Field Trip Reflection

From Haven to Home: The purpose of this exhibit was to show other what life was like for a Jewish person who came to live in America. From this museum I learn many things, such as many important people in America that were Jewish. People such as Hank Greenberg, Albert Einstein, and Ruth Handle, all these people helped contribute to America's Society. We also learned about Jewish people's rights in American from 1790-1823. We learned that each state was free to discriminate Jewish people as they wished and that back then Massachusetts was the state that most discriminated Jewish people. In Maryland and Massachusetts, the government made everyone who was elected into office take an oath on a Christian Bible, and this made the Jewish people not want to be in office, which was what Maryland and Massachusetts wanted. This was the same until 1825 where Maryland passed what was known as "The Jew Bill" which allowed Jews not have to take an oath on the Christian Bible. I also learned that how the Jewish people affected the Civil War and that about 9,000 American Jews fought in the Civil War for the Union, while about 3,000 fought for the Confederacy. I also learned that Judah Benjamin became the first Secretary of State for the Confederacy, but soon fled to England to escape false accusation that he plotted President Lincoln's assassination.

Between Cultures: I chose a picture of a mother and a daughter that were from Thailand and came to America in 1998. This photo was taken at the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. In this picture the little girl is laying in her mother lap. I liked this picture because I think that it shows what most immigrants feel when they first come to America, fear and happiness. In this picture the mother shows the happiness because she is smiling down at her daughter. The daughter, shows the fear because she looks scared because she in a new place which she is not familiar. So I think that most immigrants feel happiness because they are in a new, better place. I also think that they feel fear because they are in a place which has a different culture then their own. I chose the quote "America has everything we need: technology, goods. At least one person from every nation lives here. People immigrate to America because they know it's a land of freedom and a better life. I see America as the land of opportunities" from Tamara Frank from Poland. I really liked this quote because I think that this is what our founding father intended for this country. They intended this country to be the land of the free and the land of opportunities. So I think that this person really understands that America is really a great place to live. I chose the personal essay called The Untold Story of a Chinese-American. In this essay the person tells the life of his father who immigrated to America from Vietnam. In this essay it tells the story of how he got to America and the many hardships he had to go through in order to get to America. I liked this essay because i think that it shows that being an immigrate was very hard, but in the end it is great to be in America.