My Father Gave Me America (1973)

[Music] your my father and mother came steerage class from Russia they couldn't afford the extra $7.50 per person for a cabin cabin class passengers didn't have to go to Lis Island my parents did worried sick that something would go wrong and they'd be sent [Music] away every member of the family underwent a physical exam and failure meant return it was here that husbands or wives or children could be sent to the stairway of Separation the stairs leading to the holding room and Exile from America [Music] my father remembered having a name tag pinned to his clothes that he couldn't read he spent uh 4 days in Ellis Island and considered himself lucky because some people were there for two months waiting for clearance there was always a frightening rumor passed in a dozen languages that something had gone wrong that none of them would be allowed to enter millions of American families treasure the stories of father and grandfather's arrival at Ellis Island each has an anecdote lovingly retold as a way of saying that's where we started look how far we've [Music] come to me I live my life [Music] my you [Music] some they went to the Lower East Side of New York for most immigrants that was the first taste of America the sounds and smell bring it all back to me the mass of people in every crowded dingy apartment there was always an extra room for newcomers as many as eight or 10 people undergoing the sudden transition to America the first word my folks Learned was greenhorn don't be a greenhorn they were told be a American and that meant getting American clothes and getting them at a price money was the essential ingredient that they didn't have hope yes dreams of course but money [Music] [Applause] [Music] no hey SW love [Laughter] [Music] shopping the crowded streets for the essentials of living was an occupation my mother walked miles to save a penny that's how life was measured in pennies and the money ethic remains even now striving bargaining colors the sights and sounds of the Lower East Side you tell him that I got a cheaper one want how much you pay do you pay 750 for one go inside go go go inside it myself I don't have it myself for I be gladly give it to [Music] you I'll give you all we have all we didn't live in a Melting Pot it was more a mixing bow where for the first time we could see the ways of life practiced by Peoples of a 100 different nations and learn from them but the immigrant's first stop was his own ghetto where language and background were familiar [Music] our fathers took any job no work was too tough they were sure that in America if you worked hard you would succeed we never understood that all the hard work wasn't just for money what my parents wanted was to give their children a chance said he just wanted me to learn a trade said that later on if uh if you have nothing else to do that you can always pull back to uh your trade and I guess I never left I I got to like it and uh my brother and I have now that my father passed on we have a nice little business and uh people are wonderful they're nice uh because I guess the warmth of the Italian people here in Little Italy now it's a little changing that the people are I guess their children now are getting married and they move out of the section but they usually make a visit every once in a while M Epstein's father worked the sweat shops of the Lower East Side so that he could have enough money to bring his family to America born here M grew up between the two worlds of the old immigrant and the new American like all of those who left for better places the hardships of her early years in the tenement I remembered with a sense of Pride the fire escapes are different I was able to sleep on those fire escapes I wouldn't be able to sleep on these fire escapes same Stone step well living here I I didn't know anything I I always look forward to living to a living in a better place because uh I did visit people living in the Bronx and in Brooklyn my cousins and they always had the bathroom in the house and here we had the bathroom out in the hallway and uh we had the four we had the the bathtub in the kitchen and a little sink a little porcelain sink to wash every morning that's that's just what we would use and when I go visiting I visit my cousins in the in Brownsville and when I go Brownsville by the way was a beautiful beautiful uh uh place to live and when I um visited my cousins in the Bronx and they all lived in these beautiful houses uh no to me it was beautiful they had rooms that the entrance was nice and clean and wide and they had a a a privacy our rooms weren't private they were just rooms that were separated by a couple of boards by walls that didn't mean anything you went from one little there was no closet space you had maybe one little tiny closet and everything else hung on walls covered with clothing The Immigrant way was a family way family was the trust family was the doctor the places of security the sources of warmth and we had a very close home life maybe that's why we didn't um worry too much or think too much about our comforts [Music] the language the ritual and custom of the old world were part of growing up what mean we were the new Americans and we were a little embarrassed by the old ways of our parents what we didn't realize was that was the only tradition they had go learn a new way of life they said but remember there are good things too in the world we come from it but there's a certain time when everybody's permitted to pick up the Le and take it for himself when is that respect for the past is carried in M Epstein's family to his son a difference of opinion on this what does that mean the the wages were 25 cents a day but survival depended on the children working we'll get our feet on the ground their parents would say and then Kinder children you will go to [Music] school education the magic golden world of Education nowhere are the hopes of our parents so clearly crystallized as in the drive to have their children go to school and no matter what else how poor how hard a life their children would learn to read and write and succeed As Americans I remember coming home from school with my report card and handing it to my mother she had to sign it all she knew was to make an X later much later I taught her to sign her name Brina b r y n a how proud she was and she was a good student she practice all the time I grew up on a street with friends named Izzy stash Gena Yahoo and that was another school that was a school where the ways of America could be learned or better or worse [Music] [Applause] [Music] the Lower East Side was