Unit 9 : Finding a Niche

Challenges Immigrants Face  By Cathy Pearl

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¹     Moving is not an easy thing to do. A person has to leave all of his or her friends and family behind. There are new schools and new towns. A lot of times, a family will move because an adult has a new job. It is a stressful but an exciting time, too. Now imagine you are moving to a new country. You don't know anyone there. No one in your family speaks the language well. When you get there, your parents will have to find a house, jobs, and learn to survive in what seems like a different world. These are some of the problems that immigrants to this country face every day.
 ²     Immigrants come to this country for a better life. For different reasons, immigrants are sure that things are better in this country. Many immigrants come to find work. There are many jobs in this country. But immigrants who don't speak English have a hard time doing many of them. Instead, they have to take jobs that don't pay as much money. This makes it very difficult for them to afford many of the things in this country that they hoped to have.
 ³     New immigrants can have a hard time finding health care. Many of them are working in low paying jobs. These jobs don't have health insurance. Families often do not have enough money to go to a doctor. Many of them don't know where to get help because they don't speak English. When they do go to a doctor, they can have trouble understanding what he or she is telling them. This can make it hard to follow instructions that the doctor gives them.


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Ellis Island  By Cathy Pearl

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¹     Ellis Island opened January 1, 1892. More than twelve million immigrants would pass through the island's immigration station between 1892 and 1954. The most came through in 1907. There are estimates that forty percent of people in the United States today had an ancestor that went through Ellis Island.
 ²     Ellis Island was first called Gull Island by Native Americans. At that time, gulls were the only things that lived on it. It was very small, about three acres. The island was made of soft mud. It was so small that it was barely above the water during high tide.
 ³     In 1630, a different owner bought the island. It was used as a place to catch oysters. The island was not good for much else. This owner did not keep the island long. Because it wasn't good for much, it was sold many times during the next one hundred years.
 ⁴     About 1776, Samuel Ellis became the owner of the island. He tried to sell the island and couldn't. Before he died, he tried to give the island to the state. He died before the paperwork was finished.
 ⁵     In 1794, New York leased the island. They thought it was a great place to build a fort. There would be a lot of construction problems. But the Ellis family could still change their minds about the lease. If they did, all buildings on the island would have to be torn down.

Famous Inmigrant