I spent the afternoon exploring an Island called Ellis. In the late 19th and 20th century Europe was ravaged by wars and it was very hard for many people to simply eat. So many decided to try and come to America and make a better life for themselves.
That includes my family. I'm not among the First Families of Virginia or any other exalted group. My Irish half came over after the potato blights led to famine. My German quarter also sought to escape poverty and incessant wars. Back in the 19th century Irish immigrants were often singled out for special scorn as being 'stupid, lazy and stealing American jobs'. There were also regarded as cheaters and petty thieves. That sound like any ethnic groups you've heard of lately? So like so many others, my ancestors joined the 'Poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free' and may have processed through Ellis Island.
The island itself was little more than a fortified sandbar back in the 1830s', part of a set of forts designed to protect the harbor. As immigration grew so grew the need to process these people. America wanted workers, but they didn't want typhus, the insane, or the sort of criminals Great Britain used to ship here back the the colonial times. So the ships stopped at Ellis. First they built a processing building than an increasing number of hospitals to house the arriving sick. They packed them in tight when you traveled in stearage and diseases spread like wildfire. Most were cured, but one of the first things they did was give you a quickie medical exam. If they found something they wrote a letter on your lapel, and sent you out for more examinations. Landfill grew it to 27 acres, and much of the land dedicated to the hospital.
In the main processing building the museum takes you through the steps an immigrant faced when he or she sought to enter America. Families were separated, and packed in dorms. You faced exams to determine your health and whether or not you were likely to become a 'public burden'. Back then they were worried about immigrants overloading social services in a big way.
Just like today.
On the wall they list the occupations coming through Ellis. Most were not doctors and professors. Laborers, domestics, farmers headed the lists. These people came from menial jobs to do menial labor here. Or perhaps to climb the ironwork scaffolds that frame our growing skyscrapers. I looked at their faces, scared, open, quiet, hoping but not daring to hope.
There is a picture there of a group of women who were refused. What it was that made them not good enough to become Americans? What differentiated them from my own great-great-grandparents?
Ellis Island was closed in 1954. Fear of the red menace, a desire to keep America for Americans and other matters made it superfluous. The left it as it was, with tables, glasses and equipment sitting there, too expensive to move. I found a room full of old ovens gathering dust right off of the main building.
Now it is back and the processing center has been rebuilt into a very worthy museum. Being there reminded me how much those of us were born here take for granted every day, and how much a man or woman must sacrifice when they choose to leave their land for another.