Ewa Cybulska and her sister Magda come to America seeking a better life escaping the Great War in Poland in the movie “The Immigrant.” Many people view this movie as a modern visual for what the life of an Immigrant was like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. How accurate does this movie depict the life of an Immigrant from the gilded age? Can one watch this movie and fully understand how these immigrants live their lives in this time period. The movie “The Immigrant” does a good job in the aspect of showing the way a women immigrant that was desperate for money such as Ewa had to live but it focuses on this particular situation such as Ewa and Magda’s. To fully understand what immigrants that were flooding to America in this time …show more content…
Were they all forced to make bad choices such as Ewa? What about the male immigrants? To take these things into account we must look at the experience that was held by other immigrants of this time and ask what their migration experience to America was like and for what reason did they come. One area that the movie “The Immigrant” failed to take into account was that of a male immigrant. In the movie “The Immigrant” the whole focus of the movie was Ewa trying to obtain enough money to get her sick sister off Ellis Island so they could go west. The way she started trying to obtain this money was by selling herself through prostitution. This method of acquiring money was something that was only common to the female immigrants. The movie completely failed to talk about male immigrants and common struggles they were faced with as new immigrants in America. One of the main issues these male immigrants were faced with as well as female immigrants that acquired real jobs was low wages. Many businesses and employers took advantage of the desperation of these newly place immigrants for money and used them for cheap labor. Thomas O’Donnell gave was examined as an immigrant in
Furthermore, in most cases, it may seem the United States has a system in which immigrants are not given the chance to form a bright future. In the novel, “Antonio soon found himself settling for jobs that were clearly beneath him. He stood under the baking sun at the on-ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway, selling oranges for two dollars a bag: a dollar fifty for the guy from the produce market, fifty cents for him,” (Tobar, 53). Many of the immigrants that live in the U.S. have little power that allows them to succeed. Some races have benefitted from it more than others. The Cubans, for instance, have had it much easier than most immigrants who have migrated to the United States; whereas, Antonio, a Guatemalan, had trouble finding a stable job that allowed him to sustain himself. In contrast to many other races, many Americans described Cubans as being visitors who represent, “all phases of life and professions, having an excellent level of education… More than half of their families with them, including children brought from Cuba to escape communist indoctrination in the schools,”
The documentary, “Immigration Battle’’expose the problem of race and ethnicity with immigrants in the United States. The immigration Battle shows that United States of America is a country with a diversity of multicultural religions, races and nations. United States is a nation of many immigrants but this country still being racial until today. It is hard to see how immigrants are being treated and kept from their rights and need to be hide for the fear of being deported. The video shows a bipartisan immigration reform in the election of Obama’s by passing a common ground between Democrats and Republicans.
When I was deliberating topics for my case study ethnography report I was inspired to examine some one very close to me who is "undocumented", someone whose experience I have seen first hand, some one who has affected my life and understanding of immigrants with his situation; my partner, Mario. This class has exposed us to many writings on the subjects of migration, immigration and emigration. I began to compare the concepts and information in the readings to Mario’s personal situation. I was curious if his answer would be "In search of a better life" when asked, "Why did you come here?"
These “newcomers” did not deserve to come here and steal their jobs. Mike Trudic’s account from his childhood referred to his father’s hunt in America to desperately find work, “At the end of a week he was taken ill and died. It said he died of a broken heart”(Mike, 188). There were just too many workers and not enough jobs to be filled. Another first hand source provided by Rose Cohen, called Out of the Shadow, depicts the story of a jewish girl in New York and the experiences her family goes through in order to reach a sustainable lifestyle. The struggles included descriptions of harsh working conditions and anti-semitism, which created difficulty for immigrants who were trying to assimilate into the American culture.
Several years ago, America was taught to be a 'melting pot,' a place where immigrants of different cultures or races form an integrated society, but now America is more of a 'salad bowl' where instead of forming an incorporated entity the people who make up the bowl are unwilling to unite as one. America started as an immigrant nation and has continued to be so. People all over the world come to America for several reasons. Most people come to America voluntarily, but very few come unwillingly. For whatever reasons they may have for coming they all have to face exposure to American society. When exposed to this 'new' society they choose whether to assimilate or not. Assimilation
For some they returned having never reached this goal, for others they ended up staying in America, but for many of these immigrants they did reach their goal and after doing so, returned home. These immigrants were temporary migrants that had caught “America fever”. (p. 16) Temporary migration had been going on before this time, but it wasn’t until the invention of the steam engine that migrant workers began to voyage across the seas. Many of these poor European’s that migrated to the United States did so to make money to go back home and buy land. Not all of them had this goal, some saved money to start-up or buy a business. Whether they were going back to buy land or expand land they already had, or they were going to use the money to start a business these remigrants all had one thing in common. Wyman writes of the Hungarian emigrant’s experiences; “they would soon return with the money made overseas to make a better life for themselves in the environment they were attached to, the place where they wanted to live.”(p. 49). Because many of these European immigrants only stayed in America a short time many native-born Americans began to have hostilities toward these new immigrants in terms of the American Labor Movement, assimilation politics and nativist’s movements.
