Immigrant Song Tells

Of The American Dream

By Larissa Lytwyn

As part of the district’s ongoing Cultural Arts series, Hawley Elementary School students recently listened to actress and educator Anne Pasquale’s dramatization of immigrants pursuing the American Dream.

“All of you are descendents of immigrants, or perhaps immigrants yourselves,” Ms Pasquale told Hawley third and fourth graders after an earlier presentation to the school’s first and second classes.

“How many of you are from Africa or Asia or Egypt?” she asked. A handful of students raised their hands. Other students, it was revealed, traced their heritage to western and central Europe. One hailed from South America, another from the Dominican Republic.

Donning a scarf, embroidered shawl, and thick Italian accent, Ms Pasquale detailed her grandmother’s arrival to Ellis Island. Audience volunteers demonstrated an Italian folk song and dance; the rest of the audience eagerly clapped along.

 A bonnet tied tightly to her throat, Ms Pasquale next became a 19th Century Quaker teacher inspired by the travails of Harriett Tubman. “Imagine that you are all black children,” Ms Pasquale told the audience, “black referring to any ethnic group from Africa.” Originally brought to America as slaves, blacks were later freed through the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation issued by then-president Abraham Lincoln.

Blacks, however, were still widely perceived as inferior to whites and discouraged to become literate or educated in any way, particularly in the South. People including the Quakers, however, emigrated from the northern states to teach these disenfranchised groups. These teachers faced deep hostility from some residents, who burned schools, churches, and Quaker meetinghouses to the ground.

“With the confidence of some great African Queen,” Ms Pasquale-as-the-Quaker woman said, “Ms Tubman visited my home once.”

She invited the class to join in renditions of Underground Railroad traditional songs “Oh, Freedom” and “Deep River.”

Later, Ms Pasquale said, in 1848, the great American Gold Rush drew tens of thousands of emigrants to settle present-day Texas, Arizona, California, the Dakotas. and New Mexico. Ms Pasquale suddenly became a vibrant young Pioneer wife, eager to strike it rich and build a new life in the Wild West. Students engaged with enthusiasm in Ms Pasquale’s performance of “Oh, Susannah!”

Finally, Ms Pasquale became a spirited senorita, a Mexican American whose father, a migrant worker, made it impossible for her to finish a full year of school before moving again. “I was 18 and in the fourth grade,” she said.

Student volunteers posed as a matador and bull, respectively, demonstrated a favorite Spanish American pastime, the bullfight.

She concluded her one-woman show with the song, “We Are All One Nation,” a celebration of America’s diverse heritage.

Ms Pasquale is among artists featured in Young Audiences of Connecticut, a 25-year-old arts-in-education provider. Ms Pasquale, whose credits include a recurring role on As the World Turns, is currently a member of the Actor’s Studio and the founding member of Patchiddy Players, a theater for young children. She has been writing and performing for children for the past eight years.

For more information on Young Audiences of Connecticut, visit www.yaconn.org.