LF: Coming To America (Neil Diamond's Anthem)

Title: Coming To America (Neil Diamond's Anthem)
Source: utoob
URL Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTHdC7k4uY
Published: Apr 18, 2015
Author: Johnny Kim
Post Date: 2015-04-18 10:33:52 by Liberator
Keywords: Immigration, legal, NeilDiamond
Views: 11343
Comments: 36

As a school project, some students honor America's welcoming arm to immigrants -- presumably, LEGAL ones. Excellent job with their photos as choice of song. Pretty touching tribute....

My ancestors all entered through Ellis Island. Must have been daunting but at the same time absolutely awesome entering New York Harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic of hope for the future.

Snapshot of a family portrait on my wall. The original photograph was created circa 1918+ by my Great Great Grandfather. He was a blacksmith in Russia, and then in Johnstown Colorado -- after loading his family into a Cattle-boat headed for the Statue of Liberty.

There's so much symbolism in this photo. The piled snow, the small cold hands in pockets -- the bare skin and defiant eyes that seem to say: "Cold? We survived the Russian Revolution with nothing but a wheelbarrow full of tools and the clothes on our backs. We SURVIVED.... and intend to keep on doing so... it's a Tradition."

The lady on the left was my Great-Great granny. I've found everybody in the photo, except her, in the Ellis Island registry.... so we think maybe she was probably, technicaly, an "illegal" imigrant.

I have a 5 generation snapshot of her holding me as an infant. In the same photo are my dad, his mom, and the woman on the middle, my Great granny whose matriarchal leadership our family had the pleasure of knowing until the mid 1990's.

My maternal great grandparents and grandparents did also.
By the early 1950s my maternal grandparents owned and a
general store and ice cream parlor in Wildwood New Jersey
(a resort town).

But he got tired of the long ours, and moved up into the
Philadelphia suburbs and took a job managing a drug store.
Later took a job managing all of the bars in the Garden
State Park horse racing complex. A job which mostly
consisted of ordering the booze, keeping inventory, hiring
and firing the bartenders and barmaids - and making sure
that they stayed sober.

Pretty easy job that kept him in a new Chrysler every year -
sometimes every other year if he had one that he liked at
the time. Like that black one (a Newport). The green
Newport (last one ever owned) was a major piece of junk however.
My mom inherited it from him when he died.
It's engine ultimately caught on fire...

By the early 1950s my maternal grandparents owned and a general store and ice cream parlor in Wildwood New Jersey (a resort town).

Which part of Wildwood? Spent a few summers down there (early 60s) for two weeks at a time as a young kid with aunts, uncles and cousins. The beach and boardwalk were THE best on the Jersey shore, and arguably on the entire east coast. Wildwood is the Canadians' "Miami."

Later took a job managing all of the bars in the Garden State Park horse racing complex. A job which mostly consisted of ordering the booze, keeping inventory, hiring and firing the bartenders and barmaids - and making sure that they stayed sober.

My mom inherited it from him when he died. It's engine ultimately caught on fire...The black Newport (the good one) was a '66 like this one, I think...

My pops had a '67 Newport...and handed it down to me some years later. What a monstah cruiser. Bit of trivia -- the designer of that gen of Chrysler Newport also designed the classic '61 gen of Lincoln Continental T-Bird.

My paternal grandmother died when my father was
was a small boy - my paternal grandfather
died when my father was 18 in the Marines fighting
WW2.

A few decades ago, my parents and my little brother went
out to Ohio to visit my father's big brother.
My dad hired a fishing charter boat to take everybody
fishing. (On Lake Erie, I think.). I don't know if they
caught anything.