Author: Jocelyn Cohen
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814716954
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
In 1942, YIVO held a contest for the best autobiography by a Jewish immigrant on the theme “Why I Left the Old Country and What I Have Accomplished in America.” Chosen from over two hundred entries, and translated from Yiddish, the nine life stories in My Future Is in America provide a compelling portrait of American Jewish life in the immigrant generation at the turn of the twentieth century. The writers arrived in America in every decade from the 1890s to the 1920s. They include manual workers, shopkeepers, housewives, communal activists, and professionals who came from all parts of Eastern Europe and ushered in a new era in American Jewish history. In their own words, the immigrant writers convey the complexities of the transition between the Old and New Worlds. An Introduction places the writings in historical and literary context, and annotations explain historical and cultural allusions made by the writers. This unique volume introduces readers to the complex world of Yiddish-speaking immigrants while at the same time elucidating important themes and topics of interest to those in immigration studies, ethnic studies, labor history, and literary studies. Published in conjunction with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
My Future Is in America
Author: Jocelyn Cohen
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814716954
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
In 1942, YIVO held a contest for the best autobiography by a Jewish immigrant on the theme “Why I Left the Old Country and What I Have Accomplished in America.” Chosen from over two hundred entries, and translated from Yiddish, the nine life stories in My Future Is in America provide a compelling portrait of American Jewish life in the immigrant generation at the turn of the twentieth century. The writers arrived in America in every decade from the 1890s to the 1920s. They include manual workers, shopkeepers, housewives, communal activists, and professionals who came from all parts of Eastern Europe and ushered in a new era in American Jewish history. In their own words, the immigrant writers convey the complexities of the transition between the Old and New Worlds. An Introduction places the writings in historical and literary context, and annotations explain historical and cultural allusions made by the writers. This unique volume introduces readers to the complex world of Yiddish-speaking immigrants while at the same time elucidating important themes and topics of interest to those in immigration studies, ethnic studies, labor history, and literary studies. Published in conjunction with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814716954
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
In 1942, YIVO held a contest for the best autobiography by a Jewish immigrant on the theme “Why I Left the Old Country and What I Have Accomplished in America.” Chosen from over two hundred entries, and translated from Yiddish, the nine life stories in My Future Is in America provide a compelling portrait of American Jewish life in the immigrant generation at the turn of the twentieth century. The writers arrived in America in every decade from the 1890s to the 1920s. They include manual workers, shopkeepers, housewives, communal activists, and professionals who came from all parts of Eastern Europe and ushered in a new era in American Jewish history. In their own words, the immigrant writers convey the complexities of the transition between the Old and New Worlds. An Introduction places the writings in historical and literary context, and annotations explain historical and cultural allusions made by the writers. This unique volume introduces readers to the complex world of Yiddish-speaking immigrants while at the same time elucidating important themes and topics of interest to those in immigration studies, ethnic studies, labor history, and literary studies. Published in conjunction with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Ellis Island Nation
Author: Robert L. Fleegler
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
Though debates over immigration have waxed and waned in the course of American history, the importance of immigrants to the nation's identity is imparted in civics classes, political discourse, and television and film. We are told that the United States is a "nation of immigrants," built by people who came from many lands to make an even better nation. But this belief was relatively new in the twentieth century, a period that saw the establishment of immigrant quotas that endured until the Immigrant and Nationality Act of 1965. What changed over the course of the century, according to historian Robert L. Fleegler, is the rise of "contributionism," the belief that the newcomers from eastern and southern Europe contributed important cultural and economic benefits to American society. Early twentieth-century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe often found themselves criticized for language and customs at odds with their new culture, but initially found greater acceptance through an emphasis on their similarities to "native stock" Americans. Drawing on sources as diverse as World War II films, records of Senate subcommittee hearings, and anti-Communist propaganda, Ellis Island Nation describes how contributionism eventually shifted the focus of the immigration debate from assimilation to a Cold War celebration of ethnic diversity and its benefits—helping to ease the passage of 1960s immigration laws that expanded the pool of legal immigrants and setting the stage for the identity politics of the 1970s and 1980s. Ellis Island Nation provides a historical perspective on recent discussions of multiculturalism and the exclusion of groups that have arrived since the liberalization of immigrant laws.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
Though debates over immigration have waxed and waned in the course of American history, the importance of immigrants to the nation's identity is imparted in civics classes, political discourse, and television and film. We are told that the United States is a "nation of immigrants," built by people who came from many lands to make an even better nation. But this belief was relatively new in the twentieth century, a period that saw the establishment of immigrant quotas that endured until the Immigrant and Nationality Act of 1965. What changed over the course of the century, according to historian Robert L. Fleegler, is the rise of "contributionism," the belief that the newcomers from eastern and southern Europe contributed important cultural and economic benefits to American society. Early twentieth-century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe often found themselves criticized for language and customs at odds with their new culture, but initially found greater acceptance through an emphasis on their similarities to "native stock" Americans. Drawing on sources as diverse as World War II films, records of Senate subcommittee hearings, and anti-Communist propaganda, Ellis Island Nation describes how contributionism eventually shifted the focus of the immigration debate from assimilation to a Cold War celebration of ethnic diversity and its benefits—helping to ease the passage of 1960s immigration laws that expanded the pool of legal immigrants and setting the stage for the identity politics of the 1970s and 1980s. Ellis Island Nation provides a historical perspective on recent discussions of multiculturalism and the exclusion of groups that have arrived since the liberalization of immigrant laws.
