Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1903-10-15
EVOLUTION OF IMMIGRANT.
s.dden Netamorphosis of the Wom-
en- Who Come to America to
Earn a Living.


Earn a Living.
When one visits Ellis island and sees
the quality of the raw material from
which a large percentage or DO
nestle servants and working girls is
developed. it seem~almost that nothing
good could be evolved from such a heter-
ogeneous collection. The evolution
takes place, however, it's rapidity being,
perhaps, it's most remarkable feature
SAYS the New York Post.
It is almost impossible to convey TO
any one who has not encountered II
the absolute "greenness" OF h aver
age woman immigrant. If they are
as green as they are painted, We ar
que, how can they so quickly attain to a
degree of proficiency great enough to
command a rapid increase in their
wages, how make the demand for their
services with which the employment bu-
reaus are constantly besieged? During
the past month over 10000 foreigners
have passed through the inward swing
ing gates" of our country at Ellis is
land, and of these 10000 were women.
Even one months residence in the
new world SO transforms the majority
of them that it is hard to recognize the
quaintly-garbed, shrinking immigrant
in the trim, self-assertive, confident
young person she SO soon becomes.
They travel timorously owe the ocean,
they survive the horrors of the steer
age, which can only be gagged by those
who have come through it, until at last
the wonders of New York's beautiful
harbor are revealed TO their ~astonished
eyes. In those to whom the land which
lies beyond this wonderful harbor spells
home the sight of it awakens a. thrill
that nothing else car cause, but to the
lonely immigrant who views it for the
first time over the Storage rail it is little
short of appalling. When, later, the
girls are able to tell of their feelings
on first seeing the ketling line of sky
scrapers across the vista of the feverish
activity of the bay, it is only the bold
est spirits among them, those who per-
chance have lived before in large cities,
who ever boast of having felt a bit in
spired or uplifted. The majority of
them own frankly that they were thor
oughly frightened, which is not strange,
as none of the harbors from which
they may have sailed bear more than
the cursory resemblance to this one.
The harbors of the old world-Havre,
Boulogne, Southampton, Liverpool,
Naples, Genoa-while of necessity more
or less active, lack the hustle and hustle
of the port of New York, the American
strenuousness which is the keynote Of
what the future holds for the new ar
rivals, and above all that fearsome line
of towering buildings in the background
is new, quite new, to the immigrant
girl.
When the ship which has borne her
across the ocean finally docks, the girl
is hustled along with the rest of the
human herd on to ona Of the barges that
come alongside, and taken back to Ellis
Island for the custom and special med
ical inspection. Interpreters and fell
low sufferers may have tried to ex-
plain this Ellis island formality to the
girl, but at best she has only a vague
idea of it's meaning, and is generally
filled with a wholesome dread thereof,
for she feels that there she must chal-
lenge fate.
At Ellis island she becomes one of
the motley crew of men, women and
children, who stumble and struggle
down the gang-plank, bending, as do
nearly all the others, under the weight
of the pack or crazy valise which con-
tains her worldly goods. Small chance
has she here for thought-nothing but
a sort of gaping wonder at the strange
ness of it all.
A very short time elapses before she
has made a complete change in her ap-
parel, that outward symbol which, as
is quick to recognize, has characterized
her as newly landed, and each day she
absorbs some new phase, habit or man
nerism, some of the unfamiliar details
of her new surroundings. 1t is notice
able, too, that the women of a family of
foreigners will grasp the general scheme
of things here far more quickly than
the men. Indeed, the woman's meta
morphosis is SO sudden and complete
that it seems hardly proper to term it
evolution" it is, rather, a lightning
transition act in the hands of an art
list of great a~daptability and keen III
stinct.
In a year all trace of the immigrant
will have vanished, and the working
woman" stands forth alone and I'M
abashed. This is untrue only in the
case of the Italian women, who are slow
est of all to forego their national garb
and customs, and who seldom, if ever,
go into service. They work, indeed they
drudge and slave in their homes or at
their husbands business, but they are
clannish and conservative, and, as a
rule, always cherish the hope of return
ing to their beautiful, brilliant native
land. 1t is not lack of brains that keeps
them from progressing as fast as the i'm
migrants of other races, but rather
their stronger, more passionate love for
their own country. To them nearly al
ways America is but a steppingstone,
and the only trace of the country which
they wish to cling TO them when they
are able to turn their faces homeward
il its h~ard-earned dollars and eagles