'Golden Door' The Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Golden Door" is so hypnotically breathtaking, you don't realize you're not breathing. By the final shot, you don't realize you're crying either, but there go the tears. Written and directed by Emanuele Crialese, this is a most beautiful movie. That it happens to be about the physical and emotional brutality of coming to this country 100 ago only enhances the achievement.
A Symphony for Ellis Island Philadelphia Inquirer The Kennett Symphony Orchestra is taking a new tack in an attempt to spread the word about its June concert premiere of Peter Boyer's Ellis Island: The Dream of America. For the first time, the orchestra is sponsoring a competition for high school students that doesn't involve instruments or voices. Instead, teenagers are being invited to submit essays, posters, and PowerPoint presentations about immigration, the theme of Boyer's work.
Annie Moore to Get Headstone The Irish Echo New York's Cardinal Edward Egan has given the go-ahead for the importing of a headstone from Ireland to mark the grave of Annie Moore. Moore, the widely celebrated first ever immigrant recorded at Ellis Island, rests in an unmarked grave in Calvary Cemetery, Queens. After a personal appeal by New York City's commissioner for public records, Brian Andersson, Cardinal Egan waived the existing prohibition against the use of limestone headstones at Calvary.
Stations of Entry The Pueblo Chieftan What most of the immigrants (Vineland eighth graders) discovered in the re-enactment of the Ellis Island experience was that the first stop toward a better life wasn't the best part of their excursion. "They were kind of harsh and really didn't treat the immigrants with much respect," said Garrett Evans, who portrayed Italian immigrant Vellicemo Gagliano. "They were really tough on you if you didn't speak English."
Students Learn About Life as Ellis Island Immigrants Foster's Daily Democrat For just a day, students in the eighth grade U.S. history class at the Middle School truly knew what it felt like to relive the immigrant experience at Ellis Island in the early 1900s.
Be a Full American The Atlanta Journal-Constitution For the last five centuries, people of many ethnic groups have immigrated to America. Many came through Ellis Island. They came from Europe with a plan to start their lives anew. Many came to work and pay off their debts. Many came because of famine in their homeland. Many came simply for the opportunity to provide their children a better life than they had back home.
Brickhouse Pub a Tribute to Ellis Island Immigrants The Orlando Sentinel Poland, Ireland, England, Germany, Belgium and other European countries are represented in the homemade fare at the restaurant, which opened this month at 794 W. Minneola Ave. "Both my grandfathers left Czechoslovakia when they were 15, and both went through Ellis Island," said Debbie Lacek, 42, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Mark, 52.
February 06, 2008
Lars Rockne was working on something to be proud of - and waiting for the family he had left behind in Norway. It was 1893 and Chicago, where Rockne had settled, was abuzz with activity surrounding the upcoming World's Fair. Rockne would be a part of it, and just about the time he completed the carriage he would proudly exhibit at the fair, his wife, daughters, and five-year-old son, Knut, were completing their voyage to America. Their official arrival would be marked by their passage through the Ellis Island immigration station in the New York harbor, which had been built in 1892 to accommodate the increasing tide of immigrants. Four years later, that pine building burned down. A new, enormous beaux arts structure replaced it in 1900. In time, Ellis Island would become a small village with 35 buildings.
In 1908, five-year-old Leslie Townes Hope, after a journey from Southampton, England, arrived on the S.S. Philadelphia, a steamship, and along with his mother and brothers, passed through the main building, along with thousands of others. (For years Ellis Island processed an average of more than 5,000 immigrants a day.) If his experience was typical, he spent between three and five hours on Ellis Island. His mother was asked 29 questions about her family's social and legal status (Were they anarchists? Bolsheviks? Union organizers? Did they have at least $20? Was her husband, William, in New York, or waiting for them in Cleveland, Ohio, where he earned a living as a stonemason?) Leslie went through a 15-point visual physical that lasted about six seconds. He climbed the stairs to the second-floor registry room (also called the Great Hall), and if any of his family members had been out of breath when he got to the top, they would have been whisked away by a doctor or nurse for further examination.
Finally, like 98 percent of those who passed through Ellis Island between its opening in 1892 and its official closure in 1954, within five hours the Hopes would be ready to take a free ferry to Manhattan. Seventeen million newcomers took those ferries, while far fewer than a million were ultimately deemed unfit for citizenship - because they had a communicable disease, were "mentally deficient," were potential troublemakers, or were otherwise considered likely to become wards of the state. Loss leaders need not apply.
The immigrants came in geographic waves - first a huge tide from Ireland, then Germany, then Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe. Each tide was invariably classified as inferior to those who had come before. Despite widespread anti-immigration sentiments - ones that persisted from the early 1800s to the present - Ellis Island was built and operated as a place where newcomers were welcomed to the United States. Perhaps not eagerly. Perhaps grudgingly. Certainly with some selectivity. But welcomed with hot meals in an enormous dining hall, with first-class medical care in the island's government-funded hospital. Welcomed by the island's paid employees and by volunteers - from the Italian Welfare League, the Polish Society, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and many other groups - who helped guide the tired and often befuddled thousands through the entrance process.
