In Brumberg’s chapter “Tales Out of School,” he details how young Jewish immigrants learned and were integrated into the American school system. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was the passage about the growing Americanization of the students of these schools, regardless of heritage:
“Bleeding form and content, ritual and subject matter, the schools provided its immigrant students with a new “American” persona. The school clerk often changed the names of recent arrivals. Among these interviewed, we find Moses changed to Morris, and Nachum to Nathan. Last names became altered as well.”
This idea is extremely disconcerting ...
