My mother was born in the United States, and both of her parents were first-generation Americans. My father is a first-generation American himself, and since I know almost everything about his side—and little about my mother’s side—this story will focus on my paternal grandmother Anita, who came here from Poland prior to the Holocaust.
A Polish Jew, Anita came from Poland in the mid-1920s before the onslaught of the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of many of her relatives. When she immigrated to the United States, Anita was only fourteen years old and lived in a rooming house. She worked in an umbrella factory, making umbrellas for what would become one of the very few lucrative businesses during the Great Depression, for only three dollars a week. Her primary challenges were living on her own as a teenager, and learning the English language. She managed to do both while working and gaining real-world skills, although she only made it to the fourth grade.
Her husband, Saul, was also of Eastern European descent, although he was born in the United States. He was a plumber who worked in the ship yards during World War II, and he received an eighth grade education. After the two of them married, they raised my father in a very blue-collar environment. As such, his mother was very careful to save as much money as possible, especially if his father was laid off for six months. Both of his parents were determined to send my father to college since he was a child; he became the first person on his side of the family not only to attend and matriculate college (although, unfortunately, after his parents’ death), but also to start and complete high school.
While my father was not an immigrant himself, many of the lessons he learned are those that many immigrants teach themselves: saving money, having a dream, receiving a quality education, becoming self-reliant, and living a better life. The end result is that my father and our family live much better off than he did growing up, and he has passed down the same lessons to my siblings and me, albeit a bit subdued. He lived in a small apartment in East Flatbush, at the time a primary neighborhood for Eastern European Jewish immigrants, for the first eleven years of his life. When he was eleven, he moved into a two-family house in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. My father has owned the house ever since his parents died, and has occasionally leased it out over the years. However, in 2003, after bouncing around a few houses in a five-block radius, we moved back to his house, owning both floors.
So the only questions remaining are: was it worth it for my grandmother, and did she realize her American Dream? I cannot answer for her, although I would say that she did. Indeed, had she not come here, my father would not have been born, and therefore I would never have been born. But there was more significance to her decision. Although she immigrated in 1925, which was before the rise of the Third Reich in nearby Germany, things were already tense in Poland and Anita survived as someone who most likely would have perished in the Holocaust, if not a “Holocaust Survivor.” Certainly, it had to have been worth it for her.
Lastly, I should note that while she did not fully realize her American Dream, she did raise a man who would. Unfortunately, Anita came down with cancer when my father was only nineteen, and died just two years later. She also always wanted to have grandchildren, although she never did. Nevertheless, just four months ago, my father became a grandparent himself when my oldest brother had a daughter, Sylvia. Therefore, many of the experiences that Anita could not live to see were carried on by my father, so it is safe to say she realized the American Dream.
Growing up, my father raised me and my siblings very similarly to how he was raised. However, since he was born in the United States, he was not under as much pressure to assimilate, so while he has a strong work ethic, he is looser in terms of handling hardships, be they cultural or financial. All of my siblings and I were born in New York City, and I have lived with my family in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, my whole life in an upper-middle class environment. Currently, I attend the Macaulay Honors College at The City College of New York; following a pattern, because everyone in my family has attended a CUNY school.
