Locating Ellis Island in Asian American history -- Enforcing Asian exclusion at Ellis Island -- America's chief deportation depot: expanding expulsion across New York -- Smugglers and stowaways: the dangerous journeys of human freight -- Asian sailors: shanghaied in Hoboken -- Japanese internees: New York has a concentration camp of its own -- The end of detention at Ellis Island.
Summary:
"The immigration station at New York's Ellis Island opened in 1892 and remained the largest U.S. port for immigrant entry until World War I. In popular memory, Ellis Island is typically seen as a gateway for Europeans seeking to join the 'great American melting pot.' But as this fresh examination of Ellis Island's history reveals, it was also a major site of immigrant detention and exclusion, especially for Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian travelers and maritime laborers who reached New York City from Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, and even within the United States. And from 1924 to 1954, the station functioned as a detention camp and deportation center for a range of people deemed undesirable. Anna Pegler-Gordon draws on immigrants' oral histories and memoirs, government archives, newspapers, and other sources to reorient the history of migration and exclusion in the United States"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.