The Jungle

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is about immigrants coming to the United States and the hardships that they faced when trying to find work, a home to live in, establishing themselves in a new community, and much more.  
Chapter two is where we started our reading for this book and it begins with a family from Lithuania moving to Chicago, United States.  They moved there because they heard about the glories of America and wanted to experience the freedom and lifestyles they heard they could obtain there.  Once the family of twelve moved to America they instantly faced difficult times, at first they could not find their destination, Chicago, and when they did, it was not what they were expecting.  Luckily, after brief searching, the family found Jokubas Szedvilas, a Lithuanian immigrant who owns a deli on Halsted Street in Chicago.  They were searching for Szedvilas because they had heard about how he moved here and became very well off in America and he was partially their inspiration to leave their homeland.  In the beginning of their time in Chicago they were renting a small place to live, however they were paying $9.00 a month to live in conditions that were not suitable for such a large family.  Once most of the family had found work they learned about the potential of buying a home and having the option of paying it off in increments of $12.00 a month after the initial $300.00 down payment.  This sounded like such a great deal at first that they jumped on it and went to speak with the man they could purchase a home from.  He explained to them that the houses would not be on the market for very long so they had to make their decision quickly, this stressed the family out because they had difficulty communicating with English speaking people and they also did not have very much money to work with at first.  Finally, the family decided to look at a home and, although it was not everything that they had hoped for, decided to make the purchase.  However, the actual time of deed signing was very stressful, they were very afraid that they were being mislead and had trouble deciding if this was a good idea, until they acquired a lawyer, who ended up making the decision more of a stressor than something exciting, and they accepted the offer.  Afterwards, the decision seemed like a terrible idea and there was a lot of regret, until another lawyer was consulted and they realized that the deal was accurate to what they were told in the beginning and the home was theirs, they actually had a home of their own!  
Finding work was another big obstacle that the family faced, they had to take jobs that did not pay the best but they were happy to have obtained anything they could get.  One of the main characters, Jurgis Rudkus, acquired a job fairly quickly at the Durham meatpacking industry.  This was a good job for him at first because, for one it was a job and he needed one desperately, it payed okay and he was able to work a lot of hours.  However, after a short period of time he began to realize the many downfalls of the meatpacking industry and this started to affect his outlook on the wonders of living in America...  The industry was dirty, dangerous, and the employers were not very kind to the immigrant workers.  
Overall, the first few chapters of this book really emphasize the struggles that immigrants faced when coming to America and the difficult adjustments they had to overcome.