Anecdote
The fourth instalment in an educational series created by WNET New York Public Media in partnership with the City University of New York and the American Social History Project, Mission US: City of Immigrants was published free online in 2010 and, although set in 1907 in the Lower East Side, forms part of a cycle that includes For Crown or Colony? on the American Revolution, Flight to Freedom on slavery, A Cheyenne Odyssey on the Indian Wars, and more recently Up from the Dust and Prisoner in My Homeland, which covers the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. The player takes on the role of a young Lithuanian Jewish immigrant, Lena Brodsky, who arrives at Ellis Island and tries to survive in Manhattan's Jewish quarter. Educational director David Langendoen and his team of historians from the Tenement Museum reconstructed the streets of the Lower East Side from photographs by Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis. Each chapter, lasting approximately one hour, asks the player to choose between working in a sweatshop, joining the union movement, attending night school, or helping the family left behind in Europe. A complete playthrough lasts between four and five hours. The Mission US series, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is used in more than fourteen thousand American classrooms and has won numerous educational awards. The title Prisoner in My Homeland in particular, released in 2020, is dedicated to the internment camps of the Second World War and extends the series' exploration of American civic dilemmas. It testifies to the potential of serious games to educate new generations in the history of their country.
Popularity & reception
Awards — Parents' Choice Award (2010) · Common Sense Media – Editor's Choice · International Serious Play Awards – Gold Medal · National Endowment for the Humanities – funding
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