Reaction #4: World War I Era Letter

Using the links I gave you last week, your text, and your VoF readings, take on the perspective of the personage you chose. You will need to produce a (750 word minimum) letter or diary entry, suitable for publication on your blog. While creativity is encouraged, your writing must be factual and show evidence that you’ve done your readings. You should reference any major events or legislation that would affect your character directly.



My Dearest Thomas,

Your last letter was received and much appreciated my love. My heart mourns for your most recent loss, I know that Paul meant a great deal to you. I am sure his family has been informed by now. Poor Josephine, I will call on her tomorrow and see if I can help any. With two young boys to raise now all on her own, I do hope she fairs well. It frightens me to see so many women dressed all in black. All these widowed women, some at such a young age, and now they have all the responsibilities of the household unloaded onto them. Do you think they will receive mother’s pensions? I certainly hope so. I do my best to stay positive, my dear, like you told me before you departed. But what I have seen weakens my stomach and chips away at my heart. I see boys not much older than our sons returning from the front lines with missing limbs. Bloody bandages masking gaping holes and crushed spirits realizing that life will never be the same. Not a single soldier returns with even a fraction of the enthusiasm he left with. These broken men slouch over and eyeball the ground as they saunter about. It makes for an extremely gloomy atmosphere.
Many women are leaving to volunteer off in France to nurse the wounded back to health. I cannot imagine what the war looks like up close. I know you refrain from including the gruesome details of your encounters in your letters. It troubles me to think that you cannot relay all of your experiences onto me but perhaps it is better that I do not know. I must stay optimistic and merely hearing from you is entirely a blessing in itself my love. I have taken the initiative to purchase some liberty bonds: it is seen as unpatriotic if one does not. However, I am happy to help the effort in any way I can. My dear husband sometimes I believe that if I could be out there with you I would. Silly thoughts, of course, but how else might I serve my country than to stand beside my fellow citizens and defend our way of life? Since I cannot join the military I have to settle with doing my best at home to be of assistance. The Food Administration has started to encourage new practices to conserve food to send out to the troops. So naturally I participate in rationing, wheatless Mondays and meatless Thursdays, as they are called. I also prepare dinners when I can for some of our friends and neighbors who have lost loved ones to the war. How I wish I could do more, but I find a certain satisfaction simply doing something.
I cannot express how profoundly I long for your presence here at home. The nights are so dreary and the bed we once shared now feels cold and empty. I wish to send only words of encouragement and hopeful expressions, but my heart cannot release itself from this desolate grasp that it has become entangled in. How long must I endure this dawdling torture? When you ventured off to serve our nation I did my best to prepare myself for what I thought would be an agonizing wait. Nothing could have primed me for such torment. Do not question my support and admiration for you, my champion, for I carry on proudly knowing that my husband selflessly defends our great nation. The posters Wilson had mounted on every corner and open space remind us all each day that our troops need our support. I simply wish that this could all end quickly so that my husband may return unharmed to his beloved children and eager wife. How I yearn to feel your touch, to hear your melodious voice whisper sweet sentiments to me once more. I fear that each knock on the door will be from some detached messenger sent to deliver the heart-stopping news that would turn me into a widow. I pray for your safety and for your speedy return. The children also worry for their father but I tell them they just have to be patient. I know not what else to say to set their fragile hearts at ease.
I do not wish to cause alarm, sweet Thomas, but I am starting to fear for our rights here at home. The government has just passed a Sedition Act that can imprison people just for criticizing the war effort. Do they expect no one to object to this war? It is precisely actions like these that cause one to question the validity of the Constitution. If our fundamental laws are so easily trumped then what security can we find in it? It worries me that our foundation is so shaky but I see why President Wilson wants to silence anti-war sentiments. I just hope after all of this that things can go back to the way they were. I almost forgot to tell you, I may have my voting rights when you return! The suffragists are pushing stronger than ever now and even taking risks of being arrested! The leader of the National Women’s Party, Alice Paul, is in prison at this very moment. She is still so influential that she started a hunger strike in jail! I know their actions seem absurd but I am excited at the thought of women finally participating in politics. This letter is starting to get lengthy so I will await your reply and save the rest of my thoughts for my response. The boys send their love and of course you know I send all of mine.

