Wines of Our Fathers - History

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L’Isola dell Lagrime

For most of this generation of Italian immigrants, their first steps on U.
S. soil were taken in a place that has now become a legend—Ellis
Island.

Ellis Island was founded as a solution to a serious social crisis. New
York’s previous immigrant processing station, a decaying fortress
called Castle Garden, had become a pit of corruption and theft, where
new immigrants had to run a gauntlet of swindlers, pickpockets, and
armed robbers before escaping with their freedom and their
paperwork. In order to ensure a safe, controlled, and regulated entry
process, the federal government took over immigrant processing and
erected a set of new, purpose-built facilities on an island in New York
Harbor.

The immigration station at Ellis Island represented a new
type of government institution and, since its closing in 1932,
has become an enduring symbol of the immigrant
experience in the United States. During the forty years it
operated, Ellis Island saw more than 12 million immigrants
pass through its gates, at a rate of up to 5,000 people a
day. For many generations of Americans, and for almost all
Italian Americans, Ellis Island is the first chapter of their
family’s story in the United States.

When the first group of immigrants disembarked on Ellis Island in
1892, they found themselves in the grip of a bewildering, though still
orderly, regime of bureaucratic procedures. Newcomers were
numbered, sorted, and sent through a series of inspections, where
they were checked for physical and mental fitness and for their
ability to find work in the U.S. The consequences of failing an eye
exam, or of seeming too frail for manual labor, could be devastating;
one member of a family could be sent back to Italy, perhaps never
to see his or her loved ones again, because of a hint of trachoma or
a careless inspector. Although less than 2 percent of Italians were
turned away, fear of such a separation led some immigrants to
rename Ellis Island L’Isola dell Lagrime—the Island of Tears.

Even for those who made their way successfully through the battery
of inspections, Ellis Island was generally not a pleasant experience.
The regulations were confusing, the crowds disorienting, the officials
rushed, and the hubbub of countless competing languages must have
been jarring to the nerves. The moment of departure, when
successful immigrants boarded ferries for New York City or
destinations further west, came as a tremendous relief. As a final
step, however, each new arrival had to be entered by name in the
island’s official registry book. Because of the rush, the echoing noise
of the vast Registry Hall, and many registrars’ unfamiliarity with
European languages, some immigrants found themselves leaving with
new, shorter, “American” versions of their names—a last, dubious gift
from Ellis Island.