Ellis Island

Georges Perec

Ellis Island

Originally published as Récits d’Ellis Island: histoires d’errance et d’espoir
by P.O.L. Éditeur, Paris. Published by arrangement with P.O.L.
and the estate of Harry Mathews

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper,
magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the Publisher

Published as New Directions Paperbook 1491 in 2021

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Perec, Georges, 1936–1982 author. | Mathews, Harry, 1930–2017 translator.

Title: Ellis Island / Translated by Harry Mathews ;
with an afterword by Mónica de la Torre.

Other titles: Récits d’Ellis Island. English

Description: First New Directions edition. |
New York : New Directions Publishing, [2021] | Translated from French.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020042650 | ISBN 9780811229548 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780811229555 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Ellis Island Immigration Station (N.Y. and N.J.)—History. |
United States—Emigration and immigration—History. |
United States—Emigration and immigration—Biography.

Classification: LCC JV6450 .P4713 2021 | DDC 304.8/73—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042650

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

by New Directions Publishing Corporation

80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

Ellis Island

The Isle of Tears

During the first half of the nineteenth century, a tremendous hope galvanized Europe. For peoples that were crushed, oppressed, downtrodden, enslaved, or butchered, for classes that were exploited, starved, afflicted by epidemics, or decimated by years of scarcity and famine, a promised land came into existence: America, a virgin land open to all, a land of freedom and generosity where the castoffs of the Old World could become the pioneers of the New and build a society free of injustice and prejudice. For Irish peasants whose harvests had been mined, for the persecuted German liberals of 1848, for the battered Polish nationalists of 1830, for Armenians, Greeks, and Turks, for all the Jews of Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, for southern Italians dying from cholera and poverty by the hundreds of thousands, America became the symbol of a new life, of long-awaited luck; and it was by the tens of millions, by entire families and villages that, from Hamburg or Bremen, from Le Havre, from Naples or Liverpool, immigrants embarked on a voyage of no return.

For several decades the terminal point of this exodus without precedent in human history, the end of a crossing almost invariably accomplished in appalling conditions, was a tiny spot of land called Ellis Island, where the services of the Federal Bureau of Immigration had established their reception center. And so it came about that on this narrow sandbank in the mouth of the Hudson, a few cable lengths away from the brand-new Statue of Liberty, there gathered together for a time all those who were destined to create the American nation.

More or less free until about 1875, the admission of foreigners onto American soil was gradually subjected to restrictive measures, initially defined and applied locally (by port or municipal authorities) and later centralized in a bureau of immigration responsible to the federal government. The opening of the Ellis Island reception center in 1892 marked the end of virtually unregulated immigration and the advent of official, institutionalized and, so to speak, industrialized immigration. Between 1892 and 1924, nearly sixteen million people passed through Ellis Island, at a rate of five to ten thousand a day. The majority spent a few hours there; no more than two to three percent were turned away.

Essentially, Ellis Island was a sort of factory for manufacturing Americans,* a factory for transforming emigrants into immigrants; an American-style factory, as quick and efficient as a sausage factory in Chicago. You put an Irishman, a Ukranian Jew, or an Italian from Apulia into one end of the production line and at the other end — after vaccination, disinfection, and examination of his eyes and pockets — an American emerged. But at the same time, as the years passed, admission became more and more strictly controlled. Gradually the Golden Door swung shut on the legendary America where turkeys fell onto your plate fully cooked, where the streets were paved with gold, where the land belonged to everyone. Immigration slowed down, in fact, after 1914, initially because of the war, later because of a series of discriminatory measures both qualitative (the Literacy Act) and quantitative (the quota system) that virtually denied entrance to the “wretched refuse” and “huddled masses” whom, according to Emma Lazarus, the Statue of Liberty was meant to welcome. In 1924 the responsibility for immigration procedures was transferred to the American consulates in Europe; Ellis Island was reduced to the status of detention center for those immigrants whose papers were not in order.

During and immediately after World War II, Ellis Island fulfilled its implicit destiny by becoming a prison for individuals suspected of anti-American activities (Italian fascists, pro-Nazi Germans, communists, and supposed communists). It was definitively closed in 1954. Today it has become a historic landmark, like Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, and Bartholdi’s statue, managed by Rangers in Boy Scout hats who conduct tours through it four times a day, twelve months a year.

