Ellis Island: the Gateway to freedom
With a view of the statue of liberty and the New York Skyline, Ellis Island was a place of hope and determination for these immigrants who have traveled many months to find freedoms. Ellis Island was the United States largest and most active immigration station and most of the immigrating Jews passed through the gates into rooms where strangers held their fate in their hands. They were put through tests of their attributes and based on their results and, in part the mood of the proctor that day went on into New York or sent back to wherever they came from. For the Jews they were fluent and literate in Yiddish as was the Orthodox way so the literacy test was not an issue and for those that could not pass it they found ways around the system. An interesting story of an incoming Russian family illustrates the family bond that carried them through their trip to Ellis Island,
“They also questioned people on literacy. My uncle called me aside, when he came to take us off. He said, "Your mother doesn't know how to read." I said, "That's all right." For the reading you faced what they called the commissioners, like judges on a bench. I was surrounded by my aunt and uncle and another uncle who's a pharmacist-my mother was in the center. They said she would have to take a test for reading. So one man said, "She can't speak English." Another man said, "We know that. We will give her a siddur." You know what a siddur is? It's a Jewish book. The night they said this, I knew that she couldn't do that and we would be in trouble. Well, they opened the siddur. There was a certain passage they had you read. I looked at it and I saw right away what it was. I quickly studied it-I knew the whole paragraph. Then I got underneath the two of them there-I was very small-and I told her the words in Yiddish very softly. I had memorized the lines and I said them quietly and she said them louder so the commissioner could here it. She looked at it and it sounded as if she was reading it, but I was doing the talking underneath. I was Charlie McCarthy!
-Arnold Weiss, Russian, at Ellis Island in 1921, age 13”
Once in America the Jews had little reason to go back home. They had the second lowest return rate out of all the nationalities second only to the Irish. Instead they looked to their surroundings to find work and livelihoods. Having been shunned to the cities of Russia and other countries they were used to the urban environment and set out to achieve jobs in industry. Being skilled workers the search for work was not too difficult and many families found independent wealth fairly easily.
“They also questioned people on literacy. My uncle called me aside, when he came to take us off. He said, "Your mother doesn't know how to read." I said, "That's all right." For the reading you faced what they called the commissioners, like judges on a bench. I was surrounded by my aunt and uncle and another uncle who's a pharmacist-my mother was in the center. They said she would have to take a test for reading. So one man said, "She can't speak English." Another man said, "We know that. We will give her a siddur." You know what a siddur is? It's a Jewish book. The night they said this, I knew that she couldn't do that and we would be in trouble. Well, they opened the siddur. There was a certain passage they had you read. I looked at it and I saw right away what it was. I quickly studied it-I knew the whole paragraph. Then I got underneath the two of them there-I was very small-and I told her the words in Yiddish very softly. I had memorized the lines and I said them quietly and she said them louder so the commissioner could here it. She looked at it and it sounded as if she was reading it, but I was doing the talking underneath. I was Charlie McCarthy!
-Arnold Weiss, Russian, at Ellis Island in 1921, age 13”
Once in America the Jews had little reason to go back home. They had the second lowest return rate out of all the nationalities second only to the Irish. Instead they looked to their surroundings to find work and livelihoods. Having been shunned to the cities of Russia and other countries they were used to the urban environment and set out to achieve jobs in industry. Being skilled workers the search for work was not too difficult and many families found independent wealth fairly easily.