Review by Choice Review
Whether Americans trace their ancestry to Plymouth Rock or a jetliner that recently landed at JFK, they are all immigrants. Szejnert, a Polish writer and social activist, spent 10 years analyzing Ellis Island's records for this "people's history." Beginning with the Lenni Lenape Native Americans who first occupied Kioshk, now Ellis Island, and continuing through Lee Iacocca's Statue of Liberty--Ellis Island Centennial Commission, Szejnert details how the island, which has witnessed 12 million people pass through over 62 years, has come to symbolize the US's history as a nation of immigrants. During the world wars it served as an internment center and, following WW II, as a displaced persons center before closing in 1954. Ellis Island represents hope among liberals who see it as a symbol exemplifying the Declaration of Independence and fear among conservatives who see the "tired and poor," "the huddled masses yearning to breathe free," mongrelizing the US's Anglo-Saxon heritage. Szejnert highlights the long roots of this division, focusing on the arrivals, the unfortunates not admitted, and the employees who made the encounter as pleasant as possible. This is a must read to understand the place and power of the American Dream. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels. --Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Polish journalist Szejnert delivers a kaleidoscopic history of Ellis Island told primarily through the accounts of immigrants who arrived there seeking entry into the U.S. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources including letters, memoirs, and official government records, Szejnert personalizes the era's immigration statistics by foregrounding the experiences of people such as Ludmila Foxlee, a Czech immigrant who passed through Ellis Island with her family as a nine-year-old in 1894 and then became a social worker and patron of immigrant families; Paula Pitum, a disabled Russian Jewish girl whose family fought her deportation with the support of neighbors in Olean, N.Y.; and Ellis Island physician Victor Safford, whose personal reflections on immigrant racial types serve as an entry point into Szenjert's discussion of the impact of racial classification on U.S. immigration policy. With fine-grained details and fluid writing, Szejnert humanizes the immigrant experience in late 19th- and early 20th-century America. Genealogy buffs and history fans will celebrate this engrossing portrait. (Aug.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Polish journalist chronicles the history of America's famed immigration station through the stories of individuals who worked there or passed through on their way to a new life. In an afterword, Szejnert notes that she wrote this account after discovering that there were no books about Ellis Island available in Polish, but her people-centered narrative fills an English-language gap as well. Making extensive use of primary documents, including letters written by immigrants to family in the old country, the author captures the mingled hope and fear experienced as people entered the massive main building, equipped with modern accoutrements few had seen in their ancestral villages, and faced numerous bureaucratic barriers. Quotes from John Weber, the first Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York, and his successors make palpable the massive logistical effort required to process all these people--more than 1 million in the peak year 1907--and the officials' commendable determination to do it fairly, efficiently, and humanely. Szejnert does not scant the fear of "degraded, backward" people "unfit to join into American life" that culminated in the 1924 law that basically slammed the door on Italian and Jewish immigration. But her emphasis is on the immigrants' fortitude and resilience and the empathetic assistance of Ellis Island personnel--many themselves immigrants, such as interpreter Francesco Martoccia and social worker Cecilia Greenstone, one of several redoubtable matrons charged with protecting female immigrants from human trafficking. Szejnert reveals countless intriguing historical tidbits: the luggage room with space for 12,000 passengers' bags, sick immigrants required to wash who "had never seen a bathtub and…were afraid to get in the water." The author also evokes the island's ghostly atmosphere after it was abandoned in 1954 and the determined efforts that led to its triumphant 1990 reopening as a museum, visited by 2 million people each year. Warmly human and extremely moving--a welcome addition to the Ellis Island literature. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
