Call it Sleep - A View on the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience

"Call It Sleep - A View on the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience" concerns itself about the topic of using a piece of fiction as a historical source and whether this source can be read as representative for the human experiences in a certain period of time; in this case Ellis Island, New York, from 1881-1924. With its point of departure in the Jewish immigrant experience from 1881-1924 the focus is laid on the immigrants' young children. Those children were often born in one country but raised in another, and following that they experienced a split between their parents' old values and the new values they met in America as they went to school or out playing in the streets with their friends of the same age. Many of these children moved up and beyond their parents' Yiddish language and religious sphere.