Summary Of The Long Journey Home By David Laskin

Leaving the comfort of your home country and blinding moving to an unknown land is always going to be scary and unappealing. But to the millions of immigrants that migrated to the United States in the early 1900s, all they saw was opportunity and a clean slate. In “The Long Journey Home” David Laskin takes his audience through the scary yet suspenseful stories of nearly a dozen immigrants as they leave their home lands for the promising land of the United States.
The author did a great job in portray how immigrants in the early 1900s were affected by America’s involvement in World War I. He starts off the book explaining the stories of the immigrants before they take their journeys to America and ends it explaining their situations after the

Early in the book, he used the song “Il Canto degli Emigranti” to illustrate how the immigrants were feeling about going to America (Laskin 28). The short song represents them feeling very opportunistic and eager for the opportunities set out for them, as they leave their old villages. Laskin also referenced a book “Passing of the Great Race” to show the racial prejudices that were present (Laskin 71). In reference to this book, it talks about how the “great race” was being replaced by “broken and mentally crippled” races from other nations. Laskin also does a great job referencing sources by referencing several newspaper companies to show his points. When the war was first starting, Laskin references the “New York Times” and “Times” several times to show how interested Americans were of this war that was happening overseas (Laskin 82). He even references several foreign newspaper companies like “Narod Polski” and “Decorah Posten” to illustrate how interested the immigrants were of this war happening in their home lands. Also, Laskin uses real pictures in the middle of his book give the effect of putting a face to the names of these characters that this audience has been deeply invested in by reading his