As immigrants streamed into the cities of the Northeast, they brought their cultural traditions, including music, with them. Joseph Rumshinsky arrived in the United States from his native Vilna, Lithuania, in 1904. He rapidly became one of the most prominent Jewish composers in America. The following song, translated from Yiddish, is an example of a more genteel strain of immigrant song craft.

O living orphan

You uprooted tree.

You have no home, no rest

Since your mother’s not there.

There’s no one to take care of you

And tenderly put you to sleep

And pray to God for your help:

Mama, Mama, where are you now?

Source: Mark Slobin, Tenement Songs: The Popular Music of Jewish Immigrants (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 127.