A new crop of reporters has joined Nebraska Mosaic, and their first step into reporting about new Americans has been to track their own immigrant past.
They discovered that some of their ancestors came on the Mayflower, and others fought in such wars as the U.S. Revolution, the U.S. Civil War and the Korean Conflict.
They learned that their forebears traveled to America from England, Ireland and Scotland, from Germany, Bohemia and the Netherlands and a host of other places. And they rarely came straight to Nebraska, instead stopping first in Canada or other parts of the United States.
They were soldiers and sailors, teachers and tailors. Some worked as miners or postal workers, as priests or farmers. Some raised horses, and others counted manhole covers.
Mostly they found that their ancestors came for many of the same reasons that are still attracting people from around the world today.
Robert Vencil
Nebraska Mosaic (http://cojmc.unl.edu/mosaic/) is a project of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Staffed each semester by a class of undergraduate and graduate students, and under the supervision of Associate Professor of Practice Tim Anderson, Nebraska Mosaic seeks to give voice to Lincoln’s growing refugee communities.
