During class this week, I couldn’t help but think of the significance of Ellis Island in a lot of our lives. Personally, my grandparents went through Ellis Island at a very young age. This book speaks to me in a way that helps me envision how my grandparents must have felt upon entering America. My grandfather was a linen trader in Ireland before entering the United States, reading through his memos, its clear his thoughts were very similar to the images displayed throughout this book. For me it is relatable because his memo’s are in fragments, almost as still images at points in his arrival, similar to the still images we see throughout the text. The images we see of New York City in the text reflect his memo’s as memorizing and grand, as he came from a rural background in Belfast, Ireland. Overall, I just find this text interesting because it helps me connect to my past, and I relate the text very closely to how I see my grandfather when he entered the United States for the first time as an immigrant.
2 thoughts on “Ellis Island”
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This book also made me think about my own family’s journey through ellis island, and how everyone in our class (barring native americans, of course) has their own immigration story. America is unique in that way. Very cool.
This book actually made me think about how little I actually know about my own family’s immigration history. I know my earliest immigrant ancestor was Abraham Samson, who crossed in the 1600s, but more recent immigrants have been marring into the name ever since. The only one I know to have come through Ellis Island, my German great-grandmother who arrived when she was just 15 all alone. I don’t know much more about her than that and I’ve never looked much further than that. This book has me wondering about her experience and I will be looking into her story after this semester is done.