Description
Book SynopsisEncountering Ellis Island lays bare the profound and sometimes-victorious story of people chasing the American Dream: leaving everything behind, facing a new language and a new culture, and starting a new American life.
Trade ReviewBayor ( Neighbors in Conflict), former president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, fills his quick-moving narrative with dozens of oral and written accounts of those who experienced the 'Island of Hope, Island of Tears' in their quest for the American dream. Publishers Weekly This slim volume is well researched... Students will find this a useful addition to their bibliography. Library Journal In elegant prose in 142 pages (a remarkable achievement), Bayor (emer., Georgia Institute of Technology) includes painful and positive experiences of immigrants and employees on Ellis and Angel Islands, stories representing 20 million new Americans between 1892 and 1924, and those rejected for entry... Highly recommended. Choice Bound to pique students' curiosity and provoke questions about both immigration law and history, Encountering Ellis Island promises to be a useful introductory text that undergraduate students will find engaging and accessible. Journal of American Ethnic History Encountering Ellis Island is a great book...[that] does a great job synthesizing historiography and combining it with primary sources, especially memoirs and oral histories. The Historian
Table of ContentsPreface
Prologue
1. How (and Why) Immigrants Traveled to America
2. How Immigrants Were Processed
3. How Newcomers Dealt with Delays and Coped with Detainment or Rejection
4. How the Immigration Staff and Others Viewed Their Work
5. How Immigrants Responded to Entering America and Changed the System
Epilogue
Notes
Selected Further Reading
Index
