Coming To America

All Americans are descended from immigrants, even the Native Americans, when you consider that their ancestors migrated to these continents from Asia some 30 to 50,000 years ago. Native Americans aside, many of the migrations to America were forced, as in the case of the Africans who were bought here as slaves in the 17th-19th centuries. Many Europeans also came involuntarily, having been sold into indentured servitude by families or by persons to whom they owed money. Many were ordered here by the courts as an alternaitve ot prison; thus many criminals did not come voluntarily. But for most of the millions who came, especially since the latter part of the 19th-century, the opportunity come to America was a chance for new life. Those willing to take the gamble swarmed to America's shores at a rate sometimes in excess of a million a year.

This project asks you investigate the immigrant experience, especially if you are from a family whose ancestors immigrated within a generation or two, and who perhaps may still be alive. You are invited to this visit the Ellis Island web site and other sources of information about immigrants, for which links one provided below. The purpose of this project is for you to answer the question:

• Why did people to come to America?
• What was it like for them when they got here?
• How did they cope with the conditions they found a the land was supposed to be friendly, but could very often seem hostile and forbidding?

The film “Island of Hope, Island of Tears” is shown at the visitor's center at the Ellis Island Museum. It is an excellent overview of the Ellis Island experience, narrated by Gene Hackman. If you can obtian a copy it is worth watching. You should read the topic summary as well. Here are some links to get you started:

• Newspaper articles about immigration.
• Library of Congress Immigration Pages.
• Immigrant experiences in the tenements of our cities.
• The Ellis Island Organization.
• Ellis Island History
• The History Channel Ellis Island Site
• Another Ellis Island information site
• The National Park Service Ellis Island Site
• The Family Section of the Ellis Island site
• University of Minnesota Immigration History Site
• A web site on Jewish Immigration
• A related web site on Roman Catholic Immigration
• Immigration in the 19th Century as part of the Genealogy web site

Please send me additional links which you find interesting.

Back to Projects | History 122 Part 1 | Updated July 13, 2006