After Ellis Island is an unprecedented study of America's foreign-born population at a critical juncture in immigration history. The new century had witnessed a tremendous surge in European immigration, and by 1910 immigrants and their children numbered nearly one third of the U.S. population. The census of that year drew from these newcomers a particularly rich trove of descriptive information, one from which the contributors to After Ellis Island draw to create an unmatched profile of American society in transition. Chapters written especially for this volume explore many aspects of the immigrants' lives, such as where they settled, the jobs they held, how long they remained in school, and whether or not they learned to speak English. More than a demographic catalog, After Ellis Island employs a wide range of comparisons among ethnic groups to probe whether differences in childbirth, child mortality, and education could be traced to cultural or environmental causes. Did differences in schooling levels diminish among groups in the same social and economic circumstances, or did they persist along ethnic lines? Did absorption into mainstream America—measured through duration of U.S. residence, neighborhood mingling, and ability to speak English—blur ethnic differences and increase chances for success? After Ellis Island also shows how immigrants eased the nation's transition from agriculture to manufacturing by providing essential industrial laborers. After Ellis Island offers a major assessment of ethnic diversity in early twentieth century American society. The questions it addresses about assimilation and employment among immigrants in 1910 acquire even greater significance as we observe a renewed surge of foreign arrivals. This volume will be valuable to sociologists and historians of immigration, to demographers and economists, and to all those interested in the relationship of ethnicity to opportunity.

The story of the island where the immigrants went when they came to America looking for a better way of life and the museum that preserves these memories.

A landmark work of history that brings the voices of the past vividly to life, transforming our understanding of the immigrant's experience in America. Ellis Island. How many stories does this tiny patch of land hold? How many people had joyfully embarked on a new life here -- or known the despair of being turned away? How many were held there against their will? To tell its manifold stories, Ellis Islanddraws on unpublished testimonies, memoirs and correspondence from many internees and immigrants, including Russians, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Germans, and Poles, along with the commissioners, interpreters, doctors, and nurses who shepherded them -- all of whom knew they were taking part in a significant historical phenomenon. We see that deportations from Ellis Island were often based on pseudo-scientific ideas about race, gender, and disability. Sometimes, families were broken up, and new arrivals were held in detention at the Island for days, weeks, or months under quarantine. Indeed the island compound has spent longer as an internment camp than as a migration station. Today, the island is no less political. In popular culture, it is a romantic symbol of the generations of immigrants who reshaped the United States. But its true history reveals that today's fierce immigration debate has deep roots. Now a master storyteller brings its past to life, illustrated with unique archival photographs.

Burdened with bundles and baskets, a million or more immigrant children passed through the often grim halls of Ellis Island. Having left behind their homes in Europe and other parts of the world, they made the voyage to America by steamer. Some came with parents or guardians. A few came as stowaways. But however they traveled, they found themselves a part of one of the grandest waves of human migration that the world has ever known. Children of Ellis Island explores this lost world and what it was like for an uprooted youngster at Americas golden door. Highlights include the experience of being a detained child at Ellis Islandthe schooling and games, the pastimes and amusements, the friendships, and the uneasiness caused by language barriers.

You choose which path you would take if you were an immigrant arriving at Ellis Island.

From 1910 to 1940, over half a million people sailed through the Golden Gate, hoping to start a new life in America. But they did not all disembark in San Francisco; instead, most were ferried across the bay to the Angel Island Immigration Station. For many, this was the real gateway to the United States. For others, it was a prison and their final destination, before being sent home. In this landmark book, historians Erika Lee and Judy Yung (both descendants of immigrants detained on the island) provide the first comprehensive history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Drawing on extensive new research, including immigration records, oral histories, and inscriptions on the barrack walls, the authors produce a sweeping yet intensely personal history of Chinese "paper sons," Japanese picture brides, Korean students, South Asian political activists, Russian and Jewish refugees, Mexican families, Filipino repatriates, and many others from around the world. Their experiences on Angel Island reveal how America's discriminatory immigration policies changed the lives of immigrants and transformed the nation. A place of heartrending history and breathtaking beauty, the Angel Island Immigration Station is a National Historic Landmark, and like Ellis Island, it is recognized as one of the most important sites where America's immigration history was made. This fascinating history is ultimately about America itself and its complicated relationship to immigration, a story that continues today.

Presents first-hand accounts from the last surviving immigrants.