City of Immigrants

Navigate NYC’s Lower East Side as a young Russian Jewish immigrant in 1907.

Step into the shoes of Lena Brodsky, a fictional 14-year-old Jewish immigrant arriving from Russia in 1907. Help Lena navigate her new life in New York City, from her first moments on Ellis Island to finding her way through the streets of the city’s Lower East Side. To support your family and try to save money to bring your parents to America, you must work long hours in a garment factory for little money. But you also have the opportunity to take classes at the local settlement house and go on fun outings with new friends. Eventually, as part of a burgeoning labor movement, you may choose to join fellow workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in a strike – one of the many turning points that shape Lena’s life and reveal how the story of America was shaped by immigrants.

Winner of an International Serious Play Awards Gold Medal, this mission was developed in partnership with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which consulted on historical content for the game and development of educator support materials. The Museum building and its artifacts also served as models for design of the game’s locations, costumes, and props.

“City of Immigrants” is part of the acclaimed MISSION US interactive series that immerses young people in the drama of American history. Winner of the Games for Change Award for “Most Significant Impact” and used by more than four million students to date, multiple research studies show that using Mission US improves historical knowledge and skills, leads to deeper student engagement, and promotes richer classroom discussion.

GAME FEATURES:

• Immerses players in the life of a Russian Jewish immigrant to New York City in the early 1900s, as the Progressive Era labor movement is gaining momentum

• Innovative choice-driven story with multiple endings and badge system

• Includes interactive prologue, 5 playable parts, and epilogue - approx. 2 hours of gameplay, segmented for flexible implementation

• Diverse cast of characters features a range of perspectives on how immigrants adapted to life in a new country and sought to improving conditions for themselves and others

• Primary source documents integrated into game design

• Includes text-to-speech, Smartwords, and Glossary features to support struggling readers, as well as closed captioning, play/pause controls, and multi-track audio control.

• Collection of free educator support resources available at mission-us.org includes curriculum overview, document-based activities, writing/discussion prompts, vocabulary support, and more.

ABOUT MISSION US:

• AWARDS include: Games for Change Award for Most Significant Impact, multiple Japan Prize, Parents’ Choice Gold, Common Sense Media ON for Learning, and International Serious Play awards, and Webby and Daytime Emmy nominations.

• CRITICAL ACCLAIM: USA Today: “a powerful game that all kids should experience”; Educational Freeware: “one of the most captivating educational games online”; Kotaku: “a slice of livable history that every American should play”; 5 out of 5 stars from Common Sense Media

• GROWING FAN BASE: 4 million registered users across the US and around the world to date, including 130,000 teachers.

• PROVEN IMPACT: Major study by Education Development Center (EDC) found students who used MISSION US significantly outperformed those who studied the same topics using typical materials (textbook and lecture) – showing a 14.9% knowledge gain versus less than 1% for the other group.

• TRUSTED TEAM: Produced by The WNET Group (NY’s flagship PBS station) in partnership with educational game development company Electric Funstuff and the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, City University of New York