I think that after I read this chapter and kept thinking about it, more things kept popping into my head. First of all, in the beginning of the 1900s, I have no idea how these Italian men would travel back and forth to Italy so often considering the lengthy and timely journey they had. After reading the section on transnationalism today, I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to keep two different identities without all the technology we have today that helps aide us.
As I continued thinking about the chapter and then finished it, I thought about the quote Foner uses- today’s immigrants are “more prepared for a measure of assimilation by the world-wide influence of American popular culture; most are more culturally attuned to the US before they arrive here than were their counterparts a century ago”. This made me think that even though immigrants have all this access to their home countries today, do they really have a better connection than the immigrants in the 1900s had? I feel that despite the technology available today, it is possible that the people that came in the 1900s could have had a stronger tie to their home countries than many immigrants do today. I certainly can not speak on behalf of an immigrant group to back up my opinion, so in class tomorrow it should be interesting to see what people think. I guess nobody can really do a true comparison as to who felt a stronger tie to their country- immigrants in the past or immigrants today, but I think that it is interesting to think about. I know that we have so much technology today and we are able to travel places in a much more efficient and timely manner but as I was reading the section on the Russian Jews and the Italians in the early 1900s, I felt that they had a very strong sense of community and bond to their culture. Although they lacked all of the conveniences we have today, I felt that they were very much so connected to their countries. An Italian man traveling 2 weeks to get back to Italy and Jewish fundraisers at every gathering just to raise money for the people in the war-ridden countries shows some devotion to me.
Does all of the technology we have today really make that much of an impact on the transnationalism and strong bonds between immigrants and their home countries or does it just depend on the feelings of the individuals? Just something to think about.
(ps-hopefully my thoughts made sense to whoever reads this)
