Ellis Island stands as tribute to nation’s immigrant past

NEW YORK (InvestigateTV) — Ellis Island served as a point of entry for millions of immigrants during one of the largest migration periods in world history.

Historians say Ellis Island was founded in 1892 as a solution to a serious social crisis, after New York’s previous immigrant processing station had become a pit of corruption and theft.

Ellis Island represented a new type of government institution and has become an enduring symbol of the immigrant experience in the United States.

The site operated as an immigrant processing facility from 1892 to 1954.

Matt Housch is the museum curator at Ellis Island. For the most part, Housch said that it looks exactly like “if you had been here at Ellis Island over 100 years ago.”

“Immigration is such a deeply personal story for people and also such a significant story for our nation,” Housch said.

During the early 1900s, a vast majority of migrants flowed through the halls in search of a new life.

“Until you arrived here at Ellis Island, you had to come knock on the door of the United States and ask if you were going to get in or not,” Housch said.

Roughly 98% of immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island were allowed entry into the United States. The nation was growing and in need of labor at the time.

After presenting documents and passing a medical exam, immigrants began their pursuit of the American dream.

“It’s the idea that I can make a better life in this place, this place that’s also steeped in these ideas, these ideals that I might really appreciate to, you know, the United States was unique in this way,” Housch said. “They built a statue to Liberty that I passed by on a steamship when I came into the harbor.”

Anti-immigration voices present during peak years

Anti-immigration voices were present during Ellis Island’s peak years, according to Housch.

He said that those against immigrants didn’t want certain type of immigrants and questioned them coming to the country.

“What is your story? Are you like me? Do we want you in the United States? Eventually they succeed in passing a number of laws that restricts immigration and ultimately involves the closure of Ellis Island,” Housch said.

“The challenge is, how do we welcome people who are not like us? How do we get over those biases?” Housch said.

Housch did not specify how many Americans’ stories run through Ellis Island, saying only that it was “millions upon millions.”

The monument and museum stand as tributes to the role people from abroad played in the country’s history, and what they went through to get here.

“We are not a nation of these particular people, we’re a nation of people who have all come from somewhere else,” Housch said. “And we came together to do this very important thing.”

How to search records

The Ellis Island archival records collection can be explored at StatueOfLiberty.org.

To prepare for a search, people should gather as much information about their family as possible, including first and last names, approximate year of arrival, year of birth, where they arrived, and whether any other family members traveled with them.