Dialogue. (arnold, Yolanda, Jack, and Molly are sitting in a coffee shop

(ARNOLD, YOLANDA, JACK, and Molly are sitting in a coffee shop. YOLANDA is planning to visit her parents in New Jersey in the afternoon.)

ARNOLD: How about another cup of coffee, Yolanda? How much time do you have before your train leaves?

YOLANDA: Not much. There's a train in about thirty minutes.

ARNOLD: It only takes you about ten minutes to get to the train station from here. There's time for another cup of coffee.

JACK: Yolanda, were your parents born in this country?

YOLANDA: No, they came here in the fifties.¹ A great many Puerto Ricans immigrated to New York around that time.

MOLLY: How many Puerto Ricans are there in New York now?

YOLANDA: I don't know exactly, but there are more Puerto Ricans here than in San Juan.

JACK: It's really amazing to think about the number of different ethnic groups in this country. Just in New York alone there are thousands of Greeks, Italians, Chinese.

MOLLY: Jack, how about you? Where are your parents from?

JACK: My parents were born here, but my grandparents came over here from Poland around 1915.

ARNOLD: Immigrants really had a lot of problems in those days, didn't they? Did your grandparents know much English when they came here?

JACK: No, they knew very little. They just knew a few words like «hello», «good-bye», «thank you», and «how much».

MOLLY: How did they manage?² Did your grandfather have much trouble finding a job?

JACK: There weren't many good job's in those days if you couldn't speak English. Luckily my grandparents already had a few relatives in this country, and they helped my grandfather find a job.

YOLANDA: What kind of job did he get?

JACK: He worked in a shoe factory for many years. He saved every penny and finally bought his own business. They're living a very comfortable life today.

MOLLY: That's a typical American success story, isn't it?

JACK: It sure is. My grandparents are Americans now, but they take a great deal of pride in where they come from.

ARNOLD: A lot of people today are interested in tracing their roots.³ Most people in this country have an immigrant background. Very few Americans can say that their ancestors came over here on the Mayflower.⁴

¹ In the fifties means «from 1950 through 1959».

²How did they manage means «What did they do to overcome all the problems they had?»

³ Roots means «family background; where your ancestors came from».

⁴ The Mayflower is the ship that brought the first European settlers to Massachusetts in 1620.