A Nation of Immigrants
Author: Susan F. Martin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110890145X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
Immigration makes America what it is and is formative for what it will become. America was settled by three different models of immigration, all of which persist to the present. The Virginia Colony largely equated immigration with the arrival of laborers, who had few rights. Massachusetts welcomed those who shared the religious views of the founders but excluded those whose beliefs challenged prevailing orthodoxy. Pennsylvania valued pluralism, becoming the most diverse colony in religion, language, and culture. A fourth, anti-immigration model also emerged during the colonial period, and was often fueled by populist leaders who stoked fears about newcomers. Arguing that the Pennsylvania model has best served the country, this book makes key recommendations for future immigration reform. Given the highly controversial nature of immigration in the United States, this second edition – updated to analyze policy changes in the Obama and Trump administrations – provides valuable insights for academics and policymakers.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110890145X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
Immigration makes America what it is and is formative for what it will become. America was settled by three different models of immigration, all of which persist to the present. The Virginia Colony largely equated immigration with the arrival of laborers, who had few rights. Massachusetts welcomed those who shared the religious views of the founders but excluded those whose beliefs challenged prevailing orthodoxy. Pennsylvania valued pluralism, becoming the most diverse colony in religion, language, and culture. A fourth, anti-immigration model also emerged during the colonial period, and was often fueled by populist leaders who stoked fears about newcomers. Arguing that the Pennsylvania model has best served the country, this book makes key recommendations for future immigration reform. Given the highly controversial nature of immigration in the United States, this second edition – updated to analyze policy changes in the Obama and Trump administrations – provides valuable insights for academics and policymakers.
The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World
Author: Tara Zahra
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285596
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
"Zahra handles this immensely complicated and multidimensional history with remarkable clarity and feeling." —Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs Between 1846 and 1940, more than 50 million Europeans moved to the Americas in one of the largest migrations of human history, emptying out villages and irrevocably changing both their new homes and the ones they left behind. With a keen historical perspective on the most consequential social phenomenon of the twentieth century, Tara Zahra shows how the policies that gave shape to this migration provided the precedent for future events such as the Holocaust, the closing of the Iron Curtain, and the tragedies of ethnic cleansing. In the epilogue, she places the current refugee crisis within the longer history of migration.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285596
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
"Zahra handles this immensely complicated and multidimensional history with remarkable clarity and feeling." —Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs Between 1846 and 1940, more than 50 million Europeans moved to the Americas in one of the largest migrations of human history, emptying out villages and irrevocably changing both their new homes and the ones they left behind. With a keen historical perspective on the most consequential social phenomenon of the twentieth century, Tara Zahra shows how the policies that gave shape to this migration provided the precedent for future events such as the Holocaust, the closing of the Iron Curtain, and the tragedies of ethnic cleansing. In the epilogue, she places the current refugee crisis within the longer history of migration.
Points of Passage
Author: Tobias Brinkmann
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782380302
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 185
Book Description
Between 1880 and 1914 several million Eastern Europeans migrated West. Much is known about the immigration experience of Jews, Poles, Greeks, and others, notably in the United States. Yet, little is known about the paths of mass migration across “green borders” via European railway stations and ports to destinations in other continents. Ellis Island, literally a point of passage into America, has a much higher symbolic significance than the often inconspicuous departure stations, makeshift facilities for migrant masses at European railway stations and port cities, and former control posts along borders that were redrawn several times during the twentieth century. This volume focuses on the journeys of Jews from Eastern Europe through Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia between 1880 and 1914. The authors investigate various aspects of transmigration including medical controls, travel conditions, and the role of the steamship lines; and also review the rise of migration restrictions around the globe in the decades before 1914.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782380302
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 185
Book Description
Between 1880 and 1914 several million Eastern Europeans migrated West. Much is known about the immigration experience of Jews, Poles, Greeks, and others, notably in the United States. Yet, little is known about the paths of mass migration across “green borders” via European railway stations and ports to destinations in other continents. Ellis Island, literally a point of passage into America, has a much higher symbolic significance than the often inconspicuous departure stations, makeshift facilities for migrant masses at European railway stations and port cities, and former control posts along borders that were redrawn several times during the twentieth century. This volume focuses on the journeys of Jews from Eastern Europe through Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia between 1880 and 1914. The authors investigate various aspects of transmigration including medical controls, travel conditions, and the role of the steamship lines; and also review the rise of migration restrictions around the globe in the decades before 1914.
