The Library of Congress

Immigration/Migration: Today and During the Great Depression Evelyn Bender and Byron Stoloff

• Is there a novel in every person?
• Are there stories that have never been told because they seemed unimportant?
• What is the value of the lives of people who will never be famous or have their biographies written?
• Are we all part of American Memory?

Students address these questions through activities using oral history methods and investigating life in the 1930s. They compare the immigration/migration experiences of their families to those of people living through the Great Depression using interviews with parents, and photographs, films, and documents from the Library of Congress and other sources.

Family stories are very rich; the stuff of literature and film. Edison/Fareira High School students, predominately Caribbean in origin, will make a real contribution to history because few Caribbean voices have become part of the written record. When students publish their work on their web sites, they make their valuable material universally available, underscoring the project's theme that we are all part of history and all part of American Memory.