I Was Dreaming to Come to America: Memories from the Ellis Island Oral History Project

I Was Dreaming to Come to America has been my favorite nonfiction book I have read so far. In this book, it consisted of quotes made by individuals who actually came from Europe to America through Ellis Island. Each had a different story, but each story was very touching. I ended up getting chills

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when I was finished reading. Each individual shared their thoughts and their experiences of coming to America. I would definitely, without a doubt, use this book in a history class. I would hope my students would get as much out of it as I did.

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Summary: This book is a collection of oral histories given by people who immigrated to Ellis Island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They are just a few excerpts taken from the Ellis Island Oral History Project which began in 1973. The interviews talk about a wide range of experiences

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that people had on their journey to America and their time at Ellis Island. There are also interviews from people who worked at Ellis Island during this time. Each account includes the person's name, age, and country where they immigrated from. Many of the stories focus on the difficult journey to America and the sense of nervousness when arriving at Ellis Island. Most of them are from the perspective of a young child which is interesting because they were so young and had such little knowledge of how the immigration process worked and how their lives would change once they were cleared by the immigration officials.

Review: I thought that this book was assembled very well. I like that the author chose interviews of people with many different backgrounds and experiences to include in the book. The stories that were chosen are not hard to understand which why I think a 3rd or 4th grader could read the book but I think older students would benefit from diving deeper into the stories and having meaningful conversations about immigration. The illustrations were interesting but also very abstract. I think that they might be slightly distracting because you want to spend so much time looking at them and trying to gain meaning from them. The main goal of this book is just to inform people about immigration and how it had an impact on the people who experienced it. I think that the interviews included in this book do an excellent job of that. Many topics are covered in this book including the difficult voyage to America and how to survive once arriving.

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