Every week, the AWM is excited to bring you stories written by our visitors in our Story of the Day exhibit, which features typewriters that visitors can interact with directly, or our newest temporary exhibit, My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today. Check back weekly for new stories, and visit the Museum to try out our typewriters, see the exhibit, and possibly be featured here!
Part of our newest temporary exhibit features an interactive station that allows visitors to write their family’s story on a luggage tag and stamp it with the reason their family came to the United States, whether it was Family, Refuge, by Force, for Freedom or Opportunity, or a different reason. Below are four stories shared in the exhibit, which opened to the public November 21, 2019. Visit the Museum or comment below to share your family’s immigration (or migration) story.
“We came through the lottery system in 2001 from Romania. I thought it was just a vacation. This is the longest “vacation” I’ve ever been on. My first memories here were shocking but they add to who I am. West Lawn & Oradea make me who I am.”
1/5/20 Ioana Bogdan
“My father’s mom was sold as a housekeeper to a rich family in NY. She left Puerto Rico after elementary school (11 years old).”
1/13/20
“My grandparents migrated to the U.S. after being liberated from a Jewish ghetto.
My dad, at two years old, came with them.
They escaped Hitler’s final solution by weeks.”
12/21/19 NP
“My mom immigrated to Chicago in 1968, leaving former Yugoslavia, now Croatia, behind. Her family immigrated for better opportunities and freedom from facism.”
1/11/2020 Nellie