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Readings
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Arrivals, Roots, and Memories
ARRIVALS, ROOTS, AND MEMORIES
About twenty persons were seized in our village at the time I was; and amongst these were three children so young that they were not able to walk or to eat any hard substance. The mothers of these children had brought them all the way with them and had them in their arms when we were taken on board this ship.
Slave Ship,
charles ball
Education was free. That subject my father had written about repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter.
The Promised Land,
mary antin
I was here for two months before I started working, and then my uncle got me
a job, first in the celery fields picking celery, washing it, packing it, and later picking prunes. Then, all of a sudden, one day the Immigration showed up, and I ran and I hid in a river that was next to the orchard. The man saw me and he questioned me, and he saw I didn’t have any papers.
Crossing the Border,
miguel torres
CHARLES BALL
Slave Ship
This narrative, published originally in 1854, is one of many gathered by Julius Lester and reprinted in his book To Be a Slave (1968). Like so many before him, Charles Ball was forcibly taken from his native village in Africa, brought aboard a slave ship, and sold to a plantation owner in Charleston, South Carolina. Ball was one of thousands of blacks who escaped from the South and told their stories to northern abolition groups just before and during the Civil War. These narratives were recorded and published as powerful tools to garner support for the emancipation of slaves.
Suggestions for Prereading or Journal Writing
1.
Think back to a time you left familiar surroundings and people to visit a new or strange place (your first day at school or at summer camp, your first plane ride alone, your first sleep-over with a friend or relative). Write about the actual trip you took—from your departure to your arrival. As you describe the details of the trip, include both the external physical details and your inner thoughts and feelings.
2.
Before you read this piece, jot down a list or write a few sentences explaining what you know about the issue of slavery in the United States. Do you know any names, dates, events, or places connected with this issue? After reading what you have written, evaluate what you know about slavery. Would you consider yourself an expert or a novice as far as this period in history is concerned? Explain your reasons.
———
At the time we came into this ship, she was full of black people, who were all confined in a dark and low place, in irons. The women were in irons as well as the men.
When they put us in irons to be sent to our place of confinement in the ship, the men who fastened the irons on these mothers took the children out of their hands and threw them over the side of the ship into the water. When this was done, two of the women leaped overboard after the children—the third was already confined by a chain to another woman and could not get into the water, but in struggling to disengage herself, she broke her arm and died a few days after of a fever. One of the two women who were in the river was carried down by the weight of her irons before she could be rescued; but the other was taken up by some men in a boat and brought on board. This woman threw herself overboard one night when we were at sea.
The weather was very hot whilst we lay in the river and many of us died every day; but the number brought on board greatly exceeded those who died, and at the end of two weeks, the place in which we were confined was so full that no one could lie down; and we were obliged to sit all the time, for the room was not high enough for us to stand. When our prison could hold no more, the ship sailed down the river; and on the night of the second day after she sailed, I heard the roaring of the ocean as it dashed against her sides. 5
After we had been at sea some days, the irons were removed from the women and they were permitted to go upon deck; but whenever the wind blew high, they were driven down amongst us.
We had nothing to eat but yams, which were thrown amongst us at random—and of these we had scarcely enough to support life. More than one third of us died on the passage and when we arrived at Charleston, I was not able to stand. It was more than a week after I left the ship before I could straighten my limbs. I was bought by a trader with several others, brought up the country and sold to my present master. I have been here five years.
Suggestions for Writing and Discussion
This oral slave narrative is told in the first person. What tone does the speaker use to describe his agonizing ordeal? Identify specific words, phrases, and images that support your observation.
How old do you think the narrator is at the time he is speaking? How old do you picture him at the time of his capture? What details can you infer about the speaker from what he says in his narrative?
3.
This narrative was probably originally used by white northerners just before and during the Civil War to gain sympathy for the antislavery cause. How effective do you think this narrative would be in reaching its intended audience and accomplishing its purpose? Pay attention to the connotations and denotations of the narrator’s words as you explain your response.
