Maintaining traditions is very important to my family because they were the very thing society tried to take away. My great-great-grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe during the nineteen-teens and twenties. They did so because they faced great economic, religious, and social persecution. They brought nothing with them but their culture and the clothes on their backs. My father’s great-grandparents settled in New York. My great-grandfather Leon found success in the textile industry, bringing the family out of poverty. On my mother’s side, her grandmother lived first in Brooklyn and then in California. She was a Jewish artist living during the Great Depression, which she survived only by being married to an up-and-coming Hollywood writer. That all changed when he was blacklisted and accused of being a member of the Communist Party. What saved them? Danny Thomas was a director and star both onscreen and on the radio. His hiring of my great-grandfather kept them afloat. From generation to generation, my family went from poor Jewish immigrants to what it is today. Despite facing stigmatization, we have made sure to maintain the traditions of our culture. One current tradition that brings our family a lot of joy is making latkes. While a deceptively simple potato pancake typically eaten on Hanukkah, it holds significance to my family. Making and then eating it is a reminder of how we have held onto our culture despite erasure and strife. 

– Eva Fischer

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