Browse Items (42 total)

Conducted at the Marconi Center in South Philadelphia, this group interview recounts the childhood and adolescent years of three Italian-Americans who grew up in an Italian enclave in Philadelphia. They recall their first jobs, parents' lives in…

Moving back and forth between their shared and separate life experiences, Dr. Malka Al Saadi and her son Mutaz Al Mudaris talk about their lives in Iraq; his education and professional life; the horrors of the 2003 Gulf War and how it devastated…

Jara begins by reflecting on his early childhood memories and family in Mexico City; he remembers his first home and the family and pets that lived there with him as well as the bigger home his family moved to outside of the city. He continues to…

Max Tannenbaum (b. 1905) was 7 when his father left Ukraine in 1912 for the United States. For the next decade, Tannenbaum worked to provide for his mother and younger brothers. Conscripted into the Red Army after the Bolsheviks took over Ukraine, he…

Interviewed at the Marconi Center in South Philadelphia, these two Italian-American men recount their early experiences with education and work life. Giovanelli emigrated with his family from Naples in 1918, working at Hog Island Shipyard during…

Wang details the journey her husband made to America before they were married. He lived in Philadelphia for ten years, and now has his citizenship. She then briefly describes three main reasons for immigrating: education, air pollution, and food…

As part of the “Oral History of Philadelphia Immigration” course at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, Mingchu Pearl Huynh was interviewed about her journey to the United States. Pearl shared stories of her transition from wealth to poverty,…

Al Mudaris talks about his life, beginning with his early childhood in London, his struggles to learn Arabic in school after the family’s return to Iraq; his high school education at Baghdad College, the most prestigious school in Baghdad; the 1991…

Sam Brosilow was born to Jewish immigrant parents who fled Russia around 1900. The Brosilow family lived on 11th and Cherry Street before moving to 22nd and Lehigh Avenue. He began working in the men’s clothing industry at the age of thirteen and…

Sam Spritz was born (circa 1898) into a Jewish family in pre-revolution Russia.  In 1913, he moved with his father and brother to Philadelphia, attracted by the promise of freedom, democracy, and easy access to education.  In the early 1920s,…