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--REMEMBERING
ELLIS ISLAND ON COLUMBUS DAY
by Ro Pucci
For
many Italians this island was the golden gate to their
new home
--I
am one of the one hundred million people whose ancestor
entered America through the immigration offices on Ellis Island in New York.
--This
fortunate ancestor was my grandfather and when I was
a child he used to tell me over and over again the
story of how he got to America and of how he became
a citizen of the United
States. From his little Sicilian
village he had arrived in the huge city on the other
side of the Atlantic. The way he told me
his story made me look everything magic and legendary.
My grandfather had to return back to Italy while,
closing the family circle, I live now in Texas maybe
because I was fascinated by his first American tales.
I remember that grandpa Gaetano used to get excited
when he described the day he got to New
York. On the unstable boat where
almost everyone had been seasick all the passengers
had run to the side rails and in the misty morning
they had finally caught sight of the Statue of Liberty,
beautiful and gigantic.
--Then
they had gone through the inspection on Ellis Island. The U.S. Immigration facilities built
there since January of 1892 consisted of three floors
and covered an area of about five thousand and six
hundred square meters. The newcomers were taken there
to go through the physicals and their papers controls. --Twelve
million people, more than seventy percent of
the immigrants who arrived to America at
the end of the nineteenth century had to go through
that inspection on the island that has become the
symbol of immigration to our great Country. An
important museum can be found on Ellis Island to remind us also of the dream that did not always
come true and that was associated with the United
States. These immigrants came from every corner of
the world and from Europe that was afflicted by wars,
poverty and hunger.
--I
will never forget the plain and shameless words of
an Italian American lady, who now owns a very successful
restaurant, according to which her parents had been
able to have at dinner their first plate of meat only
when from their poor Sicily they had finally
immigrated to America.
--Ellis
Island in the period of the great migration witnessed
incredible stories of anguish and overwhelming human
dramas. My grandfather used to tell
me that almost everyone was afraid of that inspection
and of missing the opportunity to enter the new Country
that offered a job and the chance to give a decent
life to their family. Unfortunately not everyone had
the requirements necessary for the admission. Poverty
and hunger had spread in Europe illnesses like tuberculosis
that killed a large number of people mostly in the
poor areas of the Old Continent among which there
was also southern Italy. Grandpa explained to us that
among the immigrants who got to Ellis Island together
with the joy of those who were accepted there was
also the frustration of those who were rejected.
--America
continues to offer hope and periodically we discuss
to slow down or stop this flux of people who want
to enter into our Country.
--But,
how can become merciless and indifferent a people
like ours that is formed also by the children and
the grandchildren of other immigrants?
--According
to another story heard from one of my high school
teachers, at the end of WWII when on board a ship
that was taking many Italian prisoners to America
the news arrived that the war was over and that the
boat now had to turn around and to go back to Italy,
many of those prisoners cried desperately. For
them the American dream was over.
--The
Pilgrim Fathers who were among the first to get to
our shores fleeing from the British religious intolerance,
could have never imagined that they were in fact the
first of a long series of refugees seeking shelter
and freedom on the North American continent.
--Ellis
Island with its Museum of immigration is important
also for this reason. It is a constant reminder
that America was chosen by many not only because it
offered a second chance for a better life but because
it has given the protection of a powerful sanctuary
to innumerable refugees from every part of the world.
--Through
Ellis Island has passed an endless stream of men of
faith, of idealists, of simple fathers and mothers
who have strengthened and developed the greatest Country
in the world. At the same time they have built a bridge
across the ocean that now unites us and makes stronger the western civilization of the Old and of
the New World.
--Article
by Ro Pucci
--Houston,
Texas
; October
10, 2005
Roberto
G. Pucci (Ro
Pucci)
--Ro
Pucci is
a U.S. citizen of Italian origin who lives in Houston,
Texas and works as a freelance photojournalist. Many
of his articles and pictures have been published on
“ITALIA
ESTERA” and on many newspapers , press agencies
and on other interned based publications. He is particularly
interested on Italian and American facts and culture
and writes also poems for his picture books. Information
on his activities can be found at his web address:
http://www.ro-pucci.com
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