Tyler's immigrant left by luck of the draw really. I didn't know also how they did that they did it this way in Germany. which also surprised me. After hearing everyone's i noticed and realized that even though we did different people our stories were pretty much the same when had to come down to the why and how.
ReplyDeleteEveryone’s stories were great today and we all had things in common and things that shocked each other. Some of the commonalities that I recognized when the class was telling their stories was poverty, came to America for/with family, and that they came to make money or to get a job. Most of the stories that were told in class had something that related back to either being scared due to War, such as Dylan who was affecting by a bombing from WWII or because they were poor, such as Melissa who came to America to start a business. Nicole, Natasha, Melissa, and Jeff all said in their stories that they came to America when they were young between the ages of 2-19 years old. Some of the common places that people immigrated from included Canada, England, Ireland, Italy and Russia. Themes that emerged during the stories included assimilation, ideal vs. reality, and cultural preservation from what I was able to hear. All of the stories had a generally bad story as they were physically coming over to America. The part of the story that shocked me the most was when Shelby was saying how there was blood in the water from a whale being killed and that everyone on the boat was looking over the edge to see what was going on. Another aspect of the stories that shocked me the most was how much I could relate to everyone else’s stories. For example, Paige and I both wrote about the potato famine and how it caused deaths for millions of people in Ireland which was the cause of both of our immigration expeditions.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like most people including my immigrant came here in search for a better life. Some people came here because they might not have lived otherwise as we say in Dylan example and others came because of family. All the immigrants overall seemed to think America was a better place then the location they were in at the time. Also some things surprised me a lot. The fact that people in the same time period took all sorts of ways to get to the same place. Also it surprised how similar my story was to other peoples. In Adams his immigrant came from Canada to the United States by train. My Immigrant did the same thing. Over all I was really impressed with everyone's story's and how many differences and commonalities we had with each other.
ReplyDeleteHearing everyone's stories today in class was a great experience and a fun way to get to know about everyone's family and their cultures. Some commonalities that I noticed was that a lot of people's family members immigrated to America because of some type of war that was going on that they wanted to be free of. Or they immigrated here because the government was bad and the economy was horrible and they wanted a better life where they could make more money. Something that really surprised me was how many people came from the same places, but even though a lot of people came from similar places there was still a lot of diversity between everyone's stories and where they came. There were a few interesting places that I heard where some peoples families came from like Russia and Denmark were a few of them. Overall, i really enjoyed everyone's stories and the artifacts and food people brought in.
ReplyDeleteI found listening to the immigration stories that our ancestors or some of our classmates, immigrated here for closely the same reason; in search of a better life. I have found quite a few commonalities amongst our immigration stories; one being that many traveled by either boat or train, yet a few came by train. I found it interesting how a couple of people had to travel to and live in Canada for a few years in order to then come and live in the United States. I didn't understand why that was. I also found it interesting how, many of the people in the narratives were from some of the same countries; they were mainly from Europe and a few from Brazil. Many, including my person, we're from Italy, and then there were some from Germany, and Ireland, and one or two from England. I was astonished by how closely related our people were to each other, I didn't realize how most of our class came from similar ancestry.
ReplyDeleteAnother commonality that I came to notice was that people fled to the US in search of a new life because of either war in their country, bad economy, poverty stricken, poor country, had family, or had no other choice. I noticed how many had came throughout last century and this century, with some prior to that.
I found it surprising how Dylan's ancestors traveled to the US because of the war that had been going on in Angola. What I interpreted from his reading, was that they had no other choice. They had to flee for safety. It sounded harsh in Angola at the time.
I also found it interesting how Tyler's ancestor came to the US forcefully. He on,y came over here because his brother who was planning to go couldn't because he was sick, in order to make it into the US immigration office, you need to be healthy. It was his new opportunity for a better life, and he, at 17years old, took the chance, and went for it. It was his 17th birthday, and he spent it packing to set sail from Germany to the US. I found that quite sad.
Above all, I enjoyed listening to everyone's immigration stories. I found it interesting how even though some of us came from similar countries, we came from different parts of the countries. It now comes to mind that our class is very diverse culturally, with similar ancestry. I liked writing the narrative, it brought back what I learned in creative writing and I put that into my narrative.
