“Jay-cob rubs his eyes, this is a dream! I have shat in my pants, this is my dream! Am-er-i-ka. Every morning the identical dream, eh? Jay-cob a ghost wandering this place tending the Christian dead” (Oates 62).
Most of the difficulties Jacob Schwart found himself struggling with were a direct result of his surroundings. By avoiding oppression in his home land he somersaulted his way into new customs and a troubling language barrier. Like most German immigrants that arrived at Ellis Island, the Schwart family was not received well or given many opportunities. Only the most subordinate and low-level employment was made available. The positions were eagerly accepted in order for families to survive and provide for one another.
America was a location in high demand during the 1930’s, though not very accessible.
“After World War I, the age of unlimited European immigration to the United States came to an end. Newly-enacted immigration quota laws for the years 1924 and 1929 limited immigrants from the “Weimar Republic” to only 25,957 per year. For the entire decade of the 1930s, therefore, the statistics show only 119,107 legal immigrants from the German Reich…” (Leapman 13).
For the Germans seeking relocation this proved to be a very disrupting event. Many of the Germans that were able to enter the United States were the artists, philosophers, doctors, intellectuals, and musicians, leaving the homeland very barren and populated by laborers with bleak outlooks on the future of Germany. Most people cannot recall a time before the 2006 World cup that German society openly expressed their patriotism.