a family a neighborhood a world a universe this was my mother's shopping area and this is where I continue shopping because I know these people and it's it's like uh I'm in a little town you I walk into these people it's hello M and it's hello Henry and it's hello uh also Mrs Epstein and it's very heish in other words it's very homey and very comfortable whatever I ask for I guess I think I may need give me some Tangerine oh they're soft I got you have some ones give me some FR for you first let me give you the Idaho potatoes [Music] yeah oh well my mother and father were very proud of my brother the dentist oh they were so proud of him and of course maybe the teacher oh that's without without saying they would talk my daughter the my daughter the teacher you know and then she said she knows Hebrew and she can play the piano she always disc that's what she discussed always would discuss our accomplishments I have a teacher her name is Mrs epon all right boys and girls who does not have a penc do you have one I if you haven't any pencils come up to me Lois didn't you bring your pencil does anyone have a pencil all right now [Music] would M Epstein remains resident in the Lower East Side in a good building with clean halls and separate rooms that was part of the dream and she has succeeded she has fulfilled the vision of her mother and father in the life she fashioned for herself it's better than theirs that's what they hop for their daughter and her celebration of the Sabbath is a tribute to their gift [Music] [Music] holiday celebrations births marriages deaths are events that make us recall our past they are the ways in which we affirm our our other identity as immigrant children for Jenny Lou Chinese New Year's is a frightening firecracker Hong Kong I was born in Hong Kong Jenny Lou is 8 she attends ps42 on the Lower East Side the same school Where Mrs Epstein teaches but Jenny's education ranges far beyond the classroom [Music] the sidewalks of the city play their part in the Americanization of Jenny me market the Irish first occupied the houses as they prospered the Irish left the tenaments to the Italians the Jews the Poes and the Russians that followed as each succeeding generation of immigrants arrive they look with awe and admiration at those who had come just before for Jenny it's a strange and colorful World spices spices these are the things we can buy in this store let's take a look at with Jenny the promise comes full circle even now the amalgam of Heritage environment and opportunity have gun to take whatever else she becomes Jenny will fulfill the hopes of the pilgrims the Adams the Jones the deanes the epsteins and all the others who knew that it could happen [Music] [Applause] [Music] be warned wrote a newly arrived British farmer in 1650 the soil of New England is more rock than Earth from the letters of a French army officer the Louisiana climate is villainous the mosquitoes numerous Welshman Jo Joseph taught the land is not worth having even if you got it for nothing despite the warnings new immigrants came for is land to and immigrants brought the will to succeed and a nation was built out of their individual accomplishments Peter Cooper produced a rot iron IE beam in Trenton in 1860 and changed the structure of American cities one man and one idea but there were thousands of others Einstein Edison Ford Firestone Whitney and Fulton made their famous contributions but there was also the illiterate Pennsylvania Frontiersman who designed a hunting rifle that helped win the Revolutionary War the Colt revolver opened the West glidden's barbed wire closed it and the little things in life Orlando Tomkins the drug Us in Boston invented the soda pop machine and in 1893 th lipincott patented the front tilting syrup jar the porcelain bathtub the G gas sto the mail shoot the automatic sprinkler all landmarks of individual achievement ideas that made our lives [Music] richer when I see the handcraft on houses and buildings I think of Lithuanian carpenters and Italian Masons and all the others who left their marks the Scrolls and Designs are the poignant Legacy of unknown Stone Cutters and wood carbers and maybe these are the truly great monuments in Old family homes weathered by time we can find another story of America it's there in personal records Dusty articles and treasured [Music] pictures I don't know their names but I think I know their dreams somehow looking at them I can begin to sense how peasant farmers and common laborers became the Pathfinders and Builders of the greatest nation yet [Music] created the canals and railroads built largely by the Irish immigrants of the the 1840s and 50s are almost relics of the past and the minds that lur the poles and serbs and Germans are often deserted skeletons but the spirit remains a tangible bequest of our forebears we don't know their specific dreams or individual achievements but in their expressions is the mark of a new spirit they called it store and that was all it took to explain why they were there store gives us a glimmering of their individual Pride William Davis had pride in the name of his shop The Butchers were traveling photographers J W Bates proudly placed his name in the udate directory in 1839 advertising his slays and sulkies Ninth generation in business wherever a need appeared someone filled it the individual pride of achievement is the mark of of America one of the things that my mother always said was America such a wonderful land whenever something important happened in my life or career I'd call her and she always said the same thing America such a wonderful Land one day I came home for a visit and of course she brought me around to meet all her friends and somehow she always brought up into the conversation you know my son his name is up in lights I said ma someday your name can be in lights she laughed but one day about a year later I brought her up to Broadway took her out of the limousine and pointed to a marquee above a movie theater there in big lights Brina presents Spartacus I said look ma b r y n a and of course all my mother could say was ah America such a wonderful [Music] in the beginning of every American family we find people who had a clear view of themselves and their hopes they were the immigrants we are their sons and daughters and we have been witnessed to a miracle somehow the mixtures of heredity opportunity and individual desire came together and fashioned a great nation we have realized The Immigrant dream that here they would stake their Futures so that their children would have a better life it's an American idea and it's working [Music] the [Music] m