The Never-Ending Border: Russian Migrants in Search of the American Dream

• In Event: The Wrinkled Borders of Freedom: Russian Migration to the Americas across the 20th Century

Abstract

This paper will examine the Ellis Island Oral History Archive with a particular focus on the interviews with emigrants from the Russian Empire during the First World War, Revolution, and civil wars. The focus will be on the personal experience of overcoming multiple borders on the way to becoming an American as a Russian migrant.

Author

• Galina Zhuravleva, U of Chicago