Why immigrants come to America.

All immigrants come to America for the same reason: They have a dream.
      In their home country, they might of not had a lot of money or may have had other problems and then they hear all these stories about America and how the "streets are golden" and how there is all this money everywhere and other stories like that and they think that they would have a better life there. They believe that they would have such a better life in America, that they take everything they have and risk it to come to America. 
      When they come to America, they are basically coming here with absolutely nothing but the clothes on their backs and maybe a suitcase or two containing only their most important belongings. For some, this is a huge risk. But for these desperate immigrants, it's now or never.
      As immigrants are boarding the boats to come to Ellis Island, they are filled with many mixed feelings. Hope. Fear. Curiosity. Sadness. Happiness. but out of all these feelings, hope and fear the strongest. 
       They feel hope because they feel that maybe they will make a better life for themselves in America. 
       Fear, because the constant question in their minds is what if they don't make it? Will they be able to go home? How will things work out there? 
       Curiosity because they are entering a place they have never been before, they only read about it in newspapers. They know Americans don't speak the same language as they are curious about how they will adapt? 
     Sadness because they left their home. All they know is now left behind them. They most likely grew up in the same area they were living and they most likely can also never go back to that so that's a lot of memories lost. 
     Happiness because they are about to take an amazing journey and hopefully make themselves a better life for them and their future children.
      No matter what emotions they are feeling, they do what they have to do just to survive. All these factors and other factors that are personal to the immigrant, are why people from other countries come to America.

Poem about Immigration

AMERICAN DREAM (The original immigrants)
By Patty E. Padgett

Ancestors came across the waters

Men, women, sons and daughters

Ellis Island is where they’d debark

Record numbers to make their mark

Immigrants dreamed of no more strife

Craving the chance for a better life

Always unsure but determined to cope

Never turning from their faith and hope

Denouement unknown, they came ashore

Reaching their destination, America’s door

Every day was an adventure anew

As they adjusted to their new milieu

Many saw their dreams come true

ANALYZING

This poem talks about how everyone is simply an immigrant and there's honestly no way around that fact.  Everyone came from somewhere else besides America. This poem also talks about the main reason immigrants come to America: Because of a dream. This poem talks about how they come here with dreams and about how they have so much faith and hope into coming to America.

WORK CITED:)

Poem link

WORK CITED:)

Immigration photos. A struggle captured in time.

Ellis Island. When many, if not all, immigrants saw this building as they were getting off the boats, they looked at the building with hope, fear and curiosity because they did not know what to expect.

A mother, small child, young boy and a baby at Ellis Island with their luggage. The mother looks worried. She doesn't know what will happen to her or her children. All she can do is hope for the best. They are about to leave Ellis Island and begin their journey.

Immigrants waiting at Ellis Island. Adults sat and waited while children played or stayed quietly by their mothers side.

Immigrants and Ellis Island officials. This is an image of processing immigrants. There are many more immigrants waiting to be processed.

Immigrants being checked for illnesses at Ellis Island. If an immigrant was found to be sick, they would be sent back to their home country right away.

Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. Some people waited in line for hours and hours.

Immigrants eating together at Ellis Island. They all sat at long tables and all ate together. 

WORK CITED FOR PHOTOS :)

Photos

Photos

Photos

Photos

WORK CITED FOR PHOTOS :)

Ashes of Roses. It links to literature.

For my link to laterature, I chose the book Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch.

Rose Nolan is a sixteen year old girl who is originally from Ireland who's family decides to come to America. Rose and her family are all excited to come to America and they all can't help but wonder what their new life is going to be like and they can't wait to see all the new opportunities America brings, since they never have been out of Ireland. But once Nolan family gets to America, the struggles begin when they reach land.

The officers at Ellis Island are told to inspect every single immigrant that passes through their doors to make sure they aren't bringing any illnesses in with them. While the officers are doing a necessary eye exam on Rose's baby brother, they find he has an eye infection called trachoma which is normally caught from being on the ships. Due to him having trachoma, he isn't allowed to enter the united states and that he has to go back to Ireland right away. Rose's dad takes him back to Ireland and promises his family that he'll save money and come back to America one day when the babies eyes are healthier and meet up with them.

Rose's mom is completely upset by this. she's now left alone in an unfamiliar country with 3 daughters and no one to help her. She takes the kids to a nearby relatives home. When they arrive at the house, they find a note telling them that they are not welcome and to leave. 

