American Passage (54 page)

Immigrants are faced with a bifurcated system. Those who seek to enter legally are often faced with a daunting bureaucratic challenge in dealing with an increasingly byzantine system. Those who enter illegally bypass the red tape, but live under the radar and outside the bounds of the national community. Many find the two-tiered society of legal and illegal immigrants troubling and un-American. Wherever you fall on the immigration spectrum, current American immigration law is bound to disappoint, frustrate, and anger.

If the regulation of immigration is somehow tied to the rise of the burgeoning federal government, then our contemporary attitudes toward that government are not helping. Many of those who wish stricter controls and regulation of immigrants are often on the political right and are often the same people who call for limited government intervention in the marketplace. Conservative attacks on government make the call for stronger action against immigrants seem hollow.

Many who call for fewer restrictions on immigration and support open borders are on the political left, but they are often the same people who call for greater government involvement in the economy. They increasingly minimize the right of national sovereignty and dismiss nationalism as an outmoded and reactionary ideal, yet they wish to galvanize the nation for universal health care and other welfare-state programs. They claim to be concerned about rising income inequality, but are relatively uninterested in the idea that cheap immigrant labor keeps wages down for foreign- and native-born alike. These liberals support federal action everywhere but immigration, where they turn as laissez-faire as the editorial page of the
Wall Street Journal
.

To make matters even more confusing, labor unions, which used to be counted among the most ardent supporters of immigration restriction because of their genuine concerns for the effects of cheap labor on wages, have by the dawn of the twenty-first century become supporters of a laissez-faire approach to immigration. This has more to do with the increasingly weak position of unions in this country and the unions’ belief that their survival hinges upon support from foreignborn workers in the service economy.

The battle over the status of immigrants in a globalized world where borders are increasingly fuzzy will only grow more heated. Americans are in for a debate that might prove itself even more contentious than the one fought over Ellis Island. It will involve not only the question of American identity but also the relevance of America as a nation. Back in 1908, Henry Cabot Lodge put forth the primacy of national sovereignty when he said: “No one has a right to come into the United States, or become part of its citizenship, except by permission of the people of the United States.” Americans are still trying to come to grips with the implications of this idea some one hundred years later.

Can modern Americans learn any lessons from the history of Ellis Island? Historians should be wary of writing history that provides a “usable past.” Studying Ellis Island’s history provides little ammunition for those who wish either stricter or more lenient immigration laws. Studying this history should lead us neither to the elevation nor the condemnation of Ellis Island immigrants for their successes. History rarely provides neat lessons that can be utilized for present political purposes. If history teaches anything, it is that the past was filled with imperfect people who made imperfect decisions in dealing with an imperfect world. In this, they are very much like ourselves.

Even though very little of what was done at Ellis Island could be replicated today, its history can shed some light on our own times. The dustbin of history is littered with the now-discredited warnings of anti-immigrant writers like Francis Walker, Prescott Hall, and William Williams. Their fears about the quality of immigrants passing through Ellis Island now appear unfounded and mean-spirited. Not only did the United States absorb this wave of immigrants, it thrived in the twentieth century in part due to their contributions. We should be aware of similar fears about the supposed poor quality of today’s immigrants and not make the same mistakes of that bygone era.

That is not to say that the problems of today are exactly comparable to those of the Ellis Island era. History does not simply repeat itself in an endless loop. However, the history of Ellis Island should remind us that the problems that the United States is dealing with today are not unique and the questions Americans are asking themselves today are very similar to the ones that bedeviled those who came before us.

During the Ellis Island years, most Americans sought a balance between a completely open door to immigrants and a completely closed door. As modern-day Americans seek ways to deal with immigration, they too will have to find their own balance between the competing ideals of universalism versus national sovereignty, a policy of nondiscrimination versus democratic self-rule, and feelings of generosity versus pragmatism.

Most Americans today believe they live in a great country and understand why people from around the world want to live here. The idea of America as a nation of immigrants is a powerful image that rings true for many across the political spectrum. Yet many of those same Americans are also a little anxious that their country will somehow change in a fundamental way because of mass immigration; they worry that new immigrants are a little too different and that assimilation is not occurring fast enough. Many Americans believe this even if these are the same arguments that were used against their immigrant forebears.

Keeping in mind these deeply conflicted ideas about immigration, modern Americans must find their own compromise, one that takes into account the fears and concerns—legitimate or not—of nativeborn Americans, while respecting the rights and humanity of those who arrive at our borders. The United States cannot open its doors to the entire world, but it cannot close its borders either. A successful immigration policy will keep the gates open to continue our long history of welcoming strangers who in turn help build this unfinished nation, while reassuring native-born Americans that the laws are being enforced and social dislocations that arise from immigration are minimized.

