You emigrated from Southern or Eastern Europe for economic or safety
reasons. If from the Mezzogiorno, southern Italy, you were impoverished and
are coming to America to find work and support your family. You intend for
it to be temporary but might stay permanently. Or as a Jew emigrating from
Russia, you are trying to escape persecution. Your people are economically
attacked and physically threatened. You want to escape and never return.
Either way you want to find work in America to escape the political
persecution and corruption as well as the economic inequality. What you find
in America are unsanitary tenements, low paying/dangerous jobs, and a threat
to your culture. You strive to maintain your culture and instill your
beliefs in your children, without appearing �un-American.� The government is
not assisting you so the way that you survive is through the efforts of
philanthropists, ethnic/religious groups, and charities supported by
progressives. Compulsory education is instituted and you are torn. Your
children will have more opportunities to succeed, but the schools can be seen
as a tool to assimilate your children (potentially encouraging them to
abandon your culture). America offers you both opportunity and dangers.
Important questions to consider as an immigrant:
1. Why did you come to America?
2. What do you want from a government?
3. What is an �American�?
4. What do you fear most?
5. How do you feel about becoming an �American�?
Internet Links
Jewish Virtual Library:
Read about the Pogroms under Nicholas II
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/russia.html
Jewish History:
About the Kishinev massacre in 1903
http://www.jewishhistory.org.il/1900.htm
Italian-Americans:
About economic cause for Italian emigration and general description of
immigrant reaction to education system
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~efhayes/italian.htm
The Triangle Factory Fire:
About the need for reform in working conditions (click on links)
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
Investigationg the Gilded Age:
Read �The Plight of Labor�
http://www.slu.edu/the_arts/cupples/gilded.html
European Immigrants Leave Mark on Continent:
About the nubers and proportions of new immigrants
http://brownvboard.org/brwnqurt/04-1/04-1b.htm
The Jungle:
Actual text of Sinclair�s The Jungle
http://www.online-literature.com/upton_sinclair/jungle/
Sinclair's 'The Jungle' Turns 100:
About Sinclair�s book and working conditions
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june06/jungle_5-10.html
Other Resources
1. Class Text
2. Alan Kraut, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880-
1921.