EVS Immigration Project
This project has been a collaboration between EVS and City Access New York, a non-profit that promotes cultural and educational access to people with disabilities. The project is called Adapted Arts & Science for EVS Students and is generously supported by The Lavelle Fund for the Blind.
Students began by discussing immigration in a general way, exploring their own family histories and practicing interviews with people in the school and neighborhood. They visited the the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and learned about the families that lived there, met and interviewed a person who does work in oral history, and lastly interviewed recent immigrants from an ESL program. The following are excerpts of their recorded work on this project.
PRACTICING INTERVIEWS IN AND AROUND SCHOOL
Students interview each other and ask about where their families came from.
Jahron, Khalique and Wan Er interview the owners of the Korean grocery store.
Amy, Emmanuel and Mohamed interview the Italian ladies at the candy store.
THE TRIP TO THE TENEMENT MUSEUM
Students describe what it was like inside the Tenement Museum.
Writings about the lives of two immigrant families who lived in a tenement on the Lower East Side.
ORAL HISTORY WITH IRV SILBERG
While learning about the history of immigration and developing their interviewing skills, the students were visited by Irv Silberg, a volunteer who works on oral histories at Ellis Island and a child of East European Jewish immigrant parents. Listen below for excerpts from the oral history that the class conducted with Irv about his life experience, as well as his parents' immigration story.
Simon, Khalique, Amy, Emmanuel, and Wan Er ask questions about where Irv's parents are from, how they came to America, and what they brought with them.
Jahron asks a question about the ages of Irv's parents when they came over and Irv speaks about his mother's ability to speak English and Yiddish. Kathy sets up the clip.
Irv responds to questions from Clint and James about cultural and religious customs. Simon sets up the clip.
Prompted by a question from Khalique, Irv shares a special memory with the students of going to temple with his family.
INTERVIEWS WITH IMMIGRANTS TODAY
Students interviewed nine women from many different countries who are taking English language classes at the Fifth Avenue Committee, an organization in the neighborhood. Listen to what they learned.
Jahron and Mohamed interview Sabrina from Yemen and Heidi from Oregon about family, favorite food, marriage, and favorite sports. Heidi tells about her grandfather who came over from Norway in 1910.
Simon and Khalique interview Elena from Ukraine and Amina from Yemen. Both Amina and Elena talk about coming to America to make a better life for their families. Elena tells a childhood story about being saved from drowning in the Black Sea.
Kynasia and Amy interview Isabel and Rafaela.
Kathy and Wan Er find out how one of their interviewees worked in a shoe factory in China in order to pay for her trip to America, while the other woman walked over the border from Mexico to come here to be with her husband.
With the tables turned, two women from Yemen interview Kathy and Wan Er about their lives.
Samuel and Emmanuel interview Ikram and Wahida from Yemen. They find out why it’s so important to two Yemeni women to learn English in order to live in America.
James and Clint interview Amina from Yemen and Elena from Ukraine. Elena describes how she came to the United States after winning a green card in the lottery and Amina tells James and Clint about coming here to be with her family.
Samuel and Emmanuel interview Rafaela from the Dominican Republic and Isabella from Mexico.
Amy, Simon, and Khalique interview Mariel from Mexico with Spanish translation provided by Mr. Calero.