And, ultimately, welcomed ashore to perform, in most cases, the most menial labor, the jobs that established Americans didn't want. This old Italian quotation, immortalized in the Ellis Island museum, would ring true to even today's immigrants, especially those who enter illegally because they are unable to gain a coveted green card or long-term visa. It reads: "I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets were not paved with gold. Second, they weren't paved at all. Third, I was expected to pave them."
Philosopher George Santayana recognized that this nation was borne of immigrants, and that immigrants had many character traits in common.
"The fortunate, the deeply rooted, and the lazy remained at home," he wrote in Materialism and Idealism in American Life, a 1920 essay. "The wilder instincts or dissatisfaction of others tempted them beyond the horizon ... his enthusiasm for the future is profound ... it is the necessary faith of the pioneer." But reproduction of existing Americans alone wouldn't keep the country moving forward, because, Santayana wrote, "Such a temperament is, of course, not maintained in the nation merely by inheritance."
Many popular misconceptions about immigrants came from what seemed to be the most unassailable sources. In the January 1913 issue of The Popular Science Monthly, for example, Dr. Alfred C. Reed, who worked for the U.S. Public Health Service on Ellis Island, described what it was like in his article Going Through Ellis Island, which had some degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, he also made many statements, to back his contention that immigration should be restricted, that lacked any true merit. For example, he wrote of the immigrants, "They come to make what they can in a few years of arduous unremitting labor, and then return to their homes to spend it in comparative comfort and ease." And, for emphasis, Reed added, "As a class, they contribute little of lasting value... "
Of course, he couldn't have been more wrong. Bob Hope went on to become one of the most famous and beloved American entertainers, appearing as a comedian, actor, singer and dancer on the stage and on screen for decades. He was the headline act for about 60 USO tours, entertaining troops from the start of World War II through Desert Storm, and for this work he was given one of the nation's highest honors, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1969.
And little "Knut" Rockne? He went on to become first a chemistry professor, then one of the greatest college football coaches of all time at Notre Dame. Knute Rockne, born in Norway, led the "Fighting Irish" to many national championships. And in 1940, he was immortalized, in a movie starring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan. The movie's title? "Knute Rockne, All American."
25 Commandments http://knuterockne.com 1. Scholarship: The player should first be a good student. Do not neglect your studies. Your first purpose should be to get an education.
Finding Knute Rockne http://ancestry.com Like a lot of famous immigrants, Knute Rockne was well hidden in the Ellis Island database.
Ellis Island's Forgotten Hospital City Room When most New Yorkers think of Ellis Island, they probably recall the Great Hall where 12 million immigrants were processed, which opened to the public in 1990 after three decades of neglect and disrepair. But unknown to most people is the fact that Ellis Island contains a long-forgotten 22-building hospital complex, which during its busiest years, from 1902 to 1930, was one of the largest public health undertakings in United States history, and a place of heartbreak and hope, sickness and recovery.
The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook http://ellisislandcookbook.com The story of our common past told through the recipes and reminiscences of our immigrant ancestors.
An Interactive Tour of Ellis Island Scholastic Inc. Over 40 percent of all Americans can trace their roots to Ellis Island. More than 12 million Americans passed through these doors.
Ellis Island Immigration Museum Ellis Island.com From 1892 to 1954, this immigrant depot processed the greatest tide of incoming humanity in the nation’s history. Nearly twelve million landed here in their search of freedom of speech and religion, and for economic opportunity.
Sounds like we had an immigration process, people followed the process, and it worked to the bett...
February 06, 2008 11:28 AM
Can your family trace its roots back to Ellis Island?
75% 25%
thecatalyst said...
Sounds like we had an immigration process, people followed the process, and it worked to the betterment of our society. Sounds like a good model to follow in the present day.
more on the honor rollI AGREE, WAY BETTER THAN A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR WALL...EH?
I agree.....I came to the U.S from the U.K in 1959. I'm now a proud dual national - became a U.S. citizen in 1970. When I first arrived people made fun of my accent, I didn't know how to play baseball, and I had to go to the 1959 version of English as a second language ( I guess we Brits talk funny and spell words differently). I became very popular in the early 60's with the girls especially after the Beatles. Hey, I liked the Beach Boys, too! Today, I speak "American", know the difference between first base and a home run, and have made a sucessful life in L.A.
I came to the U.S. on a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation. Wow! what an experience! I saw one at an airshow in Van Nuys a few years ago...I like to think it was the one I came over on......very romantic, don't you think?