Liberty Station Musuem Field Trip Reflection

From Haven to Home exhibit:

The point of this exhibit was to teach us everything about Judaism in America. The history, the politics, the famous people, the laws, the landmarks, events like the Holocaust, all of that was covered in this exhibit. For instance, the start of the Jewish religion in America was in 1654, where 23 Jews arrived in New Amsterdam. This was something totally new to me as I had never thought of when or where Jews came to America. When we looked at the famous Jewish people section, I noticed that renowned inventor Albert Einstein was Jewish, as was Ruth Handler, more popularly known a the inventor of the Barbie doll.

Another interesting fact about people and the Jewish religion is that Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh were anti-semantic, which means they were prejudiced against and discriminated Jews. I was very surprised at the famous people who I've heard of all my life but never known they were practicing or against Judaism. Speaking of prejudiced, the tour guide told us something you won't find written in the exhibit. She told us how there was prejudice towards Jews inside the religion. By that I mean, the German Jews who came earliest, were prejudiced towards the more eastern Jews who came a little later.

A famous Jewish landmark in America is the Touro Synagogue, which is the first synagogue to be built in America. It was opened over 200 years ago, in 1763. In the early 19th century, the state of Maryland passed the "Jew Bill". In that state (along with Massachusetts) Jewish people couldn't run for office because if they won they would have to take thier oath on a Christian bible, so the Jew Bill fixed this and stated that Jewish people in office did not have to go through that (although they still had to make their oaths). The bill passed in 1825. Also in the 19th century, a Jewish poet named Emma Lazarus wrote lines that to this day, are engraved into the base of the statue of liberty.

Times like the Holocaust were horrible. During the Holocaust, only 200,000 Jews were able to be safe in America. The number may sound like a lot, but compare it to the six million other Jews who fell victim to this time outside of the U.S.A. The last thing I learned from this exhibit before we left was that Yiddish, a Jewish language, was made up of German, mixed with Russian and Hebrew.

Children of Immigrants Exhibit:

My favorite picture was "Boy from Albania is fingerprinted upon arrival", taken in 1999 inside the O'Hare International Airport. The main reason I like it is because the little boy looks unhappy and confused, which are the common emotions for most of the immigrants and their children. It also helps I'm proud of my Albanian heritage.

My favorite quote was "I believe as an individual I can help America achieve it's goals. I remember last year I helped collect canned foods for the soup kitchen. Also I raised money when the Twin Towers fell. I believe thins like this may seem little, but they can amount to larger and bigger things". This really stuck out to me, because it had a lesson, that every person makes a difference, and I liked the philosophy this quote contained.

I liked the essay by Roger Yan, called "The Untold Story of a Chinese American". It was a boy talking about his immigrant father, I liked it because it was very unique, descriptive and harrowing. It involved his dad dealing with communism to pirates to opening a liquor store in our very own San Diego.