4.
Besides the main narrator, there are many other individuals mentioned in this short piece. Adopt another person’s point of view and write this piece from that individual’s perspective (one of the women, another slave, a young child, a white slave trader).
5.
This narrative presents a general overview of the conditions and events surrounding one slave’s journey. However, few details are provided. Choose one small scene in this piece and write a descriptive essay in which you use your imagination to supply intricate details. Concentrate on strong, sensory language that includes powerful verbs. Consider adding dialogue to the narrative.
Suggestions for Extended Thinking and Research
Find another primary source written by a black American right after the Civil War. Compare or contrast what this document describes with Ball’s experience.
Read several other historical documents written during the Civil War era in the United States (government documents, newspaper articles, personal letters, for example). Then write a paper describing what you have learned about some aspect of society during that time period.
MARY ANTIN
The Promised Land
Born to an affluent Russian Jewish family in 1881, Mary Antin saw her family lose their wealth and security to the growing oppression of czarist Russia. This excerpt from Antin’s autobiography, The Promised Land (1912), shows her optimistic view of the immigrant experience. Neither the journey in steerage nor the difficult living circumstances in her family’s crowded Boston apartment dampen her hope for a new and better life.
Think back to your earliest memories when life was still full of mystery and magnificence. Describe from this childhood vantage point one specific memory. Include as many details as you can to bring this experience to life for your readers. (Suggestions: Consider significant “firsts,” such as a first birthday party, a first move, a first best friend, a first disappointment, a first discovery.)
Describe and explain the significance of a place that to others may appear commonplace but to you is special.
Describe the greatest change in your life so far. How has that change affected you? Consider both what you may have lost and what you may have gained.
Anybody who knows Boston knows that the West and North Ends are the wrong ends of that city. They form the tenement district, or, in the newer phrase, the slums of Boston. Anybody who is acquainted with the slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt, half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate of good citizenship.
He may know all this and yet not guess how Wall Street, in the West End, appears in the eyes of a little immigrant from Polotzk. What would the sophisticated sight-seer say about Union Place, off Wall Street, where my new home waited for me? He would say that it is no place at all, but a short box of an alley. Two rows of three-story tenements are its sides, a stingy strip of sky is its lid, a littered pavement is the floor, and a narrow mouth its exit.
But I saw a very different picture on my introduction to Union Place. I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on, instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open, filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up to the topmost row of windows, and my eyes were filled with the May blue of an American sky!
In our days of affluence in Russia we had been accustomed to upholstered parlors, embroidered linen, silver spoons and candlesticks, goblets of gold, kitchen shelves shining with copper and brass. We had featherbeds heaped halfway to the ceiling; we had clothes presses dusky with velvet and silk and fine woollen. The three small rooms into which my father now ushered us, up one flight of stairs, contained only the necessary beds, with clean mattresses; a few wooden chairs; a table or two; a mysterious iron structure, which later turned out to be a stove; a couple of unornamental kerosene lamps; and a scanty array of cooking-utensils and crockery. And yet we were all impressed with our new home and its furniture. It was not only because we had just passed through our seven lean years, cooking in earthen vessels, eating black bread on holidays and wearing cotton; it was chiefly because these wooden chairs and tin pans were American chairs and pans that they shone glorious in our eyes. And if there was anything lacking for comfort or decoration we expected it to be presently supplied—at least, we children did. Perhaps my mother alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the little apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying down of the burden of poverty.
5
Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows, not to point, and explained the word “greenhorn.” We did not want to be “greenhorns,” and gave the strictest attention to my father’s instructions. I do not know when my parents found opportunity to review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we children had no patience with the subject; my mother’s narrative was constantly interrupted by irrelevant questions, interjections, and explanations.
