During the late 1800s through the 1940s immigrants traveled to the United States from all parts of the world. Immigrants traveled from all walks of life, religions, customs, and races by boat to start a new life or escape from persecution. Yet Americans had accepted the new comers but at the same time found the idea of new immigrants to be fearsome and possibly a threat to America’s future. The majority of immigrants who had traveled to find a better life ended up living the same life just on another continent. Ghettos were created all over New York due to the increasing migration of Immigrants. Yet instead of living to the low expectation and complying with what the idea of their roles would be, many immigrants took it upon themselves to go after the “American Dream”. Immigrants looked towards entrepreneurship and education as a way out of the Ghetto and to be accepted by the American people as one of their own. Immigrants worked hard to gain enough money to start a business, go to college, travel to the west, marry, leave the Ghetto, and pursue the life every man and woman in America, immigrant or not, dreams of.
Immigrants came to the New World with hopes of gaining riches and living a life that Americans seem to live so well. Yet the majority of immigrants that were entering the United States had either no or very little education. The main source of income that they were used to was earned by their sweet, hands, and the blisters on their feet that came with it. Manual labor was the main occupation of immigrants, becoming skilled at his or her profession and working most of their lives to support their family and self. Family’s who had a religious figure or scholar in the household had to provide for the father. In Anzia Yezierska’s novel the “Bread Givers” that is exactly the case. The father, who is a Jewish scholar of the Torah, is provided for by his wife and young daughters while he educates himself throughout the day. Yet the majority of immigrant families had every member work, from the father to the youngest chilled; working to bring in ends meet.
The dream of every immigrant in the United States was to start a business and become wealthy. If that was not the case, it was very close to it; as long as they moved up in the social class. Entrepreneurship was something every immigrant seeked on accomplishing. This was a great deal to immigrants seeking a better life; to own and operate your own business meant riches and respect from immigrants within the community. “In America, a man can get rich quick if he only has a head for business” (Yezierska, 111). This passage shows how the father in “Bread Givers” relates wealth with business. The majority of immigrants worked for other immigrants or by peddling goods around busy streets in higher class areas. The joy to run a business in the United States by an immigrant can be felt by Sarah’s mother after her father purchases a convenient store, “The sun is beginning to shine for us. After all our black years, we lived to see our own bought store in America!” (Yezierska, 116).
Yet owning a business or even starting one was not a task that was easy. Many immigrants would go through life only wishing and hoping to see that one day that would never come. The saying “you have to have money, to make money” made its self clear during that time. Businesses like jewelry stores, shoe stores, grocery stores, attracted many immigrants and proved very profitable. Immigrants would start at a low paying job, shifting from one job to another. There was no credit system at that time, so immigrants could only start their business on cold hard cash. That meant if you didn’t have it, you could not have it either until you did.
Education was not the most profitable way of making a living but it was a respectable and a highly sought attribute. It was something that most immigrant children were deprived of due to having to work and support the family’s needs. One way for an immigrant to gain respect and a good living was to go to college. Yet most immigrants were not financially able to attend classes or they had jobs with ungodly hour jobs that held them from doing anything but work all day. Yet those who were able to do so had a rough time in doing both school and work. Even with that said, the majority of immigrants did not have any schooling background. Therefore he or she would have to complete and make up for courses and then apply for a collage that would accept them. Not only did they have to apply to many schools, they had to make sure that they could afford to at the end of the day pay for their education and feed themselves as well.
Going to college meant that you would have to move or live away from the family. Being that most immigrant families were very family oriented women had a tougher time leaving the house then did men. The females in the house were to only leave the household if she was married. This posed a problem to many immigrant women who wanted to live the American life, to be able to pick the man you marry as well as a dependant life. In Yezierska’s story, Sarah does not believe in complying with old family traditions that interfere with her dreams of becoming a school teacher. At the Age of 17 she leaves her family to live on her own and go to school. This was not something that was allowed, yet the urge to learn and become a true American who could provide a steady income and live amongst other Americans; would drive the action of an immigrant woman to go against all odds, even her family. Yet, both immigrant men and women seeked knowledge to better their lives and leave the ghetto that had once held them down.
