American Heritage

Tasha O’Hara

2/22/06

PSC 305

Professor Sundlun

American Immigration

After World War I ended, there was a great flush of immigration to the United States. The majority of my family members came over in this flush in hopes of finding new opportunities and better jobs. All moved to New England to find jobs in mills or on railroads. All four of my grandparents either are immigrants or have parents who emigrated from England, Ireland, or Quebec. They all faced great difficulty in moving here, but all worked hard and eventually persevered.

The biggest obstacles that my family faced in America were money and their nationality. My paternal grandfather, John O’Hara, moved to America from England when he was two years-old and his father had great difficulty finding a job. His father had hoped he could find work with the Brown and Sharpson Company but he was turned down. Even though he was English, he had an Irish name and many companies simply wouldn’t hire Irishmen and my great-grandfather had to work on the railroads. Back then, Irish people were looked down upon and were not allowed in certain places and many companies wouldn’t hire them. They had moved to America because they believed that New England had more job opportunities and that the factories were safer but were often overlooked because of their last name. One of my great-grandfather’s brothers changed his last name to an English one in order to get further in his job. Soon after changing his name, he was promoted at the railroads where he worked.

My paternal grandmother’s family emigrated from England to New England around the same time. They were an English-Swedish family and had fewer problems finding jobs than my grandfather’s family. With their last names being Barnes and Johnson, there were no qualms about their nationality. They moved here to work in the mills and factories that were abundant at the time. They had several children and money was always a concern even though they were not poor.

After WWII, my paternal grandparents met and married and settled in Seekonk with their six children. Eventually they bought a summer home in Narragansett, Rhode Island to be closer to the ocean. All of my father’s family spent summers in Point Judith until they were older. My father moved out of Seekonk, Massachusetts when he was about nineteen and moved to Rhode Island to work on fishing boats in Galilee and Newport. He lived in his beach house for the first few years that he was in Rhode Island and then moved to Jamestown in 1983. He was the first O’Hara to stay in Rhode Island. He still lives in Rhode Island and continued to work as a fisherman.

My maternal grandparents have a fairly similar story to my paternal grandparents. My grandfather was French-Canadian and moved with his