The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them. He attempted to introduce us to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called “banana,” but had to give it up for the time being. After the meal, he had better luck with a curious piece of furniture on runners, which he called “rocking-chair.” There were five of us newcomers, and we found five different ways of getting into the American machine of perpetual motion, and as many ways of getting out of it. One born and bred to the use of a rocking-chair cannot imagine how ludicrous people can make themselves when attempting to use it for the first time. We laughed immoderately over our various experiments with the novelty, which was a wholesome way of letting off steam after the unusual excitement of the day.
In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing the coal in the bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day my father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then, everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free; we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place.
Education was free. That subject my father had written about repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations, rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.
This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete proof—almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand it.
10
It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of the term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in September. What a loss of precious time—from May till September?
Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube; we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window, and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn English.
The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of my American teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to a wonderful country called “uptown,” where, in a dazzlingly beautiful palace called a “department store,” we exchanged our hateful homemade European costumes, which pointed us out as “greenhorns” to the children on the street, for real American machine-made garments, and issued forth glorified in each other’s eyes.
With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible Hebrew names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in American experience, put their heads together and concocted American names for us all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing American equivalents they ruthlessly discarded, content if they retained the initials. My mother, possessing a name that was not easily translatable, was punished with the undignified nickname of Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah issued as Frieda, Joseph, and Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was simply cheated. The name they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name being Maryashe in full, Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya (Mar-ya), my friends said that it would hold good in English as Mary: which was very disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding American name like the others.
I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from the use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until now. I found on my arrival that my father was “Mr. Antin” on the slightest provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions alone. And so I was “Mary Antin,” and I felt very important to answer to such a dignified title. It was just like America that even plain people should wear their surnames on week days.
15
As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way, and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward our Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.
In “The Promised Land,” the writer’s life changed from one of affluence to one of sparseness. Despite her losses, the writer seems to feel fortunate and overwhelmed with her new life. Speculate on why the writer feels so grateful for the meager life to which she has come.
If, as a child, you had had to wait a summer in order to go to school, would you have regarded the delay as “a loss of precious time”? What is the author’s attitude toward education? Why do she and her family consider education a valued gift, a privilege? To what extent do you share her views? How does your own view of education contrast with hers?
Antin writes that in the United States even “light was free.” List, as quickly as you can, all the things in your daily life that are “free.” As far as you know, are these things “free” in other countries? Can you think of things that are free in other countries that are not free here?
Antin writes that her new Americanized name gives her a “dignified title.” Why does this matter to her? Why is it so important that she and her family discard their original names? Have you ever changed your name in any way? Why did you make the change, and how did you feel about it? If you have never changed your name, would you consider doing so? Explain.
Compare the values of the Antin family with those of modern American families as they are portrayed on television or in films. What similarities do you see? What differences?
How do you think elementary and secondary education in this country would change if such schooling suddenly became a privilege extended only to certain people rather than a right extended to all? Interview professors on your campus, local elementary and secondary teachers, and students at various levels to gather data leading to your response to this question.
Compare the way you saw something as a child with the way you see it today. What do the similarities and differences you see tell you about the ways you have stayed the same and the ways you have changed?
Write an essay describing the steps necessary to begin something new. Base this essay on your own experience with a new project. Where did you start? What obstacles did you face? Where did you find support? What did you have to learn? What did you have to change?
Antin and her family fled czarist Russia to avoid oppression because of their Jewish heritage. Locate other primary sources written by Russian immigrants during this time period. From reading these sources, write an essay describing the kinds of oppression people suffered and their responses to these outrages.
MIGUEL TORRES
Crossing the Border
At the time Miguel Torres told his story to an interpreter, he was twenty years old and was employed in a mushroom plant in California. He told the interviewer that he had entered the United States illegally four times during the past year. His story is representative of those of the many illegal aliens from various countries who take great risks to find the employment in the United States that they believe will bring them better lives.
Under what circumstances would you leave your home and your country for a foreign land?
In your journal, describe your ideal country, your idea of utopia. What about your utopia is possible in this country? What seems improbable?
