Ellis Island
… more pix on Google Maps: the Island & the museum; TA
This island is a stone throw away from Liberty Island. Actually we get there from Liberty, on the same ticket from CityExperiences.
The Island is pleasant to walk around, a cafe to take a break and a museum and library to visit.
“Prior to 1855, immigration arriving at the Port of New York were free to enter the US if their vessel was checked and cleaned for contagious diseases by the quarantine station at the entrance to New York Harbor. Between 1855 and 1890, approximately 8 million immigrants traveling through the Port of New York were formally processed at Castle Garden in Battery Park by NYS immigration officials.
After 1890, the federal government assumed responsibility for processing immigrants. All third class and steerage passengers bound fort the Port of New York were required to be inspected the Ellis Island Immigration Station, where approximately 12 million hopeful immigrants were processed between 1892 and 1945.”
The immigrants who had gone through here, estimates to be 40% of US population today.
My father in law’s grandparents were among them. However, with Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigrants was a fraction in numbers compared to that of Italian, German, Russian, and Irish, etc.: 300,000 Italian arrived in 1880s and an additional 600,000 in 1890s. In the decade after that, more than two million. By 1920, when immigration began to taper off, more than 4 million Italians had come to the United States, and represented more than 10 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population.
It was estimated that the facility could process 5,000 immigrants a day. The main building (rebuilt after 1897 fire) had won a gold medal at Paris Exposition in 1900.
P.S. Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming, by Ava Chin (2023) is a good read.
The museum: exhibits, the hall and the library
The library
