Reaction 2

When I realized that I would finally be getting my chance to escape the old country I was ecstatic. I had grown weary of living the penniless existence on my weary family farm, the same farm that five other generations of Preschuwitz's had wasted away never knowing anything different. By some stroke of good fortune I was going to be the first in my family to be sent, it ought to have been my brother, but my family could not have managed the farm without him. My mother thought that as a strong, young woman finding a job and earning a steady income would be easy for me. In a way I suppose she was right, in another completely wrong.
As soon as I stepped off the boat in the New York harbor I became concerned. I thought I had come to the land of acceptance and opportunity, yet when I informed the man in the dark suit I was Jewish he frowned, and when I told him my name he shook his head and said you are Esther Klein now. I spent the first night crying in a dark alley. I did not know what else to do, I knew no one and could not read the street signs to find the lodgings my parents had told me to go for housing The next day was slightly better, I purchased my breakfast in the streets and found another girl my age. She too spoke my native language (as hard as I had tried to learn English it still felt foreign against my tongue). Her older sister was already here in America, that she had a good paying job in a textile mill making shirts alittle farther north. Jenna (her American name) said that I was welcome to go with her and find a job at this mill too.
Getting a job at the mill was easy, and it was nice to be paid for my work. Slowly I realized though that while the conditions had seemed better, they really were not. While I was making a much higher wage than I could have ever fathomed back home, the money was spent much faster too. The lodgings I was forced to live in were horrible and ridiculously expensive, they were owned by the mill. Supplies, food, everything cost more here. Not only was I often harassed at work; hit and screamed at by the managers for not working fast enough, I had no comforts to come home to. Every night I went back to my dark room alone, and every morning I left early. My days here are long, I would guess I work fourteen hours a day, six days a week though I can not observe the sabbath day in the Jewish tradition, the mill looks down upon it. I was also disappointed to find out that I will never be able to move into a higher position in the mill. I thought that if I worked hard perhaps one day I would be allowed to move up into one of the overseeing positions. One where I no longer had to sew buttons all day, but rather taught others how. I think I would do a better job than the men who do it now, I would have much more compassion. When I questioned this possibility I was laughed at, women do not move up in the mills. In fact the only people who ever change their job are the children, yes children. There are children working in my factory who could only be three or four years of age, it is shocking. It is also sad, they are often hurt and easily manipulated. I see them here day after day, sick, tired, and looking like women and men of fifty, not five. I weep for them.
Many nights in the past month I have attended meetings held to help organize other girls who have the same feelings as me. We are hoping that if we can ban together we can fight the industry that enslaves us. However, even with all the fervor I feel for this cause I am worried. We must meet in secret constantly, no one can know about this society of labor organizers. I know that there were others besides us, at least two other groups for sure. There was a fourth, but they were found out. We have never seen any of those girls since that horrible Thursday when their screams tore through the still night.
I don't exactly know what to do. I feel like I came to a land in hopes of something better but I have only found more work with less comfort. Mothers letters assure me that it will get easier, and it is nice to slowly but surely fill my drawer with money to bring the rest of my family to me. I'm sure she's right. The rude comments an discrimination are becoming common place here. I just wonder if this America is the same one I dreamed about, often times I think not.