What about other immigrants? What was their life as an immigrant like? Did they have fair employment opportunity? Did they have equal rights? In analyzing Lee Chew’s Life of a Chinese Immigrant (1903), Lee Chew reveals some key points about “Chinese prejudice against American” he states that the prejudice is “unfounded” and how he did not believe in the “wild tales” about the Americans being “wicked wizards” and “men of evil minds” but in looking at what Chew had to endure after emigrating from China. Chew had stated that he went from laundering clothes, to the railroad, to mining and how “many of the miners were wild men who carried revolvers and after drinking would come into our place to shoot and steal shirts, for which we had to pay.” (Chew
The culture of every ethnic group is beautiful in its own way and worth cherishing. Today, America is known as the great melting pot not for the number of immigrants it has but rather because of the wonderful cultures and traditions the immigrants brought with them. Immigrants do not need to forgo their mother tongue, significant celebrations or customs to become American. However to be socially accepted, they will need to learn English, take part in celebrating national holidays and fulfill their patriotic duties Americans like every other U.S citizens.
America is traditionally a country of immigrants. Very few people today have relatives who were Native Americans, many of them because of religious persecution, and others because of they were just looking to start a new life on the exciting untouched frontier. For instance, in Florida, the first arrivals were European, beginning with the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon who explored the land in 1513, following French and Spanish settlement during the 16th century. From the past, America was seen as a country of opportunities. People from all over the world have moved here looking for better opportunities. There are a lot of reasons why immigrants should live in this country, but I would like to mention three of them.
In the late nineteenth and twentieth century many immigrants were migrating to the United States for an economic advantage and some by contract labors from various agents, much different from their predecessors. Thomas Bell’s novel “Out of this Furnace” is a generational novel of the characters Kracha, Mike, Mary, and Dobie, coming to America expecting to receive the American Dream and have a better life to soon return back home with riches. However, immigrants and many working class individuals undergo long hours and strenuous work, with minimal amount of pay. Not to mention, the living conditions were horrendous for the average person and particularly worse for arriving immigrants. There was a division between the classes which ultimately
In 1917 America entered World War one. By doing this America played a grave role in conquering Germany and ushering peace to Europe. However, the Great War also meant that the US would change dramatically through historical issues and changes which resulted in American society. Industries had started to realise that it was not as simple as it was before to abstract the immigrants. As the country developed and became more successful it attracted outsiders who were searching for chances. During the 1920¡¯s the United States began to confine immigrants due to cultural and economical purposes. The immigrants faced several afflictions such as: racism and religious oppression. The examination of immigration expressed an important
Immigration makes up of the United States. The life of an immigrant faces many struggles. Coming to the United States is a very difficult time for immigrant, especially when English is not their first language. In Oscar Handlin’s essay, Uprooted and Trapped: The One-Way Route to Modernity and Mark Wyman’s Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, both these essays describes the life of immigrants living in America and how they are able to make a decent amount of money to support their families. Handlin’s essay Uprooted and Trapped: The One - Way Route to Modernity explains how unskilled immigrants came to adapt to the American life working in factories to make a living. In the essay, Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, this essay describes the reality of many immigrants migrating to the United States in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Many were living and adjusting to being transnational families. Both these essays show how the influx of immigration and industrialization contributed to the making of the United States. With the support from documents 3 and 7, Thomas O’ Donnell, Immigrant Thomas O’Donnell Laments the Worker’s Plight, 1883 and A Slovenian Boy Remembers Tales of the Golden Country, 1909, these documents will explain the life of an immigrant worker in the United States. Although, the United States was portrayed as the country for a better life and a new beginning, in reality, the United
From the late 1800's to the 1960's, Puerto Ricans began to rise to recognition as a dominating influence, creating chaos in American society. This comment is based on the immigration of Puerto Ricans to America, and the problems it caused.
Another major hardship that was faced by most immigrants was the way that they were treated. Often times they were treated like second-class citizens and were thought to be inferior to the natural born citizens. They also seemed to only be able to hold jobs that no one else really wanted to do, for very low wages. Most of the time people would
Most Americans place their pride in being apart of a country where a man can start at the bottom and work his way to the top. We also stress the fact that we are “all created equal” with “certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” (Jefferson 45) During the early 1900s white Americans picked and chose who they saw fit to live in America and become an American. “Those that separate the desirable from the undesirable citizen or neighbor are individual rather than race.”