I was born in a small town in the state of Michoacán in Mexico. When I was fifteen, I went to Mexico City with my grandmother and my mother. I worked in a parking lot, a big car lot. People would come in and they’d say, “Well, park my car.” And I’d give them a ticket and I’d park the car and I’d be there, you know, watching the cars. I got paid in tips.
But I wanted to come to the United States to work and to earn more money. My uncle was here, and I thought if I could come to him, I could live with him and work and he would help me.
It’s not possible to get papers to come over now. So when I decided to come, I went to Tijuana in Mexico. There’s a person there that will get in contact with you. They call him the Coyote. He walks around town, and if he sees someone wandering around alone, he says, “Hello, do you have relatives in the United States?” And if you say yes, he says, “Do you want to visit them?” And if you say yes, he says he can arrange it through a friend. It costs $250 or $300.
The Coyote rounded up me and five other guys, and then he got in contact with a guide to take us across the border. We had to go through the hills and the desert, and we had to swim through a river. I was a little scared. Then we come to a highway and a man was there with a van, pretending to fix his motor. Our guide said hello, and the man jumped into the car and we ran and jumped in, too. He began to drive down the highway fast and we knew we were safe in the United States. He took us to San Isidro that night, and the next day he took us all the way here to Watsonville. I had to pay him $250 and then, after I’d been here a month, he came back and I had to give him $50 more. He said I owed him that.
I was here for two months before I started working, and then my uncle got me a job, first in the celery fields picking celery, washing it, packing it, and later picking prunes. Then, all of a sudden, one day the Immigration showed up, and I ran and I hid in a river that was next to the orchard. The man saw me and he questioned me, and he saw I didn’t have any papers. So they put me in a van and took me to Salinas, and there was some more illegals there and they put us in buses and took us all the way to Mexicali near the border. We were under guard; the driver and another one that sleeps while one drives. The seats are like hard boards. We’d get up from one side and rub, you know, that side a little bit and then sit on the other side for a while and then rub that side because it’s so hard. It was a long trip.
When we arrived in Mexicali, they let us go. We caught a bus to Tijuana, and then at Tijuana, that night, we found the Coyote again and we paid him and we came back the next day. I had to pay $250 again, but this time he knew me and he let me pay $30 then and $30 each week. Because he knew me, you know. He trusted me.
We came through the mountains that time. We had to walk through a train tunnel. It all lasted maybe about three hours, through the tunnel. It was short; for me it was short. We’re used to walking, you know. Over in Mexico we have to walk like ten miles to go to work or to go home or to go to school, so we’re used to walking. To me it was a short distance to walk for three hours. And after we got out of the tunnel, we got into a car; and from there, from the tunnel, we came all the way into Los Angeles. That was the second time. We didn’t see any border patrol either time.
The second time I was here for three months. My uncle managed to get me a job in the mushroom plant. I was working there when the Immigration came. There’s this place where they blow air between the walls to make it cool and I hid there. And I was watching. The Immigration was looking around the plant everywhere. There was another illegal there, and he just kept on picking the mushrooms. He’d only been back a couple of days himself. The Immigration walked over there, and that kid turned around and looked at the Immigration and said, “What’s the matter? What happened?” And the Immigration looked at him and said, “Oh, nothing,” and the kid kept right on picking mushrooms. Yet he was an illegal! He knew how to act, play it cool. If you just sit tight they don’t know you’re illegal.
Well, the Immigration looked between the walls then and he caught me again. That was the second time. They put handcuffs on me with another guy and we were handcuffed together all the way from California to Mexicali.
Altogether I’ve been caught three times this year and made the trip over here four times. It’s cost me one thousand dollars but it’s still better than what I was making in Mexico City.
It’s the money. When you come back here you get more money here than you do over there. Right now, the most, the most that I’d be getting in Mexico would be from 25 to 30 pesos a day, which is maybe $2.00, $2.50. And here, with overtime, sometimes I make a $150 a week. Things are expensive here, but it’s expensive over there, too. And I like the way people live here. All the—what do you call it—all the facilities that you have here, all the things you can get and everything.
