“Today, over 100
million Americans — about one-third of the population — can trace
their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived in America at
Ellis Island before dispersing to points all over the country.”
— Wikipedia
I am one of those 100
million Americans. My paternal grandparents came here from Croatia,
which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; my maternal
grandparents were descended from earlier Irish and German
immigrants.
I’d always been taught
that immigrants were processed at Ellis Island. So, I was startled
when I heard some people say, during the current debate about
illegal immigration, that most early immigrants also entered the
country illegally, wherever they could get ashore, that Ellis Island
was open for only a few years. That didn’t sound right, and it
wasn’t.
In reality, more than
70 percent of all immigrants entered through New York City:
initially, at the Castle Garden depot near the tip of Manhattan,
then at the new detention center at Ellis Island from 1892 to 1954.
(Those coming from Asia were processed in San Francisco.)
And, relevant to the
current discussion, you should know what Wikipedia tells us:
“Generally, those
immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis
Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation,
and the amount of money carried. It was important to the American
government that the new arrivals could support themselves and have
money to get started. The average the government wanted the
immigrants to have was between 18 and 25 dollars. Those with visible
health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island’s
hospital facilities for long periods of time. More than three
thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held
in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers were rejected
because they were considered “likely to become a public charge.”
About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to
their countries of origin for reasons such as having a chronic
contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity.”
So, most of us are
descended from the best: those courageous enough to leave familiar
countries and customs, relatively healthy risk-takers who had some
skills to offer their new home. The Library of Congress notes that
“Fleeing crop failure, land and job shortages, rising taxes, and
famine, many came to the U.S. because it was perceived as the land
of economic opportunity. Others came seeking personal freedom or
relief from political and religious persecution. With hope for a
brighter future, nearly 12 million immigrants arrived in the United
States between 1870 and 1900.”
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Barbara's
Croation-American grandfather was a policeman until he
arrested the mayor. |
Now we’re told that
roughly 12 million were living illegally in the U.S. in 2007, and we
know it’s many more today. Our country used to limit the flow so
that new citizens could have time to assimilate before another group
joined them; now there is no processing, just an open invitation for
even more to come, regardless of job skills, health and planned
assimilation.
I was named for my two
grandmothers, one German, one Croatian. The former was born in
Pennsylvania; her mother was born in Bavaria. A cousin tells me that
our German great-grandfather was a carpenter who built homes for his
two daughters a block apart in my hometown of St. Marys, which had
been founded by German immigrants in 1842. My mother grew up in one
of the houses with her four sisters.
Their great-great
grandmother’s family had emigrated to Ireland from France in the
12th century. She emigrated to St. Marys in 1884. Other family
members emigrated to Bergen, N.Y., apparently having passed the
tests at Ellis Island.
Like many Irish, they
worked on the railroad. My granddad, who married Barbara and
inherited the house, was train master for the Shawmut Line. They
lived a comfortable middle-class life.
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Barbara's
Croatian-American grandfather, with his two
first-generation children, her father Max on the right. |
My Croatian
grandfather, age 15, emigrated in 1907, the peak year of European
immigration. By 1910, 13.5 million immigrants were living in the
United States, according to Wikipedia. I’ve been told that his
father lived in America, returned to Croatia and sent his son here
from their farming community near the Slovenian border. From what he
told us, he didn’t fill one of the above requirements, having only
18 cents in his pocket when he arrived, but his size must have
caught the attention of those who were seeking strong peasants for
jobs in the Pittsburgh steel mills.
He was naturalized in
1924; he eventually settled in St. Marys, part of a small community
of Slavic peoples. In my hometown, the three ethnic groups shared a
Catholic heritage and seemed to get along well enough for his
first-generation son to marry my Irish-German-American mother; they
lived happily-ever-after, going dancing every Saturday night.
My grandmother Barbara,
however, died young during the Spanish flu epidemic. Grandpa was a
policeman when I was born, until he arrested the town’s mayor for
public drunkenness, after which he was fired, a family story that
I’m sure helped create my own political views. Gramps didn’t mind;
he went to work as a security officer on the Erie docks and
eventually returned to St. Marys to run Big Mox’s, his second wife’s
family pub, which I remember he seemed to enjoy.
He spoke excellent
English and was a leader in the Slavic community; he paid for my two
years of college, and when he died, he left enough money for my dad
to realize his dream of owning a small hardware store. And this, my
friends, is the American immigrant experience in a nutshell.
Grandpa’s two brothers
emigrated to Canada, perhaps during the period that Slavs weren’t
allowed to enter the U.S. His niece Zorah later escaped from what
had become communist Yugoslavia; Grandpa went to New York City to
get her. I was old enough then that I remember the stories she told
us about living under communism — another influence on my present
worldview.
I am grateful that my
direct Irish family survived the potato famine, that the Germans
weren’t still in Bavaria when Hitler came to power, that Grandpa
left Croatia before Tito became dictator. Gramps told me that they’d
fought as boys in the schoolyard, and this was one reason he wasn’t
going back for a visit to his village.
Thank you, America, for
accepting my legal immigrant family.