In class today, everyone spoke about thier ancestors and where they immigrated from. Many of these stories had some major things in common. For example, many of the kids in out classes families immigrated to America for a chance to live a better and happier life. However, once many of them got here, they were faced with the same reality. There were indeed not that many opportunities for immigrates. Jobs were hard to come by, and many lived in small houses or apartments. This was shown not only in my family history along with my other classmates, but also found in the studies we did in class, mostly found in the "web-quest". I found many things to be surprising, for instance, some of the stories shared earlier today told stories of war, famine, poverty, and other sad and disturbing things, not only when they got here, but also before and during their voyage over to America. However, I also found it interesting that most of the stories shared today told how the families coming to America were coming, not only looking for a better and richer life, but also an education. Today, many people take education for granted, and some people dont have the strength to finish all of high school, never mind attend a university. Overall,today was a very interesting day and overall a great experience to know more about the peers I go to school with.
ReplyDeleteThe complexity of the immigrant experience was really shown by how different everyone’s stories were. Although there were commonalities thread throughout the stories, there were so many ways the immigration reasoning, process, and reaction could happen. For example, people could have immigrated here for reasons as different as escaping war to wanting to find a way to get more money. The way they went about reaching that point could have happened in such a variety of ways, that although some of them were leaving for the same reason, their own stories is so unique and adds a complexity to how immigration actually occurred.
ReplyDeleteA lot of commonalities that occurred were the reasons why people came over and how they felt about coming over. Many people said that they were either escaping war, or searching for a better life. Those escaping war said that they felt relieved to be leaving their previous corrupt home, but nervous about what was to lie ahead. Many people also said they left because they wanted to find a way to better provide for their family, and get ahead in life. These people when coming over often said they were excited and anxious to get here and start their new life, but many of them were nervous and hesitant about what they would do. A lot of people also said their immigrant had heard things about America, and how it guaranteed them better opportunities. It wasn’t necessarily something that surprised me, but something I thought was cool was how some people had family who had very recently come to America, or came themselves, such as Natalya and Liam.
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ReplyDeleteThe complexity of the American immigration experience can be explained through the different countries the immigrants came from. The immigration stories depended on the country in which they are coming from; the journey, the cultural traditions, they are all different and are tied together for the coming to America. Different reasons for leaving, different U.S. policies, they all affect the individual differently according to the country they immigrate from. Throughout all of the different immigration stories, the commonalities between them were colossal. Like most of the responses above, many students said their ancestors came by boat or ship with many people. Also, a lot of people said that the immigrated families came for a better life for themselves. How in one country things can be so bad, but in the end, coming to America was the greatest thing they could do. It opened up jobs for many, people opened up to love, everyone seemed to be happy with their choice. Another common factor was that many people immigrated at a young age. From infant to adolescence, these people were traveling long distances for long periods of time, which can become tiring for a person of such youth. If a classmates ancestor was young, I noticed that they said things along the lines that they did not remember much of the event, but only certain sites and emotions -flashbulb memories. The intriguing part of this sharing activity was all of the creative tales of these heroic adventures. In Paige's story, she mentioned people lying on the streets because of famine and a woman holding her dead husband. This shocked me most of all and I was heartbroken at how a country could let this happen so fast, so most definetly immigrate away! I also liked Kirsten's connection between ideal and reality, how the ideal is completely fictional, whereas the reality does not meet the expectations of the ideal. Also, in Liam's story, he stated that his father sold everything he couldn't bring with him so he basically had to start a whole new life in America. I found this very shocking in the fact that, some people can bring along these memories whereas Liam's dad could not. Like Maddie, I found it interesting that Liam and Natalya are recent comers to America. It's unfathomable to me how people can just get up and leave their home country and settle in new land with the expectation of fitting into the culture just fine.
ReplyDeleteI think that every immigrant experience is different, which is what makes the experience so complex. Though many journeys share almost the exact same theme, they still differ widely. For instance, although most of our ancestors came in search of a better life, all had different reasons to do so. For some, they were escaping the oppressive and sometimes violent regimes of their home nations like Mussolini's Italy for Vinny's ancestor. Others came for family, like my dad or Ari's ancestor. Tyler wouldn't even be here if his ancestor's brother hadn't gotten sick right before he was supposed to leave for America. Many people who came were poor like Tyler's family, who could only afford to send one person to America, though some seemed to have perfectly good lives in their home countries like Christian's family, and it even seems as though they immigrated to a worse situation.
ReplyDeleteSome commonalities which occurred were themes like freedom from oppression for Dylan's mom and Vinny's ancestor. Almost everyone came in search of better opportunities except for the few who came to be with family. I was very surprised to see that we have so many nationalities relative to where we live. We had Dylan's mom, from Angola in Africa, Jeff's ancestor from Portugal, Melissa's dad from Brazil, a few ancestors from Canada, some from England, some from Germany, many from Italy and Ireland, and even two from Russia. It is interesting that we are so diverse, and also that there are so many levels of separation from our immigrant ancestors. Natalya and I both directly immigrated while some like Dylan and Melissa have parents who immigrated. It was surprising to me how many people we had who were so close in generations to their immigrant.