Not all immigrants were obliged to pass through Ellis Island. Those with enough money to travel first or second class were quickly examined on board ship by a doctor and an immigration officer and could land without further ado. The federal government assumed that these immigrants had the wherewithal to look after themselves and were not likely to become wards of the state. The immigrants who went to Ellis Island were those who traveled third class, that is, in steerage, which in fact meant below the water line in the hold, in vast dormitories not only without windows but practically without ventilation or lighting, where two thousand passengers were crammed together on tiers of straw mattresses. The trip cost ten dollars in the 1880s and thirty-five dollars after World War I. It lasted about three weeks. The food consisted of potatoes and salt herring.

A whole series of official procedures took place during the crossing. These were performed by the shipping companies, who were more or less responsible for the passengers they took aboard — they had to pay for their passengers’ living expenses on Ellis Island, and they were obliged to repatriate any emigrants who were turned away. The procedures included a medical examination (usually bungled), disinfections, vaccinations, and the establishment of a personal record for each emigrant that listed his name, country of origin, destination, means, judicial record, sponsor in the United States, and so forth.

On Ellis Island itself the examination procedures lasted at best from three to five hours. The arrivals first underwent a medical examination. Any doubtful case was detained and subjected to a much more thorough medical inspection; a number of contagious diseases, particularly trachoma, favus, and tuberculosis, meant automatic expulsion. Emigrants who emerged from this examination unscathed were then asked, after a waiting period of variable length, to appear at the legal desks. Behind each of these sat an inspector and an interpreter. (For many years Fiorello LaGuardia, before becoming mayor of New York, was an interpreter in Yiddish and Italian on Ellis Island.) The inspector had about two minutes in which to decide whether or not the emigrant had a right to enter the United Stales. He made his decision after asking a series of twenty-nine questions:

What is your name?

Where are you from?

Why have you come to the United Stales?

How old are you?

How much money do you have?

Where did you get this money?

Show it to me.

Who paid for your crossing?

Did you sign a contract in Europe for a job here?

Do you have any friends here?

Do you have any family here?

Is there anyone who can vouch for you?

What kind of work do you do?

Are you an anarchist?

— and so forth.

If the new arrival answered in a manner that was deemed satisfactory, the inspector would stamp his papers and let him leave, after wishing him “Welcome to America.” If there was any kind of problem, he wrote an “S.I.” on the arrival’s record. This stood for Special Inquiry, and after another waiting period the arrival would be summoned before a committee made up of three inspectors, who subjected the would-be immigrant to a far more detailed interrogation.

In 1917, overriding President Wilson’s veto, Congress passed the Literacy Act, which required immigrants to be able to read and write in their native language and also obliged them to take various intelligence tests. The system was already unfavorable to the new emigrants from eastern Europe, Russia, and Italy. (Those who arrived during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century had come from the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Holland, England, and Ireland). These new measures made the admission procedure even longer and, from one year to the next, much more difficult.

The majority of the inspectors did their work conscientiously and, with the help of their interpreters, did their best to obtain exact information from the new arrivals. A great many of them were of Irish origin and had little familiarity with the spelling and pronunciation of the names of central Europe, Russia, Greece, or Turkey. Furthermore, many emigrants hoped to acquire names that sounded American. Hence the innumerable incidents of name changes that occurred on Ellis Island. A man from Berlin became Berliner; another whose first name was Vladimir received Walter as his given name; a man whose first name was Adam became Mr. Adams; a Skyzertski was transformed into Sanders, a Goldenburg into Goldberg, and a Gold became Goldstein.

One old Russian Jew was advised to pick a truly American name, one that the immigration authorities would have no difficulty in transcribing. He asked the advice of an employee in the baggage room who suggested Rockefeller. The old Jew kept repeating “Rockefeller, Rockefeller” to be sure he’d remember. But several hours later, when the immigration officer asked him his name, he had forgotten it and answered in Yiddish, “Schon vergessen” — “I’ve already forgotten.” And so he was registered with the truly American name of John Ferguson.

The story is perhaps too good to be true, but ultimately it hardly matters whether it’s true or false. To emigrants yearning for America, a new name might seem a blessing. For their grandchildren today, things are different. It is remarkable that in 1976, the Bicentennial year, several dozen Smiths whose families had come from Poland asked to be renamed Kowalski (both names mean blacksmith).

No more than two percent of all emigrants were turned away from Ellis Island. That still amounts to two hundred and fifty thousand people. And between 1892 and 1924, there were three thousand suicides on Ellis Island.

* Seventy percent of European immigrants entered through New York.

