5623 A pretty shocking and historically incorrect film which first blurts out that everyone in the United States is an immigrant, blatantly ignoring any mention of American Indians. Then we the atypical european family arriving from wherever they were to Ellis Island. We know that they'll have a nicer time here because we don't mind your religion or language (but color is another story all together it seems). This is a fairly historically important film, for all the wrong reasons. Welcome all of you white people! Spuzz 2003-08-14 14:49:41 2003-08-14 14:49:41 3 30394 An optimistic and assimilationist history of immigration to America made in 1946. Since just about all of the immigrants we see in this film are white, they easily fit themselves into American life. Interestingly, the film mentions membership in trade unions as one of the ways that different immigrant groups learn to ÃÂÃÂwork together.ÃÂÃÂ Trade unions were still viewed positively in 1946, but as the postwar years went on and anti-communist hysteria took hold in America, that would unfortunately change. According to the film, immigrants came to America in order to be able to own land, hold independent political views and escape religious persecution. But does America really represent those freedoms anymore? As the years go on America is starting to become more and more like the oppressive Old Countries our ancestors wanted so badly to get away from. A Small World After All Marysz 2005-01-29 20:22:53 2005-01-29 20:21:44 4 A 1946 film shortly made after World War II. Of course it was going be optimistic. It conceintrates on the major groups that immigrated here in the 19th and first quarter of the twentieth century. While a more enlightened and accurate history of our country is taught now, for its time it did a good job. Made after W.W.II 3 ERD 2005-11-20 17:37:25 2005-11-20 17:37:25 3 3.33