Encountering Ellis Island
Author: Ronald H. Bayor
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421413698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181
Book Description
A look at the process of entering America a hundred years ago—from both an institutional and a human perspective. Outstanding Academic Title, Choice America is famously known as a nation of immigrants. Millions of Europeans journeyed to the United States in the peak years of 1892–1924, and Ellis Island, New York, is where the great majority landed. Ellis Island opened in 1892 with the goal of placing immigration under the control of the federal government and systematizing the entry process. Encountering Ellis Island introduces readers to the ways in which the principal nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American portal for Europeans worked in practice, with some comparison to Angel Island, the main entry point for Asian immigrants. What happened along the journey? How did the processing of so many people work? What were the reactions of the newly arrived to the process (and threats) of inspection, delays, hospitalization, detention, and deportation? How did immigration officials attempt to protect the country from diseased or “unfit” newcomers, and how did these definitions take shape and change? What happened to people who failed screening? And how, at the journey's end, did immigrants respond to admission to their new homeland? Ronald H. Bayor, a senior scholar in immigrant and urban studies, gives voice to both immigrants and Island workers to offer perspectives on the human experience and institutional imperatives associated with the arrival experience. Drawing on firsthand accounts from, and interviews with, immigrants, doctors, inspectors, aid workers, and interpreters, Bayor paints a vivid and sometimes troubling portrait of the immigration process. In reality, Ellis Island had many liabilities as well as assets. Corruption was rife. Immigrants with medical issues occasionally faced a hostile staff. Some families, on the other hand, reunited in great joy and found relief at their journey's end. Encountering Ellis Island lays bare the profound and sometimes-victorious story of people chasing the American Dream: leaving everything behind, facing a new language and a new culture, and starting a new American life.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421413698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181
Book Description
A look at the process of entering America a hundred years ago—from both an institutional and a human perspective. Outstanding Academic Title, Choice America is famously known as a nation of immigrants. Millions of Europeans journeyed to the United States in the peak years of 1892–1924, and Ellis Island, New York, is where the great majority landed. Ellis Island opened in 1892 with the goal of placing immigration under the control of the federal government and systematizing the entry process. Encountering Ellis Island introduces readers to the ways in which the principal nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American portal for Europeans worked in practice, with some comparison to Angel Island, the main entry point for Asian immigrants. What happened along the journey? How did the processing of so many people work? What were the reactions of the newly arrived to the process (and threats) of inspection, delays, hospitalization, detention, and deportation? How did immigration officials attempt to protect the country from diseased or “unfit” newcomers, and how did these definitions take shape and change? What happened to people who failed screening? And how, at the journey's end, did immigrants respond to admission to their new homeland? Ronald H. Bayor, a senior scholar in immigrant and urban studies, gives voice to both immigrants and Island workers to offer perspectives on the human experience and institutional imperatives associated with the arrival experience. Drawing on firsthand accounts from, and interviews with, immigrants, doctors, inspectors, aid workers, and interpreters, Bayor paints a vivid and sometimes troubling portrait of the immigration process. In reality, Ellis Island had many liabilities as well as assets. Corruption was rife. Immigrants with medical issues occasionally faced a hostile staff. Some families, on the other hand, reunited in great joy and found relief at their journey's end. Encountering Ellis Island lays bare the profound and sometimes-victorious story of people chasing the American Dream: leaving everything behind, facing a new language and a new culture, and starting a new American life.
Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1870-1920
Author: June Granatir Alexander
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher
ISBN: 9781566638302
Category : Ethnic neighborhoods
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The second "wave" of U.S. immigration, from 1870 to 1920, brought more than 26 million men, women, and children onto American shores. June Granatir Alexander's history of the period underscores the diversity of peoples who came to the United States in these years and emphasizes the important shifts in their geographic origins from northern and western Europe to southern and eastern Europe that led to the distinction between "old" and "new" immigrants. Alexander offers an engrossing picture of the immigrants' daily lives, including the settlement patterns of individuals and families, the demographics and characteristics of each of the ethnic groups, and the pressures to "Americanize" that often made the adjustment to life in a new country so difficult. The approach, similar to David Kyvig's highly successful Daily Life in the United States, 1920 1940 (published by Ivan R. Dee in 2004), presents history with an appealing immediacy, on a level that everyone can understand."
