Immigrant Inspection Station Essay

The 19th century was, by every definition of the word, a simultaneously onerous and distressing time in Europe. Empires and regimes collapsed like dominos, one after the other. Mass famine, caused by factors as extensive and diverse as severe climate abnormalities to colossal, all-out wars, led to the suffering and death of many. With farmers no longer financially independent, poverty reared its ugly head. The utter lack of any kind of political or religious freedom was widely conspicuous. In Italy, for example, the catholic church had a remarkably simple approach: you were free to accept the ideology imposed on you, or be made to suffer for eternity. In London, child labor became as abundant as the lumps of coal those children were tasked

American officials realized by that time that processing the 8 million immigrants which passed through New York during the 35 years prior was challenging enough, and that they couldn’t hope to process the ever increasing stream of arrivals. Thus the Immigrant Inspection Station was constructed. It is staggering to comprehend the sheer number of people who passed through this tiny, mostly artificial island. Genealogical studies indicate that over 100 million Americans can trace their roots to one of the 12 million who entered the island between 1900 and 1924 (that’s one in three Americans!). In fact, the island could process up to 11,000 immigrants a

Most of them found residence in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, specifically in neighborhoods including the East Village, Alphabet City, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Bowery, Little Germany, and Astor Place. Incredibly, there was almost no ethnic separation in most of the neighborhoods (despite their sometimes profoundly ethnic names, which were attached many years later). Immigrants of every origin were stuffed together, creating a frothing blend of accents, cultures, traditions, language. This was the melting pot. As Charles Huard famously