A Bay Tale
Motivation is perhaps the most valuable aspect to one’s personality, and its something that I believe you are born with. I support the idea that what you’ve got in your blood really does make who you are. Thats why I always take pride in representing my family and our heritage. Being brought up by dad, a classic Italian, I guess you could say I am a proud individual and I have got a decent set of morals. The Firenzi family, has gone through their fair share of trials and tribulations to end up where we are today.
Originally my last name was spelled Firenze with an ‘e’ at the end instead of an ‘i’. My dad said that when our ancestors immigrated here from Italy that the people working at Ellis Island had so many people to deal with that they disregarded how our last name was spelled and just threw an ‘i’ on the end. Translated to Italian Firenze directly translates to Florence which is a well known city in Italy. When interviewing my dad he did not know all too much about our family tree but he seemed to be sure that our family started in Florence. Since my dad didn’t know why the Firenzis initially immigrated to America, I did a little research and found some of the main motivators of italian immigration in the early 1900s. I discovered that a lot of Italy at that time was extremely crowded and there wasn’t much to hope for when it came to opportunities. If you had a job with a low wage that was probably going to be your job for life. Wages in Italy were noticeably much lower than those in America. A carpenter in Italy on average made around eight dollars a week while an Italian immigrant with the same job in America could make eighteen dollars week. Making double the paycheck was definitely a huge factor...
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...ted and the most inspiring part about it for me was that they didn’t even know if it would pay off or not. They could have completely endangered themselves and spent all their time and money to possibly find no gold at all. Another aspect that makes my grandfather much like the characters in Crown of Dust is that he went to place where making money was hot. Like in the gold rush every wanted to strike it rich.
Later in life when I have a job of my own I hope to become like my grandfather and get a job and make it my life. Also I hope that once I find my goal that nothing will stop like the miners in Crown of Dust.
Works Cited
Firenzi, Mike. Personal interview. Saturday, February 10, 2014
"Digital History." Digital History. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
"Italian American." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 02 Oct. 2014. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Where I thought Money, fame, glory and power where my goals. I dreamed of becoming the CEO of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Moreover, the reason was that currently their CEO makes 14.5 million a year. Growing up I always assumed making more money would make me happy. As I grew up and started, working the goal was always to make more money. For instance, my first job I made $15 a day. I would tell myself if I only made $30 a day, I would be able to do this or that. As the years progress I went on to tell myself if I only made XX amount of dollars my life would get better. Now that I am making a decent amount of money now I can say okay life is better but it is not the money it is my lifestyle and my son that has enhance my
From the years 1880 to the early 1900’s immigrants from Italy began to find their way to the new land in America. But why did they choose to move and why did they choose here? Opposition to the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini was one major cause of the great number of Italians leaving Italy. Other reasons were that poverty, overpopulation, and natural disaster all spurred in Italy in the late 1800’s. Also the illiteracy rate in southern Italy was nearly 70 percent, about 10 times as high as Germany, France and England in the late 1800’s. There was a lack of cultivatable land and of industrial resources such as coal and iron. Also they had a lack of modern agricultural technology, therefor the 80% of Italians who relied on farming for their income fell to poverty when there farms became insufficient. There was also a disease, Phylloxera, which spread and killed many vineyards. Natural disasters destroyed many families’ lives in Italy including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and massive tidal waves. In Italy, a worker could make between $2 and $8 for 6 days of work, while in other countries such as the United States they could make around $20 or more a week.
The peasants in the deprived, southern area of Italy and the island of Sicily had little hope of upgrading their lives. Many diseases and natural disasters spread through the area. On top of this, Italy's crumbling government was in no state to come to its people's aid. Word that life in America was soon spreading across the land, and more and more Italians found it difficult to resist the thought of a new and more prosperous life. Italian immigrants began piling in to Ellis Island in New York to take their first steps on U.S. soil in search for a new beginning (The Library of Congress, 2004).
There are many things that I hope to accomplish and do when I get older. I want to improve and accomplish different things for myself in my career that I choose, in my material goals, and spiritually. I'm looking at the year of 2009, I will be out of college and be on my feet, hopefully. I have high expectations for myself and hope to accomplish as many of my dreams and goals as I can throughout my life.
7. Vecoli, Rudolph J., Italian Immigrants in Rural and Small Town America. New York: The American Italian Historical Association, 1987
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My Dream is to play some kind of sport in the future.I love sports I would like to either play football basketball or hockey and baseball.My goal is to get through school and college and to start my adult life and from there on.Another one of my goals is to get work done weather is house work school work or work that is needed to be done I would not want to be lazy.A Dream of mine is to get into high school.
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When I think back on all of my family members, one thing that ties them all together is resilience. All but one of my grandparents were directly involved in D-Day operations and all of them survived, but they carried some of their own scars onto their children, either through addictions (alcohol and cigarettes) or their more aggressive attitudes from all they had seen. As the books says, military families end up being overall more resilient to hardship, but also more prone to face problems (Knox 165-167), and mine is no exception. Besides that, they all faced tragedies together: my father’s pancreas was damaged after a sun stroke when he was five giving him diabetes, and my grandfather died when my mother was 14, leaving her to largely raise
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My name is Michael and I am from a little town in Italy called Erice which is located in Sicily. In the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, my family and I left Italy to travel to the beautiful New York City. My family and I were included in the 1890 New York census, which concluded that about 75,000 Italian were born as residents in New York. This all occurred before the Emergency Quota Act, which was an act that stated that about only three
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I have numerous milestones that are important to me as I move toward adulthood. The first milestone I have is to graduate college with high grades and a bachelor’s degree. I am invested in learning about my interests and aim to do the best I possibly can to achieve those goals to put me in the best possible spot to work in my field of study. Another milestone I have will be the day when I get a starting position at a job that I have always wanted to do. There will be a great feeling of self-fulfilment knowing that your hard work pays off as it translates to doing something you love. I also aim to achieve a milestone of traveling to a foreign country so that I can experience what it's like outside of america and immerse myself in the culture to truly get a taste of the world. This milestone will give me perspective and insight not only to the lives of others, but also to my own life. I do also have the milestones of becoming financially independent, getting married, settling down and having a child, but those goals are not set in defined times and by no means will go in any order. I will focus on my studies first and enjoy all the world has to offer as long as I can before I decide to settle down. I plan to make the most of the opportunities that I have before it is too