The website I have chosen is http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Past.html and has many extracts of different first person narratives from people who travelled through Ellis Island. One extract I found interesting was the one at the end of the web page by "Endre Bohem, Hungarian, at Ellis Island in 1921, age 20". Although it is short, it is a good example to use of the terror that they were feelings when they came over and how oppressed some of them might have been from fleeing from their previous countries, which had very poor job opportunities and harsh living conditions. From looking at Endre's narrative, he expresses his fear when asked if he is ok, but lies and realises that he is safe in America. "Then sheepishly I said to the woman who had approached me before, "I lied to you, because of what I've been through in Hungary... I didn't realize I was free, I wasn't going to be put in prison." From this comment, it never occured to me how scared the immigrants must have felt leaving their country, fear of being arrested for being there.
Also, the website had many over extracts that are quite useful in getting a sense of what the atmosphere was like within Ellis Island as I had envisioned only people by themselves trying to get into America looking for jobs and then perhaps bringing the rest of their family over. However, this isn't the case as many people would get upon ships with their entire family and life packed up in bags. This however caused problems after the Quota Act came into place, which I found interesting as they then had to divide families up and had to send some of them back if they found them unsuitable to be there.
""Polish quota exhausted," pronounced the helpless inspector. Then they brought the case to me. Deport the baby? I couldn't. And somebody had to be quick, for the mother was not doing well under the idea that her baby would soon be taken from her and "transported far beyond the northern sea."
This must have been devastating for the families, for them to go all that way to America and then have some of them be turned away. It made me think how brave they must have been and how awful the living conditions must have been in their original countries for them to take such a big chance to make such a huge change within their lives.
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Christine found the same website that I was looking at. I agree with Christine about not realising how frightning it must have been moving to America. Along with the excitment and promise of a better way of life, it still must have been pretty scary. Imagine what that arrives hall must have been like, arrival halls at airports today are pretty chaotic, but imagine being there and not knowing if u'd be able to stay or not, and if you couldn't staying having to travel all the way home again, maybe to a country where its not safe. I'm not sure how they decided who to let in or not maybe it was different each day depending who came?
They decided by their age being a factor, whether they were in good shape etc. I think that they mostly let in the young males tho. That was what i got the impression of from the website as the majority of the narratives were from men.
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