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Immigrant New Start

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Submitted By casandraberro
Words 367
Pages 2
11/5/14
U.S History 2
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A New Start My name is Maria, I was fifteen when my mother and I moved out of Italy. We left for the safety of eachother. We took A ship to Ellis Island where we then lived our lives as Americans. Before we left Italy in 1890, we had to pack everything we had up or leave it all behind. It was very difficult to leave out homeland but we had to get away from war zones and the financial issues that were going through Europe. Once we got to the ship we payed twelve dollars each ticket. Obviously I was nervous, everyone was crowded trying to board the ship. I lost my mother at one point, but we met back up at the pole on the dock. I never felt happier. The journey was dreadful. It was full of disease and sickness. My mother told me to stay away from the passengers that were coughing. It took a while to get used to the ship. It was very dark and it had a harsh smell in the steerage. I tried hard to make the best of what was happening so I decided to talk to a few girls that looked my age. One was named Rosa and one was named Carmella, we all became best friends until Rosa got Tuberculosis and became very ill. Once we got to America there was inspections. It was terrifying, either we pass the inspections it we took months out of our lives to go Ellis Island to be rejected.Thankfully my mother and I were healthy and passed the exams. We lived in a ghetto called "Little Italy". People that lived there all spoke Italian, I felt like I was still home. We did learn some English traditions and ways, such as: the times of meals and the way Americans dressed, but we tried to keep our Italian traditions too. We still ate the food we knew how to cook. Once we were settled into Little Italy, we had a small job in a close-by factory. We made okay money and felt good knowing we were going to be safe.

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