The object that I chose was my grandmother and great grandmother’s immigration visa. This object has a personal connection to my family, but also a connection to The Hare With Amber Eyes, as this takes place in parallel to the events discussed in parts one and two of the book. I have the digital scan of the visa, but since it is so old I try to avoid touching it. Knowing my mother, she probably has it tucked away somewhere in one of our many filing cabinets.  

The visa is a hundred years old now. It is stamped with the date 13 Jan. 1921. The pages are old tan paper that look like they have been stained with tea, and they curl and crumple at their edges. The booklet is bound together by two very old and rusty staples. There are so many layers of paper, writing and ink that it is hard to make out any of what has been written on it. It is written in a jumble of French, Romanian, and English. One of the clearest stamps on page eleven in the right side of the booklet reads “American Consulate Bucharest, Rouman” before cutting off. There is also a fee stamp, like one used for postage, also from the United States consulate that has “$2” written in bold font. That is worth about thirty dollars in today’s money. The visa lists them as coming from Bucarest, Rumania by way of France, and the fine print underneath warns that the documents will expire in two months, but it is covered in stamps. Behind all of this text is a faded red pattern that is smudged with the green stamp ink. The French and Romanian text above indicate that “This page is reserved for visas”. On the left page the same red pattern and visa reservation are there. There are three stamps on this page, two of them green and one a transparent white. They are almost completely illegible, but you can catch a few Romanian words here and there. There are also several things scribbled in cursive handwriting, but between the language barriers, age, and layers of ink, it is very difficult to read. The last thing on this page is the most interesting, it is a photograph of my grandmother Chaika, soon to be Clara, and my great grandmother Chana, who will become Anne. The photo is on its own separate piece of paper that has been pasted in. It has its own yellowed and crumpled edges, and features a sepia portrait of my two relatives. My great grandmother is wearing earrings, I will have to look for them next time I am home. My grandmother looks glassy-eyed and has a shiny bow in her hair. She is seven years old at this point. 

My great grandmother, Annie Meyerson and her daughter, Clara, immigrated to Boston from Bucharest, Romania (although it is listed as Bucarest, Rumania on the visa). She had lived in Romania for about three years while trying to secure passage to America. Prior to that she lived in Kodima with Clara, my grandmother, and her husband Isidore, my great grandfather. Kodima is a town in Russia (present day Ukraine) in the Galicia region outside of Odessa. At the time about half of its population was jewish, my relatives included. Antisemitism was on the rise at this point and there were pogroms in and around Odessa. These pogroms forced my family to flee, and they eventually ended up in Brooklyn.