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher
ISBN: 9781566638302
Category : Ethnic neighborhoods
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The second "wave" of U.S. immigration, from 1870 to 1920, brought more than 26 million men, women, and children onto American shores. June Granatir Alexander's history of the period underscores the diversity of peoples who came to the United States in these years and emphasizes the important shifts in their geographic origins from northern and western Europe to southern and eastern Europe that led to the distinction between "old" and "new" immigrants. Alexander offers an engrossing picture of the immigrants' daily lives, including the settlement patterns of individuals and families, the demographics and characteristics of each of the ethnic groups, and the pressures to "Americanize" that often made the adjustment to life in a new country so difficult. The approach, similar to David Kyvig's highly successful Daily Life in the United States, 1920 1940 (published by Ivan R. Dee in 2004), presents history with an appealing immediacy, on a level that everyone can understand."
America Classifies the Immigrants
Author: Joel Perlmann
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674425057
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465
Book Description
Joel Perlmann traces the history of U.S. classification of immigrants, from Ellis Island to the present day, showing how slippery and contested ideas about racial, national, and ethnic difference have been. His focus ranges from the 1897 List of Races and Peoples, through changes in the civil rights era, to proposals for reform of the 2020 Census.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674425057
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465
Book Description
Joel Perlmann traces the history of U.S. classification of immigrants, from Ellis Island to the present day, showing how slippery and contested ideas about racial, national, and ethnic difference have been. His focus ranges from the 1897 List of Races and Peoples, through changes in the civil rights era, to proposals for reform of the 2020 Census.
Coming to America, Immigrants from Eastern Europe
Author: Shirley Blumenthal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Discusses the reasons for the immigration of Eastern Europeans to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and describes the hardships, persecutions, and intolerable living and working conditions that many had to endure until they gained some measure of acceptance in their new homeland.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Discusses the reasons for the immigration of Eastern Europeans to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and describes the hardships, persecutions, and intolerable living and working conditions that many had to endure until they gained some measure of acceptance in their new homeland.
They Left It All Behind
Author: Hannah Hahn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153812520X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Trauma was a potent influence in the lives of pre-1924 Eastern European Jewish immigrants. They uprooted themselves because of grinding poverty, anti-Semitic discrimination, pogroms, and the violence of World War I. This book’s psychoanalytically-informed life stories, based on 22 in-depth interviews with the immigrants’ adult children, tell the tales of these immigrants and their children. Many of the children believed their parents had left their lives in Eastern Europe behind them. This disavowal—aided by the immigrants’ silence and denial—allowed their children to minimize the trauma and loss their parents suffered both before and after immigrating. I analyze the impact of parental trauma and loss on the second generation. Trauma and loss affected the transmission of memory, and, consequently, often immigrants’ recollections were not passed on to future generations. The topics of trauma and loss in the lives of Eastern European immigrants are relevant in understanding current immigrants to America. Often immigrants’ children tried to repay the debt that they felt was incurred by their parents’ sacrifices. Resilience, accomplishment, and their transition from their immigrant parents’ world to their own full participation in the American milieu characterized the adult lives of the immigrants’ children.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153812520X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Trauma was a potent influence in the lives of pre-1924 Eastern European Jewish immigrants. They uprooted themselves because of grinding poverty, anti-Semitic discrimination, pogroms, and the violence of World War I. This book’s psychoanalytically-informed life stories, based on 22 in-depth interviews with the immigrants’ adult children, tell the tales of these immigrants and their children. Many of the children believed their parents had left their lives in Eastern Europe behind them. This disavowal—aided by the immigrants’ silence and denial—allowed their children to minimize the trauma and loss their parents suffered both before and after immigrating. I analyze the impact of parental trauma and loss on the second generation. Trauma and loss affected the transmission of memory, and, consequently, often immigrants’ recollections were not passed on to future generations. The topics of trauma and loss in the lives of Eastern European immigrants are relevant in understanding current immigrants to America. Often immigrants’ children tried to repay the debt that they felt was incurred by their parents’ sacrifices. Resilience, accomplishment, and their transition from their immigrant parents’ world to their own full participation in the American milieu characterized the adult lives of the immigrants’ children.