Introduction to Immigration

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The arrivals were nervous about their upcoming inspection. In 191 I an observer wrote: “The immigrants are in a constant turmoil of excitement until they board the ferryboats on the last lap of their journeys. To them Ellis Island is a complicated labyrinth leading to freedom. . - - They obey the signs, gestures and directions of the attendants as dumbly as cattle, and as patiently.'” At the height of the immigration tide, signs at Ellis Island were written in nine languages: English, German, Greek, Yiddish, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, and a Scandinavian (usually Swedish) language. Interpreters stood by to ease the processing. Before he was elected mayor of New York City. Friorello La Ciuardia, who knew Italian, German, Yiddish, French, Hungarian, and Croatian, and who himself was the son of Italian immigrants, worked as an interpreter at Ellis Island from 1908 to 1910. He recalled: I never managed during the years I worked there to become callous to the mental anguish, the disappointment and the despair I witnessed almost daily. ... At best the work was an ordeal." La Guardia and the other interpreters questioned the immigrants as to their destinations and political views near the end of the standard inspection. First they were herded into a mazelike registry room where they awaited their medical exams. The doctors checked for visible physical defects: lameness, blindness, deafness, and the most obvious mental defects. Next came the check for contagious diseases: ringworm, leprosy, venereal diseases, and tuberculosis. Doctors marked with chalk "T.D.," for temporarily detained, on those having suspicious symptoms. Anastasia Stephanies recalls being held at Ellis Island after arriving from Greece because her sister had trachoma, a contagious eye disease: I came in 1922. All my family came here: my mother, my sisters, and my brothers. When we came to America, we came to Ellis Island and stayed there two weeks. My brother was in the army. He came to pick us up but couldn't. They said, "You have to stay on Ellis Island two weeks." My youngest sister had something in her eyes. I didn't know what was going to happen. But the thy we could all leave the doctor said, "your sister can’t go out because we have to take her to the hospital." My brother picked us up, but my youngest sister was taken to the hospital. She lived forty days, but after forty days, my sister died.” Fifteen percent of the immigrants at Ellis Island were marked with chalk for further examination. In addition to "T.D.," another major category was "S.I.," special inquiry; usually this was for a suspected criminal or political troublemaker. "L.P.C.," meant likely to become a public charge. Although confusing and anxiety-provoking for immigrants, the system was remarkably efficient. At peak limes as many as five thousand people per day were processed through Ellis Island. Officials at Ellis Island were following laws passed by the federal government. Until 1975 there were no restrictions on the admission of immigrants. Until in 1875 Congress responded to the marked anti alien feeling in America and excluded criminals and prostitutes. As the result of subsequent acts
through 1907, "lunatics." "idiots," "imbeciles," "persons suffering from loathsome and contagious diseases," dependent people, and "subversives" were excluded, as well as those hired as cheap labor by contract from abroad. Those early laws did not discriminate against any particular nationality, but differences between the "new" immigrants (those arriving after 1880) and the "old" immigrants had spurred a new look at the laws. By 1910 nearly fifteen percent of the population was foreign-born—not a big increase over the thirteen percent figure for 1860. But their actual numbers were far greater. And their faces, accents, and jobs had changed. From 1821 to 1880 only some two percent of all immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe. From 1901 to 1911 more than seventy percent came from that area which most Americans knew little about. These "new" immigrants tended to live together in big-city ghettos. Would they ever become "real Americans"? That question was put early and often by many respected members of the national community. Because the Italians were by far the largest nationality among the newer immigrants, the question frequently concerned them. An article in the Popular Science Monthly of December 1890 was titled "What Shall We Do with the Dago?" and charged that Italians loved to use their knives "to lop off another dago’s finger or ear, or to slash another’s cheek." A New York City newspaper in the 1890s wrote: The floodgates are open. The bars are down. The sally-ports are unguarded. The dam is washed away. The sewer is choked. Europe is vomiting! In other words, the scum of immigration is viscerating upon our shores. The horde of $9.60 steerage slime is being siphoned upon us from Continental mud tanks." Prominent New Englanders founded the first Immigration Restriction League in Boston in 1894. Others sprung up around the country. Labor leaders, who at first had welcomed the new workers, changed their minds. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor and who himself had emigrated from England, argued that… "both the intelligence and the prosperity of our working people are endangered by the present immigration. Cheap labor, ignorant labor, takes our jobs and cuts our wages." John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers put it even more forcefully: No matter how decent and self-respecting and hard working the aliens who are flooding this country may be, they are invading the land of Americans, and whether they know it or not are helping to take the bread out of their mouths. America for Americans should be the motto of every citizen, whether he be a working man or a capitalist. ., . There is not enough work for the many millions of unskilled laborers, and there is no need for the added millions who are pressing into our cities and towns to compete with the skilled American in his various trades and occupations. While the majority of the immigrants are not skilled workmen, they rapidly become so, and their competition is not of a stimulating order.”
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Introduction to Immigration

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