{ "id": "p16022coll554:74", "object": "https://cdm16022.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/p16022coll554/id/74", "set_spec": "p16022coll554", "collection_name": "Immigrant Stories", "collection_name_s": "Immigrant Stories", "collection_description": "
Immigrant Stories is a research and archiving project run by the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) at the University of Minnesota. Immigrant Stories helps immigrants, refugees, and their family members create digital stories: brief videos with images, text, and audio about a personal experience.
\n\nThis project defines \"immigrant\" broadly. Our collection contains digital stories from people living outside their country of birth as well as stories created by their children and grandchildren. Immigrant Stories also welcomes stories from international students, international adoptees, and people who do not feel that their stories fit a particular, or just one, category. All stories are important, and we invite you to make a video and share yours with us.
", "title": "Joseph Helinski", "title_s": "Joseph Helinski", "title_t": "Joseph Helinski", "title_search": "Joseph Helinski", "title_sort": "josephhelinski", "description": "Born in Russia in 1889, Joseph Helinski left his family in Russia (present-day Poland) in 1907 to avoid being drafted into the Russian army. He came alone and never went back. According to his descendants, he did not immigrate through Ellis Island but jumped off his boat when it was near shore. The 1919 birth certificate of his daughter, Gertrude, is the first American document which gives evidence of his existence. He received a Certificate of Arrival from the US government on July 10, 1941, and became a naturalized citizen on June 4th, 1942. His descendants still hold family reunions in Hurley, WI, the town he settled.", "date_created": [ "2014-03-20 - 2014-06-20" ], "date_created_ss": [ "2014-03-20 - 2014-06-20" ], "date_created_sort": "2014", "creator": [ "Helinski, Joseph" ], "creator_ss": [ "Helinski, Joseph" ], "creator_sort": "helinskijoseph", "contributor": [ "Yulga, Abigail (Editor)" ], "contributor_ss": [ "Yulga, Abigail (Editor)" ], "notes": "Created by Abigail Yulga, his great-great-granddaughter, as a final project for AAS 1101: Imagining Asian America at the University of Minnesota. The course was taught by Dr. Erika Lee in spring 2014.", "types": [ "Moving Image" ], "format": [ "Oral histories | http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202595" ], "format_name": [ "Oral histories" ], "dimensions": "0:02:56", "subject": [ "Origin Russian Federation", "Ethnicity Russian" ], "subject_ss": [ "Origin Russian Federation", "Ethnicity Russian" ], "language": [ "English" ], "city": [ "Hurley" ], "state": [ "Wisconsin" ], "country": [ "United States" ], "continent": [ "North America" ], "parent_collection": "Immigrant Stories; https://cla.umn.edu/ihrc/immigrant-stories", "parent_collection_name": "Immigrant Stories", "contributing_organization": "University of Minnesota, Immigration History Research Center", "contributing_organization_name": "University of Minnesota, Immigration History Research Center", "contributing_organization_name_s": "University of Minnesota, Immigration History Research Center", "contact_information": "University of Minnesota, Immigration History Research Center. 311 Elmer L. Andersen Library, 222 - 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455; https://cla.umn.edu/ihrc", "fiscal_sponsor": "This work is made possible through the generous funding of the Digital Public Library of America Digital Hubs Pilot, which is supported by the Digital Public Library of America with funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.", "local_identifier": [ "cla-ihrc-is-0094" ], "dls_identifier": [ "cla-ihrc-is-0094" ], "rights_statement_uri": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/", "transcription": "Joseph Helinsi Digital Story Transcription\nStory written, produced, and edited by Abigail Yulga\nThe year was 1907 and a man named Joseph Helinski made a decision that would largely, yet\nsubtly, change history. With his mother’s encouragement, Joseph immigrated to the United\nStates in order to avoid being drafted into the Russian Army. He came with only himself, leaving\nhis entire family behind, never to be seen again. There is no record of Joseph coming into the\nUnited States through Ellis Island. According to his granddaughter, my grandmother, he jumped\noff the ship near shore and finished his journey to the United States by swimming. Because there\nis no paper trail of Joseph entering the country, the government resisted in giving him his\ncitizenship years later. He only received a Certificate of Arrival from the US government on July\n10, 1941, and he became a naturalized citizen on June 4, 1942. The only paper proof of his\nexistence prior to those documentations, as a result of him choosing to skip Ellis Island, is his\nname on his daughter’s birth certificate, which lists his birth place as Russia. But this certificate\nrepresents much more than Joseph’s birth in Russia and life in the United States- it symbolizes\nsignificant characteristics of Joseph that still exist in his American descendants today. My\ngrandmother says that if we got anything from the Helinskis, it was their sense of independence,\nstubbornness, and determination. The Helinskis living in Poland in1907 did not want their son,\nJoseph, to get drafted into the Russian Army, due to his Russian birth, so they sent him to live in\nAmerica. But Joseph, apparently, did not want to enter the country in the proper way, so he\nchose his own path. To this day, we are unsure why Joseph did not, or could not, enter the United\nStates through Ellis Island, but regardless of the reason, he chose to take matters into his own\nhands. My grandmother has always told stories of him playing cards with Al Capone in Hurley,\nWI, where my grandmother still lives. My great-grandmother’s birth certificate, being the only\npaper record of him in the US, symbolizes these traits shown by the Helinski family in 1907\nwhen sending their son to the United States. My family still, over a century later, takes pride in\nthe fact that we are independent and determined to the point of sheer stubbornness. Reunions are\nstill held in Hurley, WI, the town where my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Helinski, settled, and\nat every one my grandmother jokes that the Helinskis “do what they want.”", "kaltura_video": "1_ddyy7k59", "page_count": 0, "record_type": "primary", "first_viewer_type": "kaltura_video", "viewer_type": "kaltura_video", "attachment": "100.pdf", "attachment_format": "pdf", "document_type": "item", "featured_collection_order": 999, "date_added": "2021-01-26T00:00:00Z", "date_added_sort": "2021-01-26T00:00:00Z", "date_modified": "2021-01-26T00:00:00Z", "_version_": 1710337983842877440, "type": "Moving Image", "collection": "p16022coll554", "is_compound": false, "parent_id": "74", "thumb_url": "https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1369852/thumbnail/entry_id/1_ddyy7k59", "thumb_cdn_url": "https://dkp5i0hinw9br.cloudfront.net/1e45e73d93b1ed0232fa27da3b7d6f54088a4dcb.png", "children": [ ] }