After crossing the ocean, the true encounter with the new country awaited—a meeting that, for many, was brutal, lonely, and full of trials. In this episode, we follow women who arrived in the United States with hope and dreams, only to be met with coldness, cholera, unpaid labor, and a language they didn’t understand.

Through powerful stories from Gjertrud Rumohr Haug, Lina Svåi, Anna Slinde, Guri Rosseland, and Margretha Nesheim, we learn what it was like to be new in a foreign society. They struggle through illness, rejection, the Civil War, and brutal Indigenous uprisings—yet also find warmth, community, and a new voice in American life.

Script: Inger-Kristine Riber and Reidun Horvei

Co-editor: Katherine Jane Hanson

Narrators: Reidun Horvei and Ragnhild Gudbrandsen

Sound Design: Inger-Kristine Riber

Supported by: Fritt Ord