An American in the Making: The Life Story of an Immigrant

chapter viii

chapter viii “How Do You Like America?” No, my first impression of America was right, and no mistake. With every day that passed I became more and more overwhelmed at the degeneration of my fellow-countrymen in this new home of theirs. Even their names had become emasculated and devoid of either character or meaning. Mordecai—a name full of romantic association—had been changed to the insipid monosyllable Max. Rebecca—mother of the race—was in America Becky. Samuel had been shorn to Sam, Abraham to Abe, Israel to Izzy. The surprising dearth of the precious words betrayed a most lamentable lack of imagination . Whole battalions of people were called Joe; the Harrys alone could have repopulated Vaslui; and of Morrises there was no end.With the women-folks matters went even worse. It did not seem to matter at all what one had been called at home. The first step toward Americanization was to fall into one or the other of the two great tribes of Rosies and Annies. This distressing transformation, I discovered before long, went very much deeper than occupation and the externals of fashion. It pervaded every chamber of their life. Cut adrift suddenly from their ancient moorings, they were floundering in a sort of moral void. Good manners and good conduct, reverence and religion, had all gone by the board, and the reason was that these things were not American. A grossness of behavior, a loudness of speech, a certain repellent“American ” smartness in intercourse, were thought necessary, if one did not want to be taken for a greenhorn or a boor. The ancient racial respect for elders had completely disappeared. Everybody was alike addressed as “thou” and “say”; and the worst of it was that when one contemplated American old age one was compelled to admit that there was a good deal of justification for slighting it. It had forfeited its claim to deference because it had thrown away its dignity. Tottering grandfathers , with one foot in the grave,had snipped off their white beards and laid aside their skull-caps and their snuff-boxes and paraded around 58 the streets of a Saturday afternoon with cigarettes in their mouths, when they should have been lamenting the loss of the Holy City in the study-room adjoining the synagogue. And old women with crinkled faces had doffed their peruques and their cashmere kerchiefs and donned the sleeveless frocks of their daughters and adopted the frivolities of the powder-puff and the lip-stick. The younger folk, in particular, had undergone an intolerable metamorphosis . As they succeeded in picking up English more speedily than their elders, they assumed a defiant attitude toward their parents, which the latter found themselves impotent to restrain and, in too many cases, secretly approved as a step toward the emancipation of their offspring. Parents, indeed, were altogether helpless under the domination of their own children.There prevailed a superstition in the quarter to the effect that the laws of America gave the father no power over the son,and that the police stood ready to interfere in behalf of the youngsters, if any attempt to carry out the barbarous European notion of family relations were made. Thus the younger generation was master of the situation, and kept the older in wholesome terror of itself. Mere slips of boys and girls went around together and called it love after the American fashion.The dance-halls were thronged with them. The parks saw them on the benches in pairs until all hours of the morning, and they ran things in their parents’ homes to suit themselves, particularly when their families were partially dependent on them for support. Darker things than these were happening.These were the shameful days when Allen Street, in the heart of Little Rumania, was honeycombed with houses of evil repute, and the ignorant, untamed daughters of immigrants furnished the not always unwilling victims. And for the first time in history Jewish young men by the score were drifting into the ranks of the criminal. The young,however,were not the only offenders.The strong wine of American freedom was going to the heads of all ages alike.The newspapers of the Ghetto were continually publishing advertisements and offering rewards for the arrest of men who had deserted their wives and children. Hundreds of husbands who had parted from their families in Europe with tears in their eyes, and had promised, quite sincerely , to send for them as...