LocalProjects

In the Immigration gallery of the National Museum of American Jewish History visitors come to understand the process and criteria for entering the United States in the early twentieth century in a direct and personal way, through persona-based role-playing. The Immigration Experience links visitors to the journeys of one of four immigrant personas based on actual Jewish immigrants who came through Ellis Island and other U.S. ports of entry. Visitors experience a certain sense of destiny inside the interactive, but they also have to engage and guide their characters through the early bureaucratic process that helped feed a growing country. There are tests that were actually administered during immigration processing that visitors need to solve. Local Projects filmed and photographed the actual exams so that they could be translated into a digital experience for museum visitors. The finished software creates a window in time allowing visitors to experience some of what their parents or grandparents may have experienced upon their arrival to this country.