The complexity of the American immigration story differed from where the immigrant was coming from. Hearing these stories was a great experience and a different way to learn about everyones culture. Some things that I found was reoccurring in a lot of the stories was the family members had left their country because the government or the economy was not doing well in their country and they wanted a better life, so they came to America. My immigrant story was also about my great grandmother immigrating so they could create a better life for her whole family. Something that surprised me was that a lot of student's family members immigrated had all come from some of the same countries. I realized there were more people than just my ancestors coming from Ireland, like Maddie's and Katie's. Overall, I was impressed with how many people's immigration stories were alike and how many differences and similarities we had with everyone.
ReplyDeleteWhen listening to peoples immigration stories I realized how hard it must have been to tell such a complex story in so little space. Like Kirsten said the stories were complex in different ways, some families like Dylans were fleeing life and death situations, and many others were just looking for a simple life in America, to escape whatever troubles they faced in their home lands. It seemed that a lot of the stories had people coming to America to escape war. It was interesting to see where a family begun, and where it was now. I thought Natasha's immigration story was so interesting. I also saw a lot of similarities between some of the webquest details, like living situation and hard times assimilating, and the personal naratives. Overall I thought today was really interesting and a good hands on way to learn what immigration was really like.
ReplyDeleteListening to the peoples stories of how they immigrated here was very interesting, a lot of people came from the same country but had very different stories for coming here. i noticed that a lot of people also traveled by boat. Most peoples family's came here because they wanted to have better job opportunities. there were many other reasons like the government was bad, they knew it would be a better life for their kids and family if they came here. the living conditions were really bad then and a lot of peoples stories talked about that. I really liked this project that we did it let us know more about where the people in our class came from.
ReplyDeleteThere were alot of themes that I heard in people's stories that were in mine as well. One of them is that when their ancestor's immigrated here, they stayed in an area that was concentrated with people of the same race as them. For example, the North End in Boston was made up of mostly italians. Another commonality that I heard was that many came here for better job and economic oppertunities. There were also many repititions of themes of the immigrant stories shared. There were many leaving to escape war and there were many escaping famine in italy and famine in ireland. There were also some looking for religious freedom. One of the things that suprised me was that the stories that were closer to this time period like Natasha's and Dylan's, were not that different from the stories from way back in history. This tells us that reasons for immigrating has not changed that much, and the immigration topic that were are studying are very current and relevent to us now.
ReplyDeletemuch of the things I heard directly related to my story. There were a lot of war in some peoples stories as well as immigrating because of family. I think it is important that we remember that most of us came here for jobs and more opportunity, so we shouldn't be so quick to throw people out of our country for wanting the same thing we did, some of us less than 60 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI think that most of the immigrants came to America due to job opportunities/money and fear or oppression. I was surprised about the war and harsh conditions some people's relatives had to live with prior to coming to the US. For example, Dylan's family were dealing with a lot of war and violence from where they were from in Angola. Also, I found it surprising that a lot of people lived in areas of severe poverty and famine and that when they came over, conditions didn't get a lot better. For example, some people in America discriminated against Italians or certain religions and wouldn't hire these people. Also we found that many people came over at different times. For example, my relatives and Natalyas both came from Russia but mine came in the early 1900's whereas Natalya came over just 15 or so years ago. In this way America must have been the desired place for immigrants for roughly the last century and a half. Finally, I found it interesting that so many people from all of these backgrounds had similar reasons for coming over and that all of these immigrants were brave enough to leave everything they had behind in hopes that their life and their descendants lives would be better.
ReplyDeleteIn the american immigration there are many things that all of us have in common. A lot of peoples families immigrated here for job opportunity. America has always thrived on the working class citizens. Another common thread was that people came to america to be with their families. Like my great grandparents came from Canada to be with their family. Another dark but recurring theme was seeking asylum from war. Some stories had the violence aspects in them. A lot of the stories also had the stereotypical america in them. People who have never seen america yet were making notions to what it would be like there. All in all the stories were filled with rich experiences and interesting facts about life as a immigrant coming to america.