If Americans are not reassured that immigration is taking place in a legal and orderly manner that is beneficial to the economic well-being, social cohesion, and national security of the nation, then the entire ideal of immigration is at risk. That elusive balance is what Americans have to debate.

Before the rise of national quotas in the 1920s, the debates of the Ellis Island era—in which restrictionists supported some kind of immigration and their opponents favored some kind of restriction of undesirable immigrants—tried to find that balance. We can see that same dynamic playing out in our own time. Legal scholar Peter Schuck, a pro-immigrant liberal, admits that, “the tension between liberalism’s universal aspirations and our need as a society to achieve the degree of solidarity that effective activist government requires must be resolved at
some
level of exclusion.” On the other side, restrictionist conservative Mark Krikorian supports a “pro-immigrant policy of low immigration, one that admits fewer immigrants but extends a warmer welcome to those who are admitted.” Where to draw that line of exclusion? The devil, of course, is in the details.

As the United States yet again comes to grips with this question, it will have to do it without an active facility like Ellis Island. Rather than passing through something like Ellis Island, today’s immigrants enter the country through airports like JFK or LAX, or pass across the Canadian and Mexican borders. The decision to allow immigrants entry into the country is made at American consulates abroad, not at immigration stations at American ports, although increasing numbers of immigrants are bypassing the cumbersome visa process and entering the country illegally.

In this new era of mass immigration, is it not too far-fetched to ask whether Ellis Island will go the way of that other once-totemic symbol of the American founding? One hundred years from now, will Ellis Island seem as quaint, distant, and unrepresentative as Plymouth Rock does now to a lot of Americans? Instead, will the descendants of Hispanic immigrants seek to build a memorial along the Mexican border fence that asserts their entrance into the American mainstream?

The future is notoriously hard to predict, but the fight over the meaning of Ellis Island—and the meaning of immigration in general— will most likely remain a part of our national dialogue for as long as individuals feel the need to pick themselves up from their homelands and make that American passage, whether by boat, plane, or foot.

WHEN DISCUSSING THE TITLE OF THE BOOK WITH MY EDITOR,
I requested a slight change. Modestly, I asked that the subtitle be changed to “A History of Ellis Island” instead of “The History of Ellis Island.” I lost that argument but still think that it would have been a more appropriate subtitle. My modesty stemmed from my belief that it is impossible to write a comprehensive history of Ellis Island. Its history is literally that of millions of stories, of those who arrived and those who processed them, and of the numerous political and legal battles fought over the inspection station. Most readers will not find the names of their ancestors in this book, but I hope that they come away with a better sense of the many meanings of Ellis Island and how this country dealt with immigrants in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

Readers should keep in mind a few things. First, all of the names that appear in these pages are real. Some historians have used pseudonyms when discussing immigrants passing through Ellis Island because of the personal nature of their stories. Because of the passage of time and the public nature of these records, I have chosen to use actual names, though I have tried to tell all the stories with tact and sensitivity.

Second, it is important to keep in mind that many of the stories told about immigrants in these pages come from government records. Many of the immigrants do not “speak” directly to us, but instead “speak” through reports of government officials or transcripts of hearings at Ellis Island. Many of those recording the words of immigrants did not sympathize with those before them. To complicate matters, many of the words had to be translated by other officials before being added to the record. This is not to discount the importance of such historical records (often they are the only ones we have). It just reminds us that all sources have their own set of limitations.

Lastly, terms like “moron,” “idiot,” “lunatic,” “imbecile,” “mental defective,” “undesirable,” and “desirable” appear throughout the text, usually without quotation marks. This is a stylistic decision to make the narrative flow better, but does not imply that the author concurs in the often harsh judgments made against many immigrants by those who used such terms.

R
ESEARCHING AND WRITING A
book is ultimately a solitary endeavor. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the help that I received from various people along the way.

read parts of the manuscript and provided much-needed feedback. Kevin Swope deserves special mention for reading almost the entire manuscript and giving voluminous comments throughout. Chris Capozzola graciously shared with me his own research on World War I.

