Summer Reading ~ Immigrant Kids

Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge

Congratulations!  Our class has read over 1500 minutes!

Immigrant Kids ~ At Work

Speaking of connections made while reading, I made many text to self connections while reading this section of the book.  This section was particularly powerful for me as it directly relates to my "job" as an immigrant child.  "What are you talking about Sra. Raff?!"  You may be asking yourself.

The newsies!  I loved reading about the boys and girls who sold newspapers on city streets shouting "Extra! Extra! Read all about it...!"

As an immigrant child, at the age of 10 I sold newspapers.  Of course, we're talking modern era, NOT the 1800s but there are so many things that still remain the same.  Let's start at the beginning:

"These 'newsies' were independent business people.  They paid cash for each armload of papers and took the loss for any papers they couldn't sell.  They gathered at newspaper offices in the middle of the night, waiting for the early morning editions to roll off the presses (Freedman, p. 49)"

The picture on page 49 brings back memories!  While I did not fall asleep on the concrete outside a building waiting for the morning edition; I did often have to wait outside in my car at 3:00 am.  The newspapers today, come in bundles and I'd have to wait until the bundles arrived to the loading spot.  Then, my sisters, parents and I loaded them onto the car and proceeded to deliver them to people's homes.  As opposed to the newsies of the 1800s, we did not roam the streets selling the papers one by one.

As a modern era newsie, I can appreciate never having had to haul a large bundle of newspapers from one place to another.  Today, we just load them onto the car.

Newspaper delivery people of today continue to be considered "independent contractors" like the newsies were back in the 1800s.  There is a difference though, instead of paying for the newspapers on a daily basis news delivery people pay for the newspapers monthly.  They charge their clients a fee for delivering to their home daily and part of that fee goes to pay for the newspapers they deliver.  If there's a loss of clientele then the newspaper delivery person takes that loss.

My favorite newsie!  A 7 year-old boy from Mobile Alabama in 1917.

Making all these personal connections made me think that being an immigrant child today is not really much different from being an immigrant child in the 1800 or 1900s.  Sure, we have some amenities that make it easier to bear, such as cars, heating and cooling systems.  However, many immigrant children contribute to their homes in one way or another; often working to help their families, like I did.  It made me wonder...how do you contribute to your family?  Some people believe that American children are spoiled rotten and don't contribute to their families at all!  Do you agree?

I was reading this article, an anthropologist has suggested that American children are the most spoiled in all the world!  Back in the 18 & 1900s American children contributed in a great way to the home, but now-a-days?  The anthropologist suggests that American children do not contribute to their families.  It cites real life examples to prove a point, I'm wondering:

Compare your role as a child today from a child in the 1800s:
How would your life be different?
Do you believe you are spoiled rotten?  
Why or why not?

Fruit-Picking Children

Who is picking your berries?? Watching this video and reading this report by ABC News reminded me of our unit last year on Movements and Lewis Hine and his crusade against Child Labor.

Last year, one of our Narrative Inputs, was about Lewis Hine and the movement against Child Labor in the USA.

The last comment, posed by Diane Sawyer "The parents take these children to work..." is (to me) ignorant. She obviously is not aware of the living conditions of these families! They make, according to the ABC News report, less than the minimum wage, about $5.00 per hour!

Remember our lesson about Bob and minimum wage? How are these families supposed to support themselves on less than minimum wage? What is your thought about this?

I was and continue to be pretty upset about it. Strawberries and blue berries, berries in general are very expensive and these BIG farms are making loads and loads of money off of child labor and low wages. It makes me sad that after all of the advances of the labor movement, we seem to be losing ground; especially with the battles against child labor.