My Grandma's Influence On American Culture

In the year of 1961 my Grandma immigrated at 20 years old from Galway, Ireland to the United States. She decided to immigrate to America when my Grandpa made the decision to move because of the better job opportunities available here. She loved him very much so she wanted to follow him here even though most of her family still lived in Ireland at the time. Before they both left for America, they had a very rough life in Ireland. They lived on a rural farm in the countryside and were unable to finish school because they were forced to work as children. They were required to milk cows and grow their own food to survive. However, if they ran out of a resource that they needed, they were able to just trade with their neighbors or friends with a product they …show more content…
Once my Grandma arrived, she didn’t feel singled out because there were so many foreigners living in New York at the time. Ofcourse it was different than living in Ireland, but she didn’t feel any sense of discrimination because of the wide variety of ethnicities living in New York. She explained how there were so many more people than back home in Ireland, because they were used to the countryside and were now living in the city. However, American life did meet my Grandma’s expectations. She was able to find a job at a bank and get an apartment with the little education that she had. At first she was uncomfortable with life in America, but eventually she got used to the city life. At the time in America there was a very large civil rights movement for equality between every race, ethnicity, and sex. Immigration to America was very scary for all foreigners. Most of them arrive here with very little money, no place to live, and no family with them. They risk it all to be able to have a better life and have more opportunity than they did back in their home