I Immigrant
Darrell Coon
HIS/120
December 15, 2014
Christopher Powers
I Immigrant
I am keeping this journal so that I may share my journey to America with my family. I will update this as often as possible so that my family won't seem so far away. It will be like I am speaking to them. This way I won't feel so homesick. I intend to mail it back home to Sicily a little at a time. I am scared and, excited to be going to America where I will find more opportunities.
It is hard leaving home but, I have to go my family is so poor and, I am just another mouth to feed. I hope to find work in America, the pay in America is so much higher than it is here. I want to save enough money to buy a ...view middle of the document...
I watch as smiles come to their haggard faces and, I can't help it I smile as well. The long journey is over. We begin to kiss each other and bid each other farewell we have made it. The nightmare journey is quite over yet, first they come aboard to inspect the ship to make sure there are no contagious diseases on board. Then I am stripped down and, scrubbed in a tub of water. After a cold and miserable bath I have to see a doctor first they make sure I am physically and mentally sound they say. It all works out They give me a clean bill of health but, I have to be interviewed by an official. I am lucky I have papers so; They do not have to tag me W.O.P like some of the others. Now I set off on my way to find work and, a place to stay. ("The History Box", 2014).
I originally had intended to remain in New York however I have traveled to Boston, Massachusetts where I have found work in a textile mill. I live in a tenement house with a lot of other people. The conditions are horrible but; it will be worth it in the end. The house is overcrowded and, it smells. It is drafty in the winter and, hot in the summer. There is insufficient sewage and, people have begun to get sick. (Molnar, 2010).
The job I have taken was open because; the other workers are on strike. The people here hate us and call us dagoes. I can't help it I needed a job. The bosses pay us less than the others; we make even less than the blacks. We are at the lowest level it seems, I just pray that I can be strong and, make it. I work as a loader; I work 14 hour shifts seven days a...