The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War

THE LONG WAY HOME is the story of American Immigrants who served in World War I. This amazing page turner is filled with the fascinating stories of 12 different men. They were Polish, Irish, Italians, Slovaks, Norwegians, Jews and Russians. When arriving in America most of these men stayed close to their own ethnic groups. They worked together and lived in close knit groups of people from their former countries. Prior to the war, many of the men never even learned the English language because they rarely had cause to speak English. They worked the hard physical labor jobs in steel mills, factories, mines, and harvesting crops and mostly surrounded by their own people. When the Great War began, the recent immigrants were concerned about their families back in Europe. Depending on which country they came from, they were worried that America could be in combat with their native country. Most of these men were drafted, but some volunteered. The first big confusion for them was boot camp. All of these different nationalities were mixed together with English speaking officers. They couldn't speak to one another much less understand their military trainers. Nevertheless, the army eventually worked out getting bilingual officers which helped a great deal and the men could voice their questions and concerns. The priests, rabbis and ministers were also a great moral help to the soldiers. The horrors of the battlefield was painful to read and was terrible for the men to endure. Seeing their friends killed in front of them and helping to bury their fellow soldiers is something that stayed with them until the end of their lives. Many of the men were waiting to fulfill their time frames so that they could become American citizens when they went home. On September 9, 1918, an order issued by General Pershing allowed for alien soldiers serving in Europe to file for immediate citizenship before returning to the U.S. General Pershing further ordered his officers to see that the men received the paperwork and were helped to fill out their forms for citizenship. To quote the author, "they entered the army as aliens and returned as Americans, often as heroes." This book is packed with so much information about the Great War and as the granddaughter of immigrants this was a terrific learning experience.

THE LONG WAY HOME by David Laskin is 386 pages long, printed on off-white paper, with 16 pages of glossy black and white photos. The photos show immigrants on ocean liners, crowded street scenes in New York City, and some of the actual characters of this book, e.g., Matej Kocak (Slovak), Tommaso Ottaviano (Italian), Meyer Epstein (Russian Jew from the Pale), Epifanio Affatato (Italian), Max Chieminski (Polish), and others. In this book, which concerns WWI, the author took the creative approach towards history, of providing standard history text dotted with anecdotes relating to twelve immigrants who later became U.S. soldiers. To view the big picture, these 12 immigrants left Europe to escape the draft, but were drafted into the U.S. military and returned to Europe. THE PASSAGE. The book provides a context for Meyer Epstein, one of the 12 characters of the book. A region of Russia called "the Pale" was where 2 million Jews left between 1881-1914, where there was a tradition called tzedakah where poor Jews took care of poorer Jews. Meyer was from the Pale. An Italian, Rocco Pierro, left Italy in 1890 to put up telephone poles in America. He commuted home to Italy every year to make babies (pages 8-13). In Poland, "word has spread that in America wages were 8 times higher than in Poland. So what if they had to dig coal out of the hills or work 12 hours a day next to a blast furnace." (page 18). After disclosing fun facts about the motherland, the author details the passage. We learn that ships for immigrants had automatic flushing toilets, because it was expected that the immigrants were too ignorant to know what to do with a toilet handle (p. 32). We learn about eye exams where doctors used a buttonhook to lift up eyelids to seek diseased eyes. Page 51 provides an inspiring story of how Meyer Epstein became a plumber in New York. We learn of Peter Thompson, an Irish immigrant working a Montana copper mine: "He was making $3.50 a day now, and there was talk that the war would soon drive wages even higher." (page 87) OUTBREAK. Then the book discloses the outbreak of WWI. Pages 79-82 disclose the chain reaction leading to WWI, Russia taking Konigsberg, and Germany striking back. We learn that the Allies were Russia, Britain, and France, and that the enemy was Germany and Austria, and that before WWI, Jews were barred from Russian universities but welcomed in German universities (p. 94). We learn that Italy was in limbo, and that on April 26, 1915, Italy joined England and France in the London pact. We learn of the Zimmermann telegram, which played a pivotal role in persuading the U.S. to join WWI (p. 118-121). THE DRAFT. The book takes a detour to Mexico, to narrate the adventures of Jewish immigrant Sam Dreben who hobnobbed with Pancho Villa (p. 73-78, 108-111), and who then worked for General J.J. Pershing. We learn that, in response to the Civil War draft, there were riots, but that in the WWI draft, the only fighting in