Kitty and Ira Carnahan have unfailingly provided support and friendship through the years in ways too numerous to count. Brittany Huckabee has been an invaluable editor and sounding board over the course of two books. Stephen Haas has shared his love of good books and good wine. Steve Thernstrom provided some important help at a crucial time for which I am grateful. Seth Kamil, owner of Big Onion Walking Tours and a good friend, unwittingly helped with the book many years ago when he scheduled me to give tours at Ellis Island while I was working my way through graduate school. Susan Ferber graciously shared her Ellis Island story with me.

Anyone working on immigration history knows Marian Smith. To use a cliché, she is a national treasure. As the senior historian at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly the INS), Marian generously shared her vast knowledge of the topic and assisted me in navigating some bureaucratic hurdles.

Justin Kehoe, Dalton Little, Dennis Bilger, Amy Lewis, and Ben D’Amore provided research assistance at various stages of the process. Jim Thayer deserves separate thanks. As an undergraduate and graduate student, Jim has been a faithful research assistant and computer guru who has generously offered his help above and beyond what was required under his assistantship. Douglas Baynton, J. T. E. Richardson, and William Forbath graciously shared their research with me. Binkie McSweeney Orthwein and Susan Womack shared material relating to their ancestors who worked at Ellis Island. Robert Murphy of the Knights of Columbus Museum used his detective skills to track down an important photograph.

Besides providing me with a steady paycheck, the University of Massachusetts, Boston, also gave me a Joseph P. Healey Endowment Grant, which allowed a summer of research in Washington, D.C. I want to thank Donna Kuizenga, Roberta Wollons, Spencer Di Scala, and Lester Bartson.

The publication of this book would have been delayed even more had it not been for a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This generous grant allowed me to take a year’s leave from teaching to concentrate on reading, research, and writing.

My agent, Rafe Sagalyn, deserves a great deal of credit for helping this book along. After a chance meeting at a Washington party many years ago, Rafe took a chance on a then-unpublished author. I appreciate his patience over these past seven years and the faith he has shown in this book.

My editor, Tim Duggan, has proven to be a wise editor whose comments and edits have pushed me to make this a more readable narrative, while at the same time not losing sight that this is also a serious work of history. This is a better book for his efforts. At HarperCollins, I would also like to thank Tim’s assistant, Allison Lorentzen, for her help, and Martha Cameron for her excellent copyediting.

Donna Beath came into my life toward the end of this project. Not quite realizing what was ahead, she threw herself into the role of reader and critic, sometimes going over chapter drafts while sitting on the beach. She has put up with the ups and downs that are an inevitable part of any book project with her warm smile, good cheer, and an always ready cup of tea.

My ties to Ellis Island are not merely professional. It was from my late grandfather that I first learned of Ellis Island, which Pop passed through at least once as a young immigrant from Italy. His wife, my grandmother Antoinette, was born in New York’s Little Italy, but her parents, stepmother, and brothers passed through Castle Garden and Ellis Island.

The joy of finishing this book is mixed with a great deal of sadness. Over the course of researching and writing, I have lost two of my aunts. I wish that Marion Marino and Kitty Molinari were still here to see this book.

As I write these words, it has been two months since my father passed away. In addition to the countless hours we spent over the years watching innumerable baseball and football games and boxing matches, it was my father who first encouraged my interest in history and politics. He taught me an important lesson that too few young people learn: Not only does history matter, but it is also endlessly fascinating.

My father suffered from many health problems over the years. He never thought he would see me graduate from college, but he did. He never thought he would see me get my PhD, but he did. He never thought he would see the publication of my first book, but he did. He desperately wanted to see this book published, and although he didn’t say so, I know that his nagging over the last year or so to finish it was brought on by the fact that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on.

As my father’s condition worsened this past summer, I spent a great deal of time driving back and forth to New York to be with him. In my spare time, I was finally able to finish the manuscript. But it was too late. This fall, when we knew that the time was near, I told him I was sorry that he wouldn’t see the book. “I tried,” he told me with a smile. “I tried.” And he did. He fought so hard for so many years, but in the end it was all too much.

Although his suffering has ended and he is now in a better place, that doesn’t take away the deep sadness I feel from his absence. It is hard to imagine that I won’t hear his voice again or that I won’t be able to share the reviews of this book with him. There is still so much more that I want to say to him and so much more that I want to hear from him. However, I was blessed to have him around for as long as I did, and I am grateful for everything that he did for me. I think about him every day, as I will for the rest of my life.

Thankfully, my mother, Maria, is still here to share the joy of this book’s publication. She is a “JFK immigrant” who arrived in New York by airplane after the closing of Ellis Island, coming during the quota years of the early 1960s. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for her love and support.