ReplyDeleteThe complexity of the American immigrant experience differed based on family history. In many cases, the immigration of ancestors was due to poverty and wanting a better life. In other instances, it was a matter of life or death based on conflicts that surrounded their homeland. Although the level of complexity varied from one story to another, overall difficult situations emerged from the immigration process. In specific, Dylan focused on the vivid imagery of Angola being immersed in war resulting in the conclusion that they must flee the country. On the other hand, Melissa’s father immigrated relatively recently (20 years ago or so) and he immigrated because he wanted to make a better life for himself and try something new. As you can see, the reasons for immigration within our family history were more complex reasons then others. There were many commonalities that were seen throughout the narratives. In a general statement, many ancestors traveled to America by boat in the nineteenth century. Also, I noticed that the main reasons for immigration amongst the stories of my peers were based on poverty (moving to America to find a job), a better life (obtaining freedoms), escaping war or even disease. I was extremely shocked both Vinny and Sammie’s ancestors moved from their native land to Marlboro, MA, as did my family. I thought it was very interesting that Sammie’s family was Irish and they moved to Marlboro to find a job and I discovered that historically Italian immigrants such as my ancestors competed with Irish immigrants for jobs. Also, it surprised me that within Christian’s narrative, he focused on the idea that his ancestors from the Azores didn’t come to America for money but rather for a better life. Previously, I felt as though a better life may consist of making more money but I found this very endearing that money wasn’t everything. Lastly, I found it very surprising that the voice of Anthony’s narrative watched his grandfather die in a plane explosion, my heart felt for the character Anthony was taking the role of.
ReplyDeleteLife as an immigrant was extremely hard. It seemed that most of my classmates ancestors came in search for a better life, including mine. There were some people that said that their ancestor had come to escape war. Another thing that varied in each persons story was the time that they left there home country. The time span was from the late 1800s to the late 1900s, so around 100 years. They all came at different ages too. from what I heard, it seemed like the older people who left, left because they had no other choice. What I mean is that they came because they almost had too. Liam's dad came so he could raise a family, and Dylan's mom. I was also surprised at the fact that a few peoples ancestors came to live in Marlboro Massachusetts like mine did. One thing that didn't surprise me was that a lot of the immigrants came to escape oppression because a lot of areas during the late 1800s- early 1900s had a very bad economy. I really enjoyed hearing all about my classmates ancestors and there journeys
ReplyDeleteMany of the stories portrayed their relatives as immigrating to America for better life conditions. The stories described the characters as living in penury and laborious circumstances, and they wanted to migrate to America to attain better opportunities. America was seen as a paradise land with prosperous opportunities, and many jobs with good pay. Even so the immigrants had many stereotypical facts about America that weren't necessarily true. Not all expectations of America were met, and some of them turned out to be flat out lies. Many discovered that life in America wasn't as easy as initially thought, and had to do extensive labor to attain a living. Many immigrants also left for hostility reasons, and tried to leave from all the violence and war. These immigrants saw America as not only a new life, but a form of security or refugee home to escape the violence.
ReplyDeletewell the complex in immigration is that obviously it is awful to leave things that you loved most and to leave it all behind you. it is hard but most of all the people that have come to America have liked it here and it has mostly been good choices. from what i have seen the most common in stories is that most of the classmates grandparents or great grandparents have come through boats, just like mine. also i noticed that a lot of them also left for purposes for a better life for their family. the biggest thing that surprised me out of all the stories though i would have to say would have been Dylan's mother. just the way that he described what his mother was dealing with was just awful, i mean the stuff that he was talking about was happening like close to this time which kinda scared me because i feel awful for what his mother had to go through. That was probably the most surprising story that i had heard about immigration.
ReplyDeleteThe complex of immigration depended on the ancestory, but in most cases most immigrants immigrated to America due to poverty and search for a better life. Others mentioned how their ancestors left due to war and violence occuring in their country at the time. A lot of people also came here in search for jobs and to be succecessful. My ancestors came here in search for a better life. Many immigrants had similarities in their stories but others were completly differnt. I found all the stories interesting.
ReplyDeleteMost of our stories were about how our ancestors came to America for a better life or to get away from danger. That did not surprise me much because those are two main reasons why anybody came to America. I also thought it was weird because even though their ancestors probably did not originally plan to move to Marlborough, MA a good group of people decided to put that in their story.
ReplyDeleteMost of the complexity of immigrating from our stories were either money, or life and death situations. The majority of stories were their ancestors fleeing their old country and coming to the U.S. for a better start. If they did not already have family here than it was to make more money and live a better life. Although Dylan's story explained how his ancestor had to get out of the country or else they might have been killed. I was surprised on how similar some of our stories were depending on the same country that they were coming from or the different struggles they had to experience when first arriving.
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