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History of Newark: Final Essay

This assignment challenges students to develop an original argument pertaining to Newark’s immigrant experience based off your readings of multiple primary sources.  You have been provided with personal descriptions of life in Newark during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries by five individuals representing three different migrant groups: two African American, two Puerto Rican, and one Portuguese. Your task is to read through all five accounts and identify what were the most important similarities in the migrant experience.  Topics you might explore include:

• Did they tend to be wealthy or poor?
• Did they experience racism?
• What were their motivations for moving to Newark?
• How did migration change their relationship to their families?
• What was their work experience in Newark like?
• How did they relate to their fellow migrants?
• What was their support system in Newark?
• Did they form families or build communities?
• Were they successful?
• Did women’s experiences differ from men’s?

You do not need to address all of these questions!  Select at least two sources to complete an analysis of their experiences.  Including more than two sources and covering more than two themes will likely provide more evidence and strengthen your argument. You should aim to write a 3-4 page paper (Size 12 font, double spaced).  You can compare the experience of one group by choosing two sources from that group (two African American or two Puerto Rican) or you can draw comparisons between different groups.  If you find a theme in which differences rather than similarities stand out, you may write about that as long as you are clear about your intention.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Essays should be at least three pages, double spaced, Times New Roman font. Essays exceeding four pages are acceptable, as long all material is relevant to the topic.
• Essays should be submitted in approved file formats only (No .pages!).
• For citations of words and ideas drawn from the sources, use parenthetical citations after the borrowed material. For this essay, you can simply site the names of the people’s stories as (George Branch, Louise Epperson) etc.
  • Example: The author believed that in Newark “everybody knew everybody” (George Branch).
• Quotes should not exceed three lines, and paragraphs should usually have no more than two or three quotes each.
• Choose your quotes wisely. If you are simply providing information from an article, you might be better served by summarizing or paraphrasing.
• Simply rewording quoted material does not count as analysis.
• You may refer to class lectures and class readings for background information. However, no additional sources from outside of this course should be used. Essays using outside sources without permission will not receive a passing grade.  The primary sources provided should be your main source for the essay.
• The essay should have a clear argument or thesis stated in first paragraph. State what similarities/differences you will be discussing.
• Each paragraph should be structured around a main idea, clearly stated in a topic sentence.
• Strong paragraphs will generally draw connections between multiple sources.
• Paragraphs should proceed logically from one to the next, following a clear thematic or chronological order.
• Essays should show clear evidence of revision and editing. Essays with numerous typographical errors will receive a grade of C at best.
• You do not need a works cited page for this assignment.

TWENTIETH AND TWETNY-FRIST CENTURY SOURCES

George Branch (African American)

I was born in North Carolina in 1928.  I only spent four years of my education in North Carolina and I moved to Newark in 1941. My father died in 1939 he was about 37 years of age.  My father was a farmer, sharecropper, and he also was a barber by profession.  My mother was head of the house, running the house, maintaining, cooking, preparing for the family. And then when she got a chance, she would go work in the field along with my father and myself.   I have seven siblings; I’m the oldest.  The South was a rural area where you work on the farm, where labor was cheap, and we worked in the cotton field.  I worked for fifty cents a day. And my aunt lived in New York and used to visit us and she talked about how the living was good in the northern states and labor was better and you could get a job fast and you didn’t have to work in the field. You didn‘t have to bend over all day long picking cotton.

I came to New York first. I moved into New York with three of us, me, my sister, and a friend.  The journey was kind of exciting and then it was frightening. I didn‘t know what I was coming to. The books that we read, the pictures that we saw, the big city was the place to live. We always dream after looking at all that I would be there one day. We traveled by train. My mother was able to save up the little money that we made, and my aunt, I think she contributed to it. The train was clean. The porters were very nice and courteous on there. Most all of them were Black in those days and time. We packed out little food from down home. We packed it in a shoe box. We ate chicken, ham, biscuits, you know. The trains were segregated in those days and times. There were certain sections, for Blacks and then for whites, the whites and the Blacks are not sitting together on the train at all.

When we got here, in Manhattan with my aunt, we met a good friend, a janitor, who owned a building, and we got to know him. And he used to take us around and the various groups they would donate clothes, give us money. We moved to Newark in 1941. And then the rest of my family finally arrived in Newark. And we lived on Barker Street; the area was economically stable, jobs were plentiful, the community was a growing community, playground was filled with kids in the afternoon, nobody was robbing, knocking people in the head. So it was just a joy in the community, Because everybody knew each other. You could walk out your house and leave your door open. I used to carry ice for a living, and I used to carry wood for a living. I used to shine shoes to make a living. You know, it just was a great life.  I did not help anybody to move to Newark and we lost contact with a lot of my family.

In Newark I was surrounded much activity all over the place where you didn‘t have any in the South. So you become accustomed to your new environment. I could run downstairs, run out the door, and run across the street to get a soda or some candy or some cookies, And in the South you couldn‘t do that. You had miles to go before you get to a store. And it wasn‘t easy to walk there when you was out on the plantation or the farm. You‘d go in the general store and order what they want. White men always say you owe for this, you owe for that. If you didn‘t have education and you couldn’t see regular records of what you got and what you have you were just out of luck. And it was the same identical thing here in Newark.  Most of the Jews and Italians had the stores and they had no problem with credit. The problem was when you got it, you paid more at the end then what you actually should have paid when you bought the stuff, because they put it on the books, and you never kept no books. The Jews are discriminating against Blacks in some instance, that was the real truth in the urban cities.

Stores catered to what black folks were used to having from the South. Otherwise, you couldn’t go in and sell Italian food to Black folks just like that, or Jewish food.  Here in Newark, there was very few Black-owned stores. Most of the Blacks owned the beauty shop, the barber shops, the pool room, restaurants.  Barbershops were like a hangout place. Guys who went to get haircuts got to know the barber, the barber got to know you, you developed a relationships with the barber. Then you became friends. And you could come and chat and get a haircut, sit around. Some guys sit around a barbershop all day long You know, and just have fun.