The boss at the mushroom factory doesn’t ask for papers. He doesn’t say anything about it. The last time, he hired me back as soon as I got back here, without any questions.
I learned to hide my money when the Immigration catch me. You know, if you have a lot on you, they take you fifteen or twenty miles from the border in Mexico. But if you have just two dollars or so, they let you go right in Tijuana. Then it’s easier to come back. You can just walk right down the street and find the Coyote or someone like him. A man I know was hitchhiking along the road near San Diego and someone picked him up and it was the Immigration man who had just brought him back to Mexico! The Immigration laughed and said, “You got back faster than I did.” Of course, he took him back to Mexico again then. But that man is back in Watsonville now, working in the brussels sprouts. It takes a longer time for the Immigration to catch us than it does for us to come back. [Laughs.]
I’d like to be able to stay here, to live here and work; but the only way now is to find someone that’ll say, “Well, I’ll marry you, I’ll fix your papers for you.” There’s a lot of them who do that. I’d be willing to if I could find someone that would do it for me. You pay them, you know. You don’t sleep together or even live in the same house, but they marry you. A long time ago you could fix up papers for your nephew or brother, a friend, a cousin. It was real easy then. But now it has to be close relations: mother, father, wife, son, or daughter. My uncle can’t do it for me. The only way I could do it would be if I could marry an American citizen.
I’d like to learn English because it would be easier for me. There is a night school here, but I don’t like to go because after work I like to go out and mess around and goof off. [Laughs.] Maybe I’ll go later. If I could just learn a tiny bit of English, you know, I could turn around and tell the Immigration, “What’s the matter with you? What do you want?” and I wouldn’t be recognized as an illegal.
Reread the first paragraph of this piece. From the details and language used in these six sentences alone, what can you infer about Miguel’s life before he turned fifteen?
What would you say are Miguel’s personal strengths? What are his weaknesses? Is he someone you would probably have as a friend? Why or why not?
Analyze Miguel’s reactions for each of the three times he is caught. Do his reactions change over the course of this year? Please explain.
Which life do you feel is better for Miguel—life in America with his uncle, or life in Mexico City with his mother and grandmother? Explain.
Make a prediction for Miguel’s life ten years from the time of this interview. Where might he be living? What might he be doing? Would you see his life as better than his life at the age of fifteen?
6.
Is Miguel’s presence in America a hindrance or a contribution to this country? Please support your answer with inferences and facts from the text itself. You may also offer any personal experience as support.
Rewrite this piece from the immigration officer’s point of view.
Research current immigration laws and the means by which an emigrant can enter and live in America.
Research the controversies raised in states—such as California and Texas—that have experienced a recent influx of illegal immigrants.
VO THI TAM
A Boat Person’s Story
After the Communist takeover of South Vietnam, following the fall of Saigon in 1975, thousands of Vietnamese fled. Many of these people attempted to escape on overloaded boats, where they faced long journeys with little food or water. In addition, they were vulnerable to attacks from pirates; and if they survived, they often found themselves unwelcome in the countries they attempted to enter. In an interview, Vo Thi Tam describes her 1979 escape from Vietnam.
Writing can be public—that is, it can be shared with others. But writing can also be private. Private writing offers an opportunity to consider and reconsider various issues and problems. Try writing a private journal entry in which you think back to what might be the hardest experience you have encountered.
Think about the one modern appliance you depend upon most. Now write about what would happen if you couldn’t use that appliance for two weeks.
My husband was a former officer in the South Vietnamese air force. After the fall of that government in 1975, he and all the other officers were sent to a concentration camp for reeducation. When they let him out of the camp, they forced all of us to go to one of the “new economic zones,” that are really just jungle. There was no organization, there was no housing, no utilities, no doctor, no...
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