Lesson 5 Ellis Island: A Gateway to the New World
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants and is called a "melting pot"
where various racial and ethnic groups live together.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than 12 million immigrants from different countries passed through one place before officially entering the United States.
his place that is so dear to the hearts of many Americans is "Ellis Island."
This meaningful island gives these Americans an opportunity to trace their ancestry and roots.
Annie Moore, a fifteen-year-old girl then, tells the story of how she became the first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island.
It was a very cold winter day in December, 1891 when my two younger brothers and I stood in line to board the big ship.
We were about to leave our home in Ireland and take a voyage to the New World, America.
Even though I felt sad, I was also excited about seeing my parents again.
They had gone to America two years earlier to make a better life for my family.
Riding on a big ship across the Atlantic Ocean may sound like fun, but it wasn't.
Our room was way down at the bottom of the boat.
It was very uncomfortable and crowded.
On January 1st, 1892, the ship reached New York.
By the time we sailed into New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty, everyone cheered and cried.
I was very happy that the trip was almost over.
Then the captain announced that the ship would dock at Ellis Island.
I was the first one off the ship.
I was very surprised when an official gave me a $10 gold piece.
At first I didn't understand.
I had never seen so much money, and did not know why he gave it to me.
He explained that Ellis Island was new, and the $10 was a gift to the first person off the ship.
Later I found that I became the first immigrant to land on the newly-opened Ellis Island.
Immigrants that came through Ellis Island had to pass a medical exam to be allowed to enter the country.
People who passed the physical exam went on to answer a long list of questions:
Have you been to prison? Can you read and write?
Do you have a job waiting for you?
Those who were accepted into the country, then exchanged whatever sort of money they had for dollars.
This marked the beginning of their new lives in America.
In those days, many people around the world looked upon the United States as the land of opportunity.
Some of them had built up an idealistic image of America and were faced with the reality of living in a foreign country.
It was true that the growing country needed workers, but the new jobs were just as hard as those the immigrants had left behind.
As a funny Italian story goes, "I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold.
When I got here, I found they weren't paved at all;
I had to pave them."
For most immigrants, Ellis Island was a gateway to America.
They came seeking a better life for their family.
Those arriving after 1886 could see the Statue of Liberty next to Ellis Island, a symbol of their new hope.
At the base of the statue are these lines from the poem The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus:
The New Colossus
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Today Ellis Island is no longer the gateway to America.
But for many Americans, it is a memorial, the entry point for the ancestors of more than 100 million people.
It is a precious place that will live on forever in their hearts.
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