A Reflective Piece
A Reflective Piece
“My Journey to America” is about a teenaged boy who is traveling to America. Richard, the boy’s name, describes the hardships that were often experienced when immigrating to the United States.
At first, I had very little desire to write this piece. However, as I began researching, I started gaining interest in completing this assignment. I find writing difficult to do at times, especially when a piece is based on history.
In addition, our trip to Ellis Island allowed me to envision what Ellis Island meant to the immigrants who passed though the Island. The visit to Ellis Island helped me to understand the emotions of the people leaving their home country to come to the shores of America.
The title of this portfolio is called “Metamorphosis,” which means change. In this piece, I believe my writing style has changed greatly. I have learned how to incorporate historical facts in this story. For example, the paragraph, “After my test police officers took me to a doctor. He told me he was checking to see if I had any serious diseases, such as Pink Eye, or Hepatitis. I was fortunate, for I didn’t have those sicknesses,” describes the standard medical procedure for incoming immigrants.
Additionally, I learned how to write a works cited sheet. After the fact, I realized how important the works cited sheet is. The works cited sheet allowed me review the immigration process because it retraced the various steps involved. This helps me to gather information.
One task of doing this project was gathering specific information related to a particular ethnic immigration. For example, visiting web-based sites on the internet was difficult because the sites didn’t combine cultural or ethnic backgrounds. I was able to visit sites related to Austrian immigration or Jewish immigration, not Jewish-Austrian immigration.
I enjoyed working on this project because I was able to use various skills to gather information, analyze the information and discuss my findings. This piece also had an emotional effect on me because some of my relatives (great-grandparents) came through Ellis Island after arriving on a steamship.