Forever Yours,
Jane

Reaction #3

It’s 1920 and you, Alonzo Vasquez, are a Mexican immigrant to the United States. While you love your new country, it is very important to you that your family remember and honor your culture and traditions, many of which are tied to your homeland. You are increasingly worried that your children, in the process of becoming “American,” are ignoring the importance of their heritage. Why is it so important to you that your family retain some cultural connection to Mexico and your Mexican heritage? What evidence is there that your children are being wholly “Americanized?” What conflicts has this created between you and your children?

I'm so tired of these Americanization workers coming into my home and telling my family how to live. Why do these people think we do not know how to act, as if we are not civilized? They tell my wife how to cook and clean, how to care for our children and how to be a good American. They come to my work and make me attend classes on how to be American. They insist on teaching me English but I see no need to learn it. My wife and I get by on what little we know. I cannot believe how they intrude on us, barging into our home like we have no rights. They have filled my wife's head with so many lies that she is starting to believe them and I see her slowly trading in our customs for theirs. The groceries she brings home consist of "healthy American foods", the songs she sings are silly American nursery rhymes, and even her clothes are changing. I am not pleased at all with this; next she will be going to work for them in their homes like some slave. The children see their mother and think they should also conform. My youngest ones do not know our culture very well and I am afraid they will go blind to it completely. How dare these Americans try to take our heritage! I am not displeased with my new home but I will not forget where I come from. I am proud of my ancestry. And now I watch my little ones start to drift away. I hear them repeat the English words of the songs their mother sings. I see them pushing aside their books from home and instead diving into American ones they bring from school. I heard about Mexican schools coming up around California, I am considering switching my children to them. This way they will keep their native language and learn our history. My older children are almost dead to me. My daughter is engaged to some American boy who hardly has a job and she wants to work to be independent. How foolish of her, she knows she needs to stay home and care for her family. After much argument we are no longer speaking. My eldest son is no better. He went off to Texas to work; I think he will marry soon as well. He speaks English fluently and tries to get me to converse with him in English but I refuse. I hardly hear from him anymore. Sometimes I feel things would just be better if we returned to Mexico but the conditions there were not what I wanted to raise my family in. It pains me to see them turn their back on our culture but maybe they will appreciate it more as they grow older. Perhaps I will return to my homeland and let them stay in America and live the dream.

-Alonzo Vasquez

Reaction #2

It’s 1892 and you, Esther Klein, are a 17-year-old textile mill worker in the American northeast. You are new to the country and to industrial work, having worked previously on your parents’ farm in the old country. As much as you longed to come to America, your life as a poor Jewish industrial worker in the United States makes you have second thoughts. And life at the mill—why you and some of the other girls dream of organizing and standing up to the mill owners, but what you’ve seen of other labor organizing worries you! So tell me, Esther, what are the sources of your dissatisfaction as a poor woman, a worker, and a Jewish immigrant? Why have your dreams, of what life in America would be, changed?

Life in America is much different than I had imagined. Back home they spoke of the freedom, the ability to become anything, the endless opportunities that America held. Maybe I came to the wrong place. Father said things were going to change for the better. He said we would find peace here and we would work our way up to riches. "The American Dream!" he would proclaim. Well, my dreams were not to come to an unfamiliar land and be hated by everyone. They look at us like we disgust them. It is as if we reek a foul odor and pain them with our presence. We expected to start off low but these conditions are unacceptable. Everything is so cramped: entire families sleep on top of one another. And work is so exhausting each day. I tended the farm back home but here there is only work in factories. I must go to a mill and work alongside many women for hours with no breaks. There is poor light and no air; many days I feel I will faint. They do not let us go home when we are sick and we must come in to work each day or we will lose our job. I hate waking up so early and going home so late. I hardly have time to complete my tasks around the house in between work at the mill. I have no time to sleep. I heard talk of girls planning to protest the conditions but many women say it is taboo, that they will be fired and replaced immediately. I was approached by a girl not much older than myself about the protest. I believe she is the one who is organizing it. She says that there is a whole labor movement happening and told me of some knights who were successful in getting some of their demands met. I am inspired by her determination but I am not sure I will join. Mother says I need this job, little as it pays, to help support the family. If I am fired we cannot afford to eat. Besides, the girl beside me said that those same knights led a bunch of workers striking some company and police fired on them and killed four workers! Then they protested that too and more people ended up dying. So I do not think I will get involved. I will continue to work for meager earnings and fight to be seen as more than just a woman, just a Jew, because I know in my heart that America is changing and will become the land they spoke of back home. One day I will have everything Father dreamt of and no one will look at me like I am less. Instead they will smile and say, "you see, anything is possible: she made it and so can I".

-Esther Klien