One more from Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars; a quote from Ida Shapiro, who immigrated from Minsk in 1910 at the age of fifteen.
“Right when I arrived, my brother took me to Grand Street for an ice cream soda. I was ashamed to say that I didn’t know what it was. But I was lively not dumb. I was willing to try new things. He asked me if I wanted chocolate or pineapple. He was the greenhorn, he should have known that I didn’t have that in my shtetl. He should have explained to me. I didn’t even know what to do with the straw—-so I just watched other people.”
