Hello! I just need some advice on my intro to my History paper. I’ve copied and pasted it below.
The paper is about whether or not the U.S is welcoming to immigrants during the reconstructing era/industrialization era
Like an onion, the United States has many layers. On the outside layer, the United States was seen as the land of economic opportunity to those who lived in other countries where they had many struggles and failures in their lives. So these people then dropped everything they were doing and immigrated the United States, mostly to New York City. This first layer is everything these immigrants have heard of, but not yet experienced. These immigrants definitely felt welcomed up until the point on their journey when the first layer of that onion was pulled back, revealing the second layer; reality.
You shouldn’t put paragraphs of academic works online in a forum like that. Could get caught by a plagiarism checker later on. I’m not super sure the onion analogy works in this case. I mean, onions have lots of layers, not just 2.
To be honest, I think the onion thing has been overworked… Remember in Shrek, when Shrek and the donkey argue about whether he’s an onion or a cake or a parfait, since all have layers?
You’re talking about the difference between perception and reality.
Some ideas: you can start talking about Ellis Island-- about the contrast between the Lady in the Harbor and the reality that awaited so many there.
You can find a song lyric about the hopes and ambitions immigrants had. Lots of Irish music has that theme… for example, The Streets of New York, or Poor Paddy works on the Railway.
You can talk about the idea that so many abroad still seem to have about our streets being lined with gold.
Neil Diamond’s “America” talks about the hopes and dreams of immigrants. You could start there.