Encountering Ellis Island : how European immigrants entered America / Ronald H. Bayor.
2014
JV6484 .B39 2014 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
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Details
Title
Encountering Ellis Island : how European immigrants entered America / Ronald H. Bayor.
Author
Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-
ISBN
9781421413679 hardcover alkaline paper
1421413671 hardcover alkaline paper
9781421413686 paperback alkaline paper
142141368X paperback alkaline paper
9781421413693 electronic book
1421413698 electronic book
1421413671 hardcover alkaline paper
9781421413686 paperback alkaline paper
142141368X paperback alkaline paper
9781421413693 electronic book
1421413698 electronic book
Published
Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2014]
Language
English
Description
x, 168 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
Call Number
JV6484 .B39 2014
Dewey Decimal Classification
304.8/7304
Summary
"America is famously known as a nation of immigrants. Millions of Europeans journeyed to the United States in the peak years of 1892-1924, and Ellis Island, New York, is where the great majority landed. Ellis Island opened in 1892 with the goal of placing immigration under the control of the federal government and systematizing the entry process. Encountering Ellis Island introduces readers to the ways in which the principal nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American portal for Europeans worked in practice, with some comparison to Angel Island, the main entry point for Asian immigrants. What happened along the journey? How did the processing of so many people work? What were the reactions of the newly arrived to the process (and threats) of inspection, delays, hospitalization, detention, and deportation? How did immigration officials attempt to protect the country from diseased or "unfit" newcomers, and how did these definitions take shape and change? What happened to people who failed screening? And how, at the journey's end, did immigrants respond to admission to their new homeland?Ronald H. Bayor, a senior scholar in immigrant and urban studies, gives voice to both immigrants and Island workers to offer perspectives on the human experience and institutional imperatives associated with the arrival experience. Drawing on firsthand accounts from, and interviews with, immigrants, doctors, inspectors, aid workers, and interpreters, Bayor paints a vivid and sometimes troubling portrait of the immigration procedure. In reality, Ellis Island had many liabilities as well as assets. Corruption was rife. Immigrants with medical issues occasionally faced a hostile staff. Some families, on the other hand, reunited in great joy and found relief at their journey's end. Encountering Ellis Island lays bare the profound and sometimes victorious story of people chasing the American Dream by leaving everything behind, facing a new language and a new culture, and starting a new American life."--Publisher information.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Series
How things worked.
Record Appears in
On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
All Resources
Table of Contents
How (and why) immigrants traveled to America
How immigrants were processed
How newcomers dealt with delays and coped with detainment or rejection
How the immigration staff and others viewed their work
How immigrants responded to entering America and changed the system.
How immigrants were processed
How newcomers dealt with delays and coped with detainment or rejection
How the immigration staff and others viewed their work
How immigrants responded to entering America and changed the system.