Question

Write a two page essay explaining why was it difficult for Rosaria Baldizzi to gain her citizenship from the lower east side tenement apartment. ( what was the law back then in the 20th century)

Answer 1

Museum Researchers conducted interviews between 1988 and 1993 with Josephine Baldizzi, who lived in 97 Orchard Street during the final years of use of the building as a residence. Josephine recalled vivid details of growing up on the Lower East Side during the years of the Great Depression over several hours of recorded memory. These memories plus primary source documents, despite the amount of detail, leave gaps in our knowledge of the lives of the Baldizzi family.

So, they came from Sicily, Palermo. Her dad, Adolfo Baldizzi, matched in 1922 for Rosaria Mutolo's marriage. Shortly thereafter, Adolfo left Sicily departing for Switzerland as a stowaway on a "Swiss Navy" ship. Adolfo boarded the S.S. after a short police chase and a fortunate crossing of the frontier into France. Suffer bound for City of New York. The vessel manifests that on November 1, 1923, he arrived. He settled on Elizabeth Street and Adolfo signed an American Citizenship Declaration of Intent within a half year.

His departure from Sicily aside, Adolfo's immigration method and his original Citizenship Declaration indicate that he was going the correct way about things. Oral histories are irrefutable sources, but they can lead to confusion and sometimes contradict other primary source information. Josephine's memory of the' illegal' introduction by her father juxtaposed with the obvious reality of the papers underlines the fallibility of oral history. However, the paperwork and the oral history of Josephine align with Rosaria's immigration.

Rosaria Baldizzi had to circumvent the quota constraints created by the National Origins Act of 1924 to be reunited with her family in the United States. From her arrival on April 13, 1925 to her re-entry through Canada on July 4, 1945, she stayed an Undocumented Immigrant. As she grew older, Josephine's curiosity substituted her devilry, and she became more concerned about Rosaria's immigration process of her mother being brokered through a network of what would be called human traffickers today. Josephine intimates that her mother, who was little more than a teenager, did not consider questioning the process.

Rosaria was well conscious of what she was doing despite her youth. Furthermore, although Josephine does not finish the phrase of her mother, there is an implication that since' many individuals ' found methods to circumnavigate the Immigration Law of 1924, Rosaria felt allowed to do the same. The exclusive quotas created by the 1924 rendered it impossible for happy arrivals leaving Italy, Russia, and the whole of Asia to immigrate to America. After 1924, married males who, like Adolfo, emigrated before their wives, faced the difficulty of separating themselves from their partners. Not content with the fact of exclusion and having no intention of returning to Sicily,

Adolfo discovered a way to be reunited with Rosaria with some' individuals' and' finagled.' Entering the United States with another name as an American passport meant that Rosaria lived on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn for the next two centuries as an undocumented (or as Josephine recalled, "illegal") immigrant. She raised two born American kids, held a job, maintained the house, socialized with friends and neighbours. She did everything she could consider' normal' for a mom, excluding her immigration status. Yet Rosaria lived with the steady threat of deportation because of her undocumented status... that is, until temporary reform came.

By 1935, in the United States, thousands of individuals lived as undocumented immigrants. Like Rosaria, they spent years living in America, starting families, and working to help them. They were fully incorporated as neighbors and community members for all reasons. It would be hard and destabilizing to locate and deport these undocumented immigrants. The Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, extended the 1933 Pre-Examination Procedure to undocumented immigrants in reaction to a growing common resistance to deportations. In fact, the pre-examination procedure (which continued from 1933-1958 with two exceptions) was a type of amnesty that granted undocumented immigrants

However, in the lack of the Pre-Examination Program, it is impossible to understand how the tale of Rosaria would have been different. Rosaria was able to get out of the shadows of an' illegal' status through this program. Her tale raises unresolved questions about the immigration policy of America at the moment. And while many insist on' going in line' and' doing it the correct way,' the tale of Rosaria continues as a reminder that paths to citizenship are not easy, direct, or similarly guaranteed— and possibly impossible without assistance and reform.