-
Period: to
Immigration and Westward Expansion
Itailians and more people form other countries came to the United States. -
Decided to Immigrate
Things were looking bad. The poverty in our country seemed hopless to escape. My brother had always dreamed of owning land and being free. He had his sight set on going to America. -
Immigrated to America
Hello. My name is Jessalina Vespucchi. Me and my brother immigrated to America because there was poverty andpersicution. We also neededmore money, a chance to start over. Our parents were killed in fights that broke out. We almost lost everything. We arrived in New York when I was 19. -
Had to wait to get permitted
We had to wait a day to be able to get checked. Women could not enter in without someone wating for them. We had to get checked for sickness, and see if we had been in prison. It was very hard to understand them because they spoke English. -
Got a house and a steady job
My brother was 22 when we arrived. He always had a big ambition, and we needed to get some money. We found a apartment that was cheap, and he found a job at a hat making store and I found a job at a clothing making industry. All seemed well, but we still did not have our land. -
Things start to take a turn
It was still very difficult to pay the bills, and not many people would hire Italians. We were starting to understand a little bit of English, but we still needed help. Once or twice we thought about going home. It was getting very cold in the winters, and we could hardly afford food. -
Brother lost his job
My brother lost his job by wanting more pay for his work. Now I only got pay, but it was very little. Plus, it was still very cold from winter, and most food was scarce. -
Had to move to Massechusetts
Both me and my brother were struggling to feed ourselves. We had no choice but to look for a job elswhere. We found a different clothing indusrty that offered little pay, but it was the best we could do. We found a tiny apartment and we desperatly needed food. -
Finally got enough pay
We had finally got enough pay to feed ourselves regularly. We could still barely pay the bills and we had only three pairs of clothes each. But we needed a better place to live. The visual of owning land was still far from our grasps. -
Bought seeds
One day, my brother came home with seeds. He said that it was almost time to go west. He suprized me enough to make me drop what I was carring. -
Went West
My brother announced one day that we would be heading west. He met some man that said a group of people were heading there in a group. We stopped to buy two horses and set out on our journey. -
Hard Journey
As we went west we found that it was not easy. Most of our food supplies was gone and our horses were tired. We had to keep stopping for breaks and occasionaly we got lost. -
Got to a Farm
We got to the farm we were promised. We did not have the supplies to start out though. -
Competitive Farmers
Life on the farm was not as easy as we'd hoped. Turns out our neighboors are very competitive. They keep seeing who's best and that made us have to work extra hard. People kept treating us as though we were'nt there also. -
Crops sprouting
Our hard work was almost finished. The buds of our plants were just beggiining to sprout! -
Hard Work Paid Off!
All our hard work finally paid off. Our crops had sprouted to the fullest. And we finally earned some respect by our neighboors. They were all jealous because our crops were the healthies and the best. We also got paid very highly for our food. -
Considered Wealthy
Our journey had finally come to an end. We rose stupendus crops each year and we bought a nice house. My brother got married and I was still living with him. We had enough money to last for a long time and we earned so much respect that we had strived for.