Immigrants came to the New World with hopes of gaining riches and living a life that Americans seem to live so well. Yet the majority of immigrants that were entering the United States had either no or very little education. The main source of income that they were used to was earned by their sweet, hands, and the blisters on their feet that came with it. Manual labor was the main occupation of immigrants, becoming skilled at his or her profession and working most of their lives to support their family and self. Family’s who had a religious figure or scholar in the household had to provide for the father. In Anzia Yezierska’s novel the “Bread Givers” that is exactly the case. The father, who is a Jewish scholar of the Torah, is provided for by his wife and young daughters while he educates himself throughout the day. Yet the majority of immigrant families had every member work, from the father to the youngest chilled; working to bring in ends meet.
The dream of every immigrant in the United States was to start a business and become wealthy. If that was not the case, it was very close to it; as long as they moved up in the social class. Entrepreneurship was something every immigrant seeked on accomplishing. This was a great deal to immigrants seeking a better life; to own and operate your own business meant riches and respect from immigrants within the community. “In America, a man can get rich quick if he only has a head for business” (Yezierska, 111). This passage shows how the father in “Bread Givers” relates wealth with business. The majority of immigrants worked for other immigrants or by peddling goods around busy streets in higher class areas. The joy to run a business in the United States by an immigrant can be felt by Sarah’s mother after her father purchases a convenient store, “The sun is beginning to shine for us. After all our black years, we lived to see our own bought store in America!” (Yezierska, 116).
Yet owning a business or even starting one was not a task that was easy. Many immigrants would go through life only wishing and hoping to see that one day that would never come. The saying “you have to have money, to make money” made its self clear during that time. Businesses like jewelry stores, shoe stores, grocery stores, attracted many immigrants and proved very profitable. Immigrants would start at a low paying job, shifting from one job to another. There was no credit system at that time, so immigrants could only start their business on cold hard cash. That meant if you didn’t have it, you could not have it either until you did.
Education was not the most profitable way of making a living but it was a respectable and a highly sought attribute. It was something that most immigrant children were deprived of due to having to work and support the family’s needs. One way for an immigrant to gain respect and a good living was to go to college. Yet most immigrants were not financially able to attend classes or they had jobs with ungodly hour jobs that held them from doing anything but work all day. Yet those who were able to do so had a rough time in doing both school and work. Even with that said, the majority of immigrants did not have any schooling background. Therefore he or she would have to complete and make up for courses and then apply for a collage that would accept them. Not only did they have to apply to many schools, they had to make sure that they could afford to at the end of the day pay for their education and feed themselves as well.
Going to college meant that you would have to move or live away from the family. Being that most immigrant families were very family oriented women had a tougher time leaving the house then did men. The females in the house were to only leave the household if she was married. This posed a problem to many immigrant women who wanted to live the American life, to be able to pick the man you marry as well as a dependant life. In Yezierska’s story, Sarah does not believe in complying with old family traditions that interfere with her dreams of becoming a school teacher. At the Age of 17 she leaves her family to live on her own and go to school. This was not something that was allowed, yet the urge to learn and become a true American who could provide a steady income and live amongst other Americans; would drive the action of an immigrant woman to go against all odds, even her family. Yet, both immigrant men and women seeked knowledge to better their lives and leave the ghetto that had once held them down.
Nice first draft. I would guess that your main argument is that Immigrants strived to achieve the ideals of american citizenry through educatoin and business. I think that the scope of your thesis however is a little broad and needs to be narrowed in focus. You utilized excellent quotes from the Yezierska novel, especially those that pulled a focus torwards business. I think your strongest argument here could be the rise of the lower-class and immigrant culture through the swapping of trades and businesses. Making enough money to cover costs and then investing that in the next business venture.
ReplyDeleteI was not able to identify a second reading in this piece- perhaps the reading that talked about myths could be used to debunk the myth of the American dream?
The rough draft is solid. I was kind of confused on specifically what the thesis was so maybe if you finetune or make it more specific earlier on in the paper it may focus the rest of the paper a little bit more or make it clearer to the reader. The only other thing that i would be careful of is at one point you say "All immigrants dreamed of owning a buisness" or something to that effect, and the reality is that while some people cam eto America with that dream, not everyone did. So I would just be careful of using the word all in describing any group of people. But other than that, I think that the ideas are great and the concepts are very strong.
ReplyDeleteNicole