Have you ever wondered about the origin of your family? I’ve always had many questions and I recently learned so much about mine. I actually recently acquired a family book containing lot of history about my dads side of the family. This book contains information about my family’s country of origin, how they came to Oklahoma, where in Oklahoma they lived, and how they survived difficult times. Clyde Cadwell is my great great grandpa and he takes on an important part in my paper
Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community, written by James Oliver Horton, is an interesting book that portrays antebellum African American communities and its occupants whose lives were both confounded by prohibitive powers and brought together by common goals. It explores dynamic debates within these communities over gender, color, and national identities, as well as leadership styles and politics. Published in 1993, this book uncovers the diversity and distinctions of free black society in northern cities such as Boston, Buffalo, and Washington D.C. A Smithsonian director and an American civilization professor at George Washington University in Washington D.C., Horton captivates the reader with a compelling study of the
They paid the three hundred dollars and sign the contract with the businessman, and they fall into the businessman’s trap. Mousseline, an old Lithuanian immigrant, told them, “The family had paid fifteen hundred dollars for it, and it had not cost the builders five hundred …. since it had been built, no less than four families that their informant could name had tried to buy it and failed.” (78) They are not the only one fall into this business trick, there are many other immigrants get fooled by these businessmen. The four families before them are immigrants from German, Irish, Bohemians, and Poles; which are the most popular place that immigrants came from during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America.
They had felt one with the American soil and now the soil had failed to protect them. Considering all except their looks, they were American to the core. They started to have doubts and disappointments. Weren’t they American citizens too? Did it matter where their ancestors came from?
“Immigrants entering the United States who could not afford first or second-class passage came through the processing center at Ellis Island, New York” (Immigration in the early 1900s). These immigrants recognized the danger of leaving all they had known and all they had for a possibility of a new life in New York, but they had hope. They hoped for better lives, more opportunities for themselves, and that this land would be somewhere they could be proud to call home and bring up future generations. “[d] Drawn by the city’s new prosperity and by its age-old promise of economic opportunity, now burning brighter than it had in decades” (‘American Experience”). The welcoming by the harbor as these people arrived in New York, was the affirmation that they had so long hoped for during their journey.
My ancestors emigrated from seven different countries in Europe. This makes me Irish, German, Swiss, Norwegian, Croatian, Polish and Austrian. On my dad’s side we can trace back our lineage to my Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great Grandfather, Martin Harnish born in 1695, who emigrated from Switzerland to the U.S. to New York in 1715 and started the Harnish farm in Pennsylvania. At that time the Tuscarora War ends and the fist total eclipse was visible in London for almost 900 years. Martin Harnish is the earliest immigrant to the United States in my family, making 11 generations in the United States.
The experiences of American immigrants is as diverse as the immigrants themselves. Joseph Bruchac’s grandparents were Slovak children who immigrated to Ellis Island. Bruchac, who is half Native American, perceives the mass arrival of immigrants as negative, since they took the land of the Native Americans through violence. He is torn between the immigrant part and the Native American part of himself. In contrast, Phillis Wheatley, who was forced into slavery and brought to America from Africa, sees this forced immigration as a positive.
Looking back at the Riccio readings, there were many stories about how the people that emigrated knew that there wasn’t any other option. They were forced to leave their family behind, but in the end they did it for the opportunity that America brought to
American officials realized by that time that processing the 8 million immigrants which passed through New York during the 35 years prior was challenging enough, and that they couldn’t hope to process the ever increasing stream of arrivals. Thus the Immigrant Inspection Station was constructed. It is staggering to comprehend the sheer number of people who passed through this tiny, mostly artificial island. Genealogical studies indicate that over 100 million Americans can trace their roots to one of the 12 million who entered the island between 1900 and 1924 (that’s one in three Americans!). In fact, the island could process up to 11,000 immigrants a
Lech Lecha tells the story of the rather unusual birth of the Jewish nation. In Bereishit/Genesis 12:1, God commands Avram (Abram, who will eventually be known as Avraham/Abraham): “Go for yourself (Lech Lecha) from your land, from your relatives, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” We read no theology, see no miracles and receive no proof of God’s existence. God simply tells Avram to go on a journey. The command itself is also unusual: Lech Lecha, “Go for yourself.”
According to the majority of Americans, the history of the United States begins with the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower. Author and history teacher James W. Loewen perfectly recreates many of these people’s childhoods in his book “Lies My History Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” when he talks about little kids making hand turkeys and construction paper Pilgrim hats and putting on Thanksgiving plays every November (399). His books goes much deeper than simply giving the reader a sense of nostalgia for their younger years, he actually tells them everything they know, or think they know rather, is wrong. He talks about the Spanish, French, Dutch, and English settlers that arrived in the Americas
People from many diverse backgrounds moved to the American West and participated in making of its history. Diaries, letters, and pictures tell us that Native American, Hispanic, black, Asian, and white—experienced life differently as they sought a better life. African Americans struggled to live on the frontier within the limitations of their own cultures, and limitations from outside forces. As a result, the history in the West includes the life experiences of different cultures. I am going to look at the history of a small African American town named Boyle, Oklahoma that was founded in 1903 by Creek Freedmen.
During the late 16th century an unspeakable event, of war and bloodshed brewed in the eastern coast of North America. Families severed by an ocean, who once loved their neighbors across the pond, were now filled with and intense hatred for each other, and a bitter rivalry and resentment was created. About miles south on the coast of Nevis, a small bastard child was born. With an absent father and a late mother the boy was orphaned. But this abandon, insignificant, Illegitimate child somehow could change the fate for the rebels of the war, and help build a great nation on the ashes of a bloody revolution.
Hispanics in the United States............ In the late 1900’s, many immigrants moved from around the world to seek a better life in the United States. Nowadays, though many Hispanics move here for many reasons. They like the US but, also for better jobs and pay for their family. Sometimes, we have to overcome challenges.
Being a 1.5 generation immigrant myself, I was interested to see if we shared similar experiences growing up in America especially since we’ve grown up around the same area. My interview with Mario has given me deeper understanding of the difficulties and challenges immigrants have to go through in their first few years in America. Through Mario’s experiences,