David Laskin's "The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War" tells the story of the millions of immigrants who came to the United States at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. He focuses on twelve men beginning with the back stories of their families' plight in Europe. We learn of the struggles they had with daily survival in Europe. We experience their decisions to immigrate and the gauntlet of risks they encountered just getting out of their country to the USA. We feel the crowding and share the smells they meet on the ships that transport them to America. We learn of the fears they have going through the in processing at Ellis Island. From Ellis Island we see the immigrants span out over the US continent with them as they cling to and rely on assistance from extended and distant family to help them get a foot-hold in America and learn the streets are not paved with gold. We learn how each of the language and ethnic groups holds tightly to their customs and traditions such as church services and newspapers in their native languages. We see the racism they endured. We go on the adventures that each of the twelve experiences as they move toward their meeting with history and destiny called World War One. We see the hope and the longing to obtain their United States citizenship. We learn how many return to their homeland to fight for their home country. An example is over 90,000 Italians returned to Italy to fight in the Italian army. We learn that as the induction of draftees began forty-three different languages were represented in the US Army and that 3/4 of the recruits that showed up at Camp Gordon, Georgia spoke no English! And we discover the development of the Camp Gordon Plan to deal with the language difficulties. We see the soldiers despite these difficulties are shipped to Europe whether or not they were trained. Mr. Laskin does a very good job using the immigrants' testimonies as taken from letters to their families, personal diaries, and interviews to include a veteran of 107 years of age. He paints a vividly in depth account of the horrors and the heroic carrying out of duty in the war. David Laskin's "The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War" is more than just a book for military history buffs. It is an excellent work covering the experience of immigration from 1880 to World War One and delivers the immigrants point of view on US History for that period. The genius of the book is in the thought provoking chronicle of the generation of foreign-born immigrants who are the focus of this book. You will look at this period of US and world history with better understanding after reading the book. I strongly recommend the book for those interested in immigrant and social history, general US History and US military history. Reviewed by Jimmie Aaron Kepler

This story reads as a novel with 12 lives all diverse from various parts of the world.. ultimately experiencing one of the most difficult periods in human history. A story of courage, determination, sacrifice and pride. Extremely well written and captivating from start to finish. A must read for anyone interested in history, war stories, immigrants, and the melting pot that defined the USA...

In the late 19th and early 20th century, millions of immigrants came to America, fleeing poverty, pogroms, and the draft. When the U.S. entered World War I, thousands of immigrant men enlisted or were drafted to serve in the military, returning to Europe in similar ocean liners to the ones that had brought them. David Laskin sees this military service as a critical step in the Americanization of the immigrants -- even though they returned to often virulent xenophobia during the Red Scare. As he did in _The Children's Blizzard_, Laskin makes vivid a sweeping story by focusing on a small number of individuals (in this case, 12 men). He begins with the immigrants' lives in Europe -- the Italian boy in a rocky farm, the Norwegian man who left the farm to work on a fishing boat, the Jewish scrap hauler in the Russian pale. And then he follows them on their journeys to America in the fetid barracks of steerage. On they go to their new homes: the copper mines in Butte, a blanket factory in New England, the Lower East Side. A couple of them enlisted long before World War I; one was part of Pershing's force chasing Pancho Villa (earlier he'd been a mercenary selling arms to Pancho Villa). And then there's the military. The transition from civilian life was difficult. How could the Army train a crowd of recruits who spoke dozens of languages and were often malnourished and in terrible shape? How could the immigrants get past the ethnic slurs flung at them by the native-born soldiers? And what sort of soldiers would these immigrants make? Eventually, they shipped out, fully trained or not, and Laskin takes us to the trenches and the shattered forests of the Great War. Using the immigrants' own words -- from letters home, diaries, and, in a couple of cases, interviews (he met one veteran who was 107!) -- and accounts from others who were in the same battles, he gives detailed accounts of the horrors and the heroism of war. This isn't a war book just for military history buffs. Recommended for those interested in the immigrant experience and U.S. history generally.