My family didn't have much when they arrived here. They were Russian Jewish tailors. They were poor and really only had each other. When my grandmother was 10 years old and had just graduated 5th grade, her parents bought her a custom gold locket with her initials, L.C. for Lillian Cohen, inscribed on it surrounded by a flower. She used to keep someone's phone number in it, but she lost it. And then she kept some pictures of her two children, my mother and my uncle, in it before they too fell out. When I was a little girl my grandmother promised it to me and I received it not long after she did when she passed away after a long battle with cancer. To this day it is my prized possession and wearing it on my neck feels like wearing history itself, long, and crafted, and full of stories.

– Rebecca Karpen

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more