The presence of Ellis Island gave immigrants an open gateway to establish a new life full of adventure. Ellis Island was a small island in New York Harbor that served as America’s largest immigration station. The voices of those who had the remarkable experience of going through the process of immigration at Ellis Island are the most meaningful ones yet in present day.
The Island was too small at first to house around 450,00 immigrants in only the first year of opening up the process of immigration. Soon the station became a disaster because of the catastrophic fire. Every possible arrival records of the immigrants that already had come were burnt to flames. The federal government immediately planned to rebuild a newly constructed station which turned out to look like a train station; however, they strictly enforced it to be fireproof. The total expese of the new Immigration State costed $1.5 million. Through the new innovations of the federal immigration station built such as rooms for a hospital, baggage claim, and dormitories, Ellis Island guided different ethnic immigrants from small opportunities available to people to big and life changing experiences of an adventure.
One would expect that will all these different ethnic groups of people from around the world especially Europe and Asia, that everyone would be scattered into unfamiliar groups; however, that was not the case for these immigrants. Almost every immigrant that “passed” the examination, they all formed individual groups of their own origin or country they came from and built blocks of neighborhoods that were near each other but did not cross. These groups of people had this vision of coming to America to escape from the poverty that they were trapped in such as Poland, China, Italy, Russia, etc. Some of these immigrants had the strength to tell their stories to family members which have been passed down for several generations today. These remarkable men, women, and young children describe their journey from the very beginning of it being Ellis Island. As Ann Walsh describes her first experience at the station when she first arrived in 1922, “We were finally here and there were men at the desk and a long railing and relatives that came had to stand on that side of the railing and you be on the other side until they called your name.”() After arriving from a ten to twelve day destination, immigrants had to wait 3-4 hours waiting to be inspected and the most important question was “What is your name?”. That was all that was holding you to exit the open doors leading to a land of opportunity if you answered it right.
Through the long process of becoming free, immigrants knew that it was worth it by the end of the day, except that only the unfortunate 2% of foreign immigrants were not able to pass the examination and stay due to the fact of illnesses and lack of finances for their family. Once these newcomers from around the world were put off on their own in this country where they did not know anyone, they gradually found their way through many hardships towards their future life ahead of them. As numerous amounts of immigrants arrived to the docks of the cities such as Ellis Island, they set sail to Manhattan to establish ethnic neighborhoods. Some of the patriarchs of the families decided that they would go first through the immigration process first to find housing, a job, and food. Finally when they gained enough money to provide for the family and send to their homeland, the rest of the family came to America as well. Groups such as the Italians brought similar characteristics of Italy with them which formed a neighborhood that became known as “Little Italy”. The first arrival immigrants basically had recreated their homeland features back home in a block of Manhattan, which when the following Italians came, they felt the most comfortable in growing up a family in their native neighborhoods but with much stronger lifestyles.
The most important aspect of the immigration dock at Ellis Island is that it helped many impoverished and hard-working people from around the globe to get the chance to establish a foundation for their family. In present day, many past generations of the first arrival ancestors of immigrated families have gone on a search to understand the their family history and where they come from. All of the immigrants that came to America from Ellis Island have documented arrival records(of course the ones after the fire incident) accessibly stored at Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The journey of these incredible people leave a mark in history that shape our country today with the various ethnic groups all joined as one nation.
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