immigrants
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Immigration from the Tops of Trains
By Richard C. Enrique’s Journey By Sonia Nazario I remember so vividly the beginning of Moby Dick when Ishmael says “…whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul… then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” The full quote is truly golden. Like Ishmael, whenever I… Continue reading
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Genealogy 101: Why are genealogists fascinated with our immigrant records and why are they so hard to find?
With the exception of Native Americans, we are all descendants of immigrants from some other country. Arlene Eakle projected that between 1607 and 1980 “Over 40 million persons came from other places in the world to settle in the U.S” (Eakle, Arlene H. “Tracking Immigrant Origins” in Eakel, Arlene. The Source: A Guidebook of American… Continue reading
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The Visitor and Little Bee
Two of the most powerful stories that I recently encountered were stories about immigrants and refugees. One was in a film and the other was a novel, but both left a strong impression on me. In the film, The Visitor, a widowed, burnt-out professor in Connecticut, Walter Vale, (played to perfection by Richard Jenkins, who… Continue reading