After awhile, the mom decides to just go back to Ireland where they won't have any struggles and will be a complete family and most of all, where they have a home to go to where they aren't turned away. But when Rose's mom tells her daughters, Rose refuses to go. Telling her mom that she wants to be an "American girl" and she promises to find a job and promises to be able to take care of herself if she's allowed to stay. She's sure that if she saves enough money, they can all become a family again.

Rose's mom allows her to stay. But after this choice was made, Rose's 12 year old sister begs to stay too. Because she's completely exhausted, Rose's mom allows her to stay as well. She thinks the girls will come to their senses and just go back to Ireland, but they still refuse.

Rose eventually finds an apartment and a job sewing in a factory making woman's shirts. Rose has a strong love for her job and enjoys the freedom she gets from it. She gets to see a movie for the first time  and is able to pay for her own rent. She feels like she's making progress in America. 

But one afternoon, a fire breaks out in the factory she works at and ladders from the fire trucks don't reach the 9th floor where the fire is. All the doors are locked because the owners routinely sealed the doors to keep employee theft rates low. Now that most girls are trapped inside, most leaped out the windows to their deaths and many others were burned by the fire. Out of the 500 employees, 146 died.

Interview with my Grandma

I took some time when visiting my family to sit down with my Grandma and ask her about her childhood and asked her about how she came to this country.





Q: Was it only your mom who wanted to come here?

A: No. My father and my mother both made the decision. But I don't think they made it just for us. They wanted to make a big change in their lives. They wanted to grow old happy and worry-free.

Q: How did you and your siblings feel about this? I know you had 2 brothers and 3 sisters so I'm sure you've all had fixed up feelings, right?

A: In a way. All of us being really young, we didn't exactly understand why exactly we were moving. We knew nothing about America and to be honest we knew other about any other counties outside Hungary. We were all scared and confused and all mom told us was "It's for the best" and we asked no more questions.

Q: Wow. That must be really scary. What was some problems you had when you got to America?

A: Everything was just a blur basically. We didn't know where to go, who to talk to or anything. Obviously speaking no English, we had major problems understanding stuff.

Q: How did your parents react to all this confusion?

A: They didn't even show one sign of worrying. Whenever I looked at their faces or talked to them, they were acting completely casaual and just like nothing was even going on.

Q: That must have been hard for them to do. How was everyone adjusting to life in America, once you all were settled. What did you do about jobs and having places to live?

A: It was. It was a difficult journey. We settled in fine, we still battled with confusion on a daily basis but we got through it okay. When we got there, we had a house. It was small, we were all cramped into the house together but we made the best of what we had.

Q: Would you rather have lived in Hungary your whole life, or do you think your family made the right choice to move to America?

A: I think we moved for the right reason. It made us all a stronger family and I don't think without moving we could have been as close as we are and maybe our family would have been different all together now.

IMMIGRATION ISSUES REACH TV!

Padre de Familia is the title of a Family Guy episode from season 6 episode number 12. In the episode, Peter finds out that he is an illegal Mexican immigrant, so he is forced to take a job as a servant for Lois's dad. The title of this episode, Padre de familia, is actually the name of the show in spanish. Which basically translates to "Father of the Family"

In the beginning of the episode, Peter feels that immigrants shouldn't be allowed to be in the country and that they are taking all the "good jobs" away from Americans. Peter begins to have strong pride for America and even begins wearing only clothes with the American Flag on it.
       Peter convinces his boss to do a company-wide immigration check to make sure everyone in the company was a legal US Citizen. Due to this, Peter has to ask his mom for his birth cartificate. Peter's mom then must confess and then begins telling him that he is actually an immigrant and that he wasn't born in the United States and that he was born in Mexico but she was too afraid of being judged and she was too embarassed to register him as an American.

Peter's mom explains how she went to Mexico after finding out she was pregnant to try and get an abortion but instead Peter was born right there. When he was born his mom realized how much she loved him and took him back to America with her.

Peter finds himself out of a job due to him being an illegal immigrant and has to take a job as a lawn service worker for Lois' dad. After some time of working for Lois' dad, Peter learns that immigrants are really all the same and stands up to Lois' dad and eventually Lois' dad agrees to make Peter a legal citizen.


This episode shows that even immigration can reach popular tv shows. Also, it shows that if everyone took the time to see how another group of people from a different country live, they would see they are just the same as us.