If you could give your immigrant ancestor any advice, what would you tell them?

[Sevenpointfive]

This question is about you giving them advice on their decision to come to America. Would you still sell them on the American Dream?

*inspired by @Hagar88

[Chazmatazz269]

I couldn’t give my paternal ancestors any advice. They did it right, arguably perfectly. They came to the US and homesteaded. They hunted, fished, trapped, farmed and traded. They were self sustaining and contributed to the local economy. They didn’t take anything from anyone, ever.
My maternal ancestry includes native Americans. Since i’m here, that means those ancestors had relative success in their dealings with European interlopers. Maybe i would tell them to share their own insights and misgivings with other tribes. So that maybe, just maybe fewer would be taken advantage of and oppressed or slaughtered.
I honestly know very little about my maternal European ancestors. Again, i’m here. So they must have been successful.
Fun fact: the “American dream” was dead before the term “American dream” was coined. By 1931, capitalism had an unbreakable chokehold on the US and industrialization was at full steam. Most people’s “success” was then tied to their willingness and ability to make someone else a great deal more productive and ultimately wealthier. People weren’t coming here to drive their own success, but others’. The term was coined to sell this new version of the American dream to immigrants who simply didn’t know better.

[Sevenpointfive]

that is the point. that immigrants were sold a dream. it worked for some. it was probably easier to get ahead back then? easier to die too?

[Lliam]

I doubt if I could. My great, great, great grandfather, Daniel, was obviously hard working and determined. He must have been smart and skilled, too.

He signed on with 200 other families who chartered 3 ships to emigrate from Ireland to America.
He must have been pretty well off for an Irish Catholic farmer five years into the potato famine because passage cost the equivalent of around $400 each for him, his wife and 8 children at a time when the cost of passage on normal famine ships was more like $275. He also brought food and supplies.

They sailed into New Orleans, then up the Mississippi river in late 1850. He would have been 55 years old at that point and must have been hard as nails.

There is a book called A Farewell to Famine that details the expedition and lists my ancestors in the ship's passenger manifest.

I heard that the family stayed in St. Louis for 3 years before buying farmland in Wisconsin. So, he didn't arrive penniless and may have earned more money in St. Louis before scoping out a place to start a farm and building it from scratch.

He was successful and his children and their offspring expanded their holdings. There are still a bunch of them there with very successful farms. They are as wholesome as can be and are pillars of the community. I imagine that Daniel was at least as rugged.

I have a copy of a studio photo taken of him and his wife, probably in the early 1860s. He was in a good black suit and she was in a fine black dress. Their faces were grizzled but they were straight backed and looked like they knew about hard work, determination, how to survive and not put up with guff. They were pioneers.

I can't even imagine that life.

[Hagar88]

My immigrant ancestors are probably Norwegian, Danes, Norman or Scottish.

As for immigrants coming to America. You must remember that immigrants when they came to America couldn't believe the freedom or opportunity they had. Food was abundant and cheap, hunting for meat and fishing was freely available. Land was available, wood was available. Food was so available in America that Americans were able to produce and sell tons of beer, ale, rum, whiskey, gin and tobacco for sale to Europeans. In the rest of Europe farmers were basically serfs that had to work their landlords land before their own, they had no rights and famine were rife. To this day corned beef and cabbage is a popular dish among Irish Americans but in Ireland not so much. Why? Because in Ireland a farmer might have been producing corn beef and Ireland produced a lot of corned beef but an Irish farmer would never have even tasted corned beef just butter milk and potatoes.

[Dargil]

(Irish) Ya gotta cut back on that drinking and fighting.

[Sevenpointfive]

what happened? how did your country of origin go to shit? was it more drinking than fighting?

[Dargil]

Our people are descended from (!) Ukrainians. Found that on the net. They fight and drink too. We make better liquor. Jameson versus Vodka.

[purplepoppy]

@Sevenpointfive it was a combination of the potato famine caused by blight and capitalism. Most of the money generated in Ireland left the country into the pockets of a few Englishmen with nothing reinvested into the country. They were exploited and forced to work for virtually nothing. www.frrandp.com/2025/01/famine-roads.html?m=1

[Dargil]

@purplepoppy The potato famine was caused by military dictator Oliver Cromwell who took peasant land, leased it back to them and regulated what they could grow so as not to compete with English farmers. That's not capitalism. Its socialism.

[purplepoppy]

Sounds like capitalism to me

[Dargil]

@purplepoppy Only because you were texting in history class.

[Sevenpointfive]

i know all of this. i mean in the last 50 years?

[Dargil]

Since the troubles ended, we have done nothing. But in the United States maybe 50% of cops priests criminals and politicians are irish.

[Sevenpointfive]

i've always wanted to visit. i'm a guy, so i love redheads. i thought i'd meet my wife there ever since FAR AND AWAY. i don't think i'd be visiting the same place in my thoughts though. partially my fault for not making it a priority when it would have looked the same way.

but if it's doing well and you think that i'd still have a good time, then i'll put it back on the list?

[Dargil]

And they have green eyes and those freckles even where you can't see them.

[Sevenpointfive]

that's too good. i had a fake one once. it looked natural until i found out.

[Dargil]

When you look at authentic Irish ginger girls, They have wavy red hair, green eyes and are covered with freckles. It almost looks like a brand new race to me.

[Sevenpointfive]

so irish guys also like redheads? do you think that's common in Ireland? is there like anything going on with the irish women in terms of favoring any type of man?

[Dargil]

Gingers are common in Eire. Sure we like them.

[RavVid]

I'll apply the same to my Australia ancestor. Easy answer.

I'd tell him where the Welcome Stranger nugget was and advise him of other locations to go to pick up potatoes (gold nuggets the size of potatoes) and tell him to put our money into BHP shares.

[beefcakebradybatson]

Be white and blonde if you wish to emigrate to Trump's America !!!

[Sevenpointfive]

he might accept orange?

[beefcakebradybatson]

Perhaps if they're rich and white !!!

[loveslongnails]

My advice would have been: "Move to Norway. Everything you heard about the USA, is pure bullshit"

[WindAtMyBack]

I'd tell them to do exactly what they did. It was a good move. It would still be a good move today. Of course I'd sell them on the American Dream, because it's absolutely true.

[Telekinetic-Potato]

I would explain stocks to them lol other than that I have no right they were all so smart and ballsy. I pray one day I can be on their level.

[Shiprex]

I am not an immigrant but have many friends who are. I say to them good job coming over here and joining in

[NathanDavis]

funny... they left Europe because they didn't want to be part of fascism... lol

[exitseven]

I would tell then that the American dream is attainable and someday you will see it.

[msc545]

Don't come to the US for any reason. Go someplace else or stay where you are, but don't come to the US.

[Filthy_Immigrant]

I would tell them to proceed and to never trust the democrats in any way

[888theGreat]

Pray , Pray often