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Immigration

Why Did Russians Come to America?

Why Did Russians Come to America?
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 6 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   6.3

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    communism, communist, bloody, destruction, protesters, unbearable, loyalty, better, newly, trend, murder, civil, political, suffering, government, public
     content words:    Emperor Alexander II, Eastern Europe, Russian Empire, Czar Alexander II, On January, Bloody Sunday, Soviet Union, Russian Americans

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Why Did Russians Come to America?
By Patti Hutchison 		  
1     Caption: Emperor Alexander II of Russia
 
2     Did you know that Russia once owned land that is now part of the U.S.? The first Russians "immigrants" came in the 1700's. Explorers from Siberia discovered what is now Alaska and claimed it for Russia. Eventually, Russian settlements spread southward almost to what is now California.
 
3     For many hundreds of years, Russia was a huge empire. It included lands such as Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland. The empire was ruled by czars, who were much like kings. When a czar was murdered in 1881, the crime was blamed on the Jews. They were falsely accused of planning and carrying out the murder.
 
4     The Jewish people of Eastern Europe faced a wave of destruction, sponsored by the government. These massacres were known as pogroms. Angry mobs burned Jewish villages. Russian soldiers murdered innocent Jews.

Paragraphs 5 to 13:
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