Home With David And The English example essay topic

It is arguable that the early years of the 20th century were, collectively, a pivotal moment in the history of America. The wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe at that point in time ushered in an era of industrialization and work effort that would eventually form the backbone of the United States as an economically dominant world power. Scores of books and stories have been written to depict the struggles and conflicts endured by these early American people and Call it Sleep, by Henry Roth, is a wonderful example of such a tale. I believe that the aspects of immigrant life depicted in the novel Call it Sleep, which are most important in understanding the lives of immigrants in America during the early 1900's, are language, labor and industrialization, and the interaction between different ethnic groups. The main character of the book, David Schearl, is of a Jewish family. His borderline-psychotic father, Albert, left David and his mother and came to America some time ago to earn money and establish a living before arranging for his family to join him.

This situation was a remarkably mainstream practice for early immigrants such as in the case of the Lithuanians in which "a third of the husbands had left their families in the old world". (Barrett, p. 45) Throughout the story, he has important life experiences, all of which can be attributed to immigrants Linguistic difficulty is a hindrance for an immigrant, regardless of his or her origin. As a matter of fact, language is still a struggle for some people who live in microcosmic communities in present day America. One of the most powerful tools used in the novel is the distinction that Roth develops between the literal Yiddish spoken at home with David and the (broken) English spoken by the streets of New York.

With some patients and imagination, a reader really obtains a sense of what conversation was like for most immigrants - simple and understandable around friends and family at home as opposed to challenging and prone to miscommunication on the streets and in the workplace. In one instance in Call it Sleep, David becomes lost while evading a gang of boys and has a more than difficult time trying to get back home. At first, he is unintentionally led further astray by a man, trying to help him find his way back home, who takes David's pronunciation "Bod deh (Border) Strict" to mean "Potter Street". (Roth, p. 97) Later he meets a woman who is equally, if not more, confused by his accent. She ends up taking him to a police department where more misunderstanding occurs between David and some (presumably) Irish police officers that have their own specific brogue. Not being able to speak proper English, or English at all, was a significant problem for early immigrants.

In The Jungle, Juris and his family were absolutely lost as soon as they came to America until they were taught the word "stockyards."In terms of the language barrier which divided many of them... nearly half of those in each group were not able to speak English". (Barrett, p. 46) Language also could serve as a determining factor for how long someone had been in the country. Generally, those who had been in America for an extended period of time, they knew how to speak more or better English. "More articulate workers acted as interpreters... cultural bridges, between the older and newer immigrants". (Barrett, p. 46) There is also the dichotomy with trying to preserve some culture in the chaos and alienation of a modern city while trying to be consistent with conduct and customs of the New World.

In one occurrence, David's own father even scolds him by telling him, "say it in English, you fool!" (Roth, p. 25) The anxiety to succumb to Americanization was enough for Albert to all but sever any form of a relationship he had with David by banning him from speaking Yiddish in simple conversation. Even though the issue of labor is not heavily explored in the novel, I feel that it is crucial in order to comprehend the environments that most early immigrants were subjected to in America. Little or nothing is known about what kind of labor Albert Schearl was involved in at the beginning of the book, although one can speculate that it was industrial in nature. Moreover, his subsequent occupation, of a milk delivery person, was uncharacteristic to that of how most immigrants, comparable to his persona, made a living. In growing metropolises such as New York and Chicago, the majority of employment came from stockyards and packinghouses. Irish and German immigrants were seen as the most experienced, or skilled, workers mainly because they had been in the country longer, could speak the language, and have had much practice in their specified jobs.

"They were the veterans, the 'first generation,' in the industry". (Barrett, p. 42) However, in the regimented, mass-production style of industry in America, specialized labor took on a concept of a "labor aristocracy". Also, workers either had to be or learned to be skilled in a variety of different tasks; this business tactic became known as "go-between". This strategy offered otherwise unskilled workers the chance to earn extra money; "it also represented a bridge from one job to another". (Barrett, p. 44) As mentioned earlier, language was effective in identifying skilled people; English-speaking people tended to have higher-paying job positions (i.e. Irish and Germans).

Regardless of your profession though, there was always an element of danger. The cold, for one, was an inescapable threat to almost any worker in any factory in any given city. There have been accounts of workers trudging to work in huge snowdrifts and falling over from exhaustion and freezing to death. In addition, the working conditions of nearly all work areas often ranged from substandard to appalling. Severely swollen knuckles, missing nails, and hands missing fingers or covered in cuts were just a few of the many consequences of working in a job site such as the killing floors. Worker unions and safety standards would not have been established for a few more decades.

The way in which different ethnic groups intermingled was also an important subject during the early 20th century. Immigrants of a myriad of different backgrounds could be found working in the same industry together. In a study done of Chicago's Union Stockyards and the surrounding slaughtering and meat-packing plants, in 1908-9, more than forty nationalities were represented. (Barrett, p. 37) Upton Sinclair has aptly stated the diversity of any given, mass-production industry, such as meat-packing, and the pull such industries had on new crops of immigrants to America. Afterward, as cheaper labor had come, these Germans had moved away.

The next were the Irish - there had been six or eight years when Packing town had been a regular Irish city... The Bohemians had come then, and after them the Poles... The Poles, who had come by the tens of thousands, had been driven to the wall by the Lithuanians, and now the Lithuanians were giving way to the Slovaks. Who there was poorer and more miserable than the Slovaks, Grandmother Majauszkiene had no idea, but the packers would find them, never fear. However, factories were not the only environments in which one could discover ethnic assortment. In Call it Sleep, David encounters a mixture of different cultures nearly everyday.

Unfortunately, the majority of his encounters are with neighborhood gangs of non-Jewish youth and their anti-Semitic attitudes. Also, a couple of other boys that David knows were speaking about a Chinese dry cleaner by using derogatory terms. (Roth, p. 175) But not all people that David comes in contact with are malicious. Leo, his Polish friend, the Irish police officers, even the personnel at his dad's former factory all show kindness towards David. Just as racism was a significant obstacle throughout America during the early 1900's and beyond, it should not go with out saying that there was general acceptance of different races for the most part. The modern age and issues surrounding it are not all that different from issues that were significant about a century ago.

Fortunately, working standards have improved greatly, so labor conditions is the exception. But language is still a topic of much debate in the world today. There are still families like the Schearl family who speaks fluent Yiddish at home and English, the best they know how, beyond those doors. It seems that throughout Call it Sleep, David is often troubled by questions of belonging. The only source of tenderness or receptiveness he receives at home comes from his mother as opposed to when he interacts with his father or others out on the streets, where he is "welcomed" harshly by outright cruelty or the hard facts of life. David's own personal situation was likely, and probably still is, a common state of affairs for most ethnic groups.

Humans need to have a sense of belonging; somewhere they can feel welcome, relaxed, and safe.

Bibliography

Roth, Henry. Call it Sleep. New York: Noonday Press, 1934 - Sinclair, Upton;
The Jungle. Course packet. - Barrett, James; Work and Community in the Jungle. Urbana: U of I Press, 1987.