Tuesday, 11 April: selections from the Exodus story in the Old Testament of the Bible

·        Web highlight: Sarah Hardwick

Introduction: Explore the parallels past students examined of the Exodus immigrant narrative and the American immigrant narratives.

Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2003

The Exodus story itself provides an immigrant narrative to which all that follow throughout history are compared. Thanks to the Hebrew tradition of keeping meticulous records for historical purposes, the world today has an accounting of the first true immigrant narrative. In this story, Moses tells of the generations of oppression and persecution that the Jewish people suffer while in Egypt, “strangers in a strange land.” Moses leads the entire nation of Israel (a people without a country) out of this bondage, setting out for a homeland that has been promised them by God’s covenant with Abraham, patriarch of the “chosen people.” This group of chosen people wanders through the desert for years, suffering many hardships before entering the “land of milk and honey,” Canaan, their new homeland.

Once having arrived at this new homeland, they are told that they should not intermarry with the natives of that land, since to do so would defile them in the eyes of God. By avoiding this taboo, they will remain pure, and their peoples will not be assimilated into the culture of “savages” that inhabit the land that they now claim as their own, a belief that is echoed in William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, an account of the Pilgrims’ arrival in another land of milk and honey—America.  [James]

Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2003

The impact of the Exodus story from the Bible can be seen in many aspects of American Immigrant Literature.  This narrative with its history of a people trying to escape their oppressors, taking a journey in search of a promised land, and creating a new existence for their people is more often than not consistent with that of the immigrant narrative.  People from other countries left their homeland in search of the American Dream.  The major difference between the Exodus narrative and the American Immigrant Narrative is that in the history of the Israelites, they are led by a single man, Moses, and escape their oppressive situation as a group.  Most American Immigrants, in contrast, came to America as individuals or within small groups and were only responsible for their individual families or groups.   [Kathy]

Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2002

The standard immigrant narrative differs from the exodus narrative because the normal immigrant situation involves one person, one nuclear family, or one extended family where the exodus narrative relates to an entire culture, consisting of thousands of people, relocating en masse, hoping for a better life.  While the standard immigrant is leaving poverty and willing to embrace assimilation, the exodus participants are seeking freedom from oppression or freedom of religious beliefs. Although, in both cases, the draw of the Promised Land must be significant enough to justify leaving behind their home, family, friends, traditions, and identities, the people in the exodus narratives intend to keep their culture intact, therefore refusing to assimilate.  [TStJ]

Conclusion: Each student develops the idea that the basis of the American immigrant stories all parallel the Exodus narrative.  The differences are highlighted and addressed to exemplify the individual American immigrant stories.