The Way to Ellis Island

Sh! We’re going to America! Where’s America? I don’t know. I only know that it’s awfully far away. You have to travel and travel a very long time to get there. And when you get there, there’s a “Kestelgartel”* waiting for you. They shut you up in the “Kestelgartel” they take off all your clothes and examine your eyes. If your eyes are healthy, it’s all right. If they aren’t, they make you go back to where you came from. As far as I know, my eyes are healthy.... On the other hand, as my brother Eliahu says, things aren’t so easy for my mother. Who’s responsible? She cries day and night. Ever since father died, she hasn’t stopped crying.

— Sholom Aleichem,

The Adventures of Mottell,

the Cantor’s Son

* Castle garden

five million emigrants arriving from Italy

four million emigrants arriving from Ireland

one million emigrants arriving from Sweden

six million emigrants arriving from Germany

three million emigrants arriving from Austria and Hungary

three million five hundred thousand emigrants arriving from Russia and the Ukraine

five million emigrants arriving from Great Britain

eight hundred thousand emigrants arriving from Norway

six hundred thousand emigrants arriving from Greece

four hundred thousand emigrants arriving from Turkey

four hundred thousand emigrants arriving from the Netherlands

six hundred thousand emigrants arriving from France

three hundred thousand emigrants arriving from Denmark

year after year, the steamships of
the Cunard Line, the Red Star Line,
the Anchor Line, the Italian Line, the Hamburg-
Amerika Line, and the Holland-America Line
crisscrossed the North Atlantic

they set out from Rotterdam, from Bremen
and Götenborg, from Palermo, Istanbul, and Naples,
from Antwerp, Liverpool, Lübeck, and Salonika,
from Bristol, Riga, Cork, from Dunkirk, Stettin, and
Hamburg, from Marseille, Genoa, Danzig, Cherbourg, and the Piraeus, from Trieste and London, from Fiume
and Le Havre, from Odessa, from Tallinn, from
Southampton

they were called the Darmstadt, the Fürst Bismarck,
the Staatendam, the Kaiser Wilhelm, the Königin Luise,
the Westernland, the Pennland,
the Bohemia, the Polynesia, the Prinzess Irene, the Princeton,
the Umbria, the Lusitania, the Adriatic,
the Coronia, the Mauretania, the San Giovanni,
the Giuseppe Verdi, the Patricia, the Duca degli Abruzzi,
the New Amsterdam, the Martha Washington,
the Thuringia, the Titanic,
the Lidia, the Susquehanna, the Albert Balin,
the Hansington, the Columbus, the Reliance, the Blücher

but at the conclusion of their exhausting
journey, most of those who saw Manhattan
emerging from the mist knew that their ordeal
was not quite over

they still had to pass through Ellis Island,
the island that
in every European tongue
had been renamed the isle of tears

tränen insel

wispa łez

île des larmes

isola delle lagrime

το νησί των δαχρύων

остров слёз

טרערן-איכרזל

its a small island about twenty-seven acres in size
a few hundred yards from the tip of
Manhattan.
the Indians called it Gull Island,
and the Dutch Oyster Island

its first owner was a rich Dutch
merchant named De Pauw
the next a certain Captain Dyre, a customs officer
then someone named Thomas Lloyd
in 1765 a pirate called Anderson was hanged there
and for ten years or so
the place was called Gibbet Island
then the man bought it who was
to give it its final name, Samuel Ellis

he left it to his family,
who sold it to a certain John Berry,
who ceded it to the City of New York,
which finally sold it to the federal government
for ten thousand dollars

during and after the Civil War
it became a munitions depot

then, around 1890,
the Congress
decided to build a new reception center
to replace the buildings at Castle Garden
which were getting too small

the buildings were almost
completed when, on January 1, 1892,
the first immigrant was officially received at Ellis Island.
She was a fifteen-year-old Irish girl from County Cork
named Annie Moore.
As a token of welcome, she was presented with
a ten-dollar gold piece
the equivalent today of about four hundred dollars

almost sixty-three years later,
on November 12, 1954, the Ellis Island, a ferry
that provided a continuous shuttle service
between the island and the city
and that can still be seen today where it lies
half foundered next to the dock,
made its final trip:
it carried a single passenger, a Norwegian sailor, the last
immigrant registered by the Ellis Island office.

in the meantime
nearly sixteen million
men, women, and children
had passed through Ellis Island,
over three quarters of them
between 1892 and 1914

those were the years
when there were as many
as ten thousand arrivals
in one day

designed in the style of the French Renaissance
by the architects Boring and Tilton,
left to rack and ruin since 1954,
the buildings on Ellis Island were declared
part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument
in 1976, the year of the Bicentenary,
and reopened to the public.

Ellis Island

Ellis Island

Ellis Island

The Isle of Tears

The Way to Ellis Island

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