Name: American Passage
ISBN: 9780061940392

Vincent J. Cannato

"By bringing us the inspiring and sometimes unsettling tales of Ellis Island, Vincent Cannato’s American Passage helps us understand who we are as a nation.” — Walter Isaacson “Never before has Ellis Island been written about with such scholarly care and historical wisdom. Highly recommended!" —Douglas Brinkley, bestselling author of The Wilderness Warrior The remarkable saga of America’s landmark port of entry, from immigration post to deportation center to mythical icon.

The History of Ellis Island

American Passage

For most of New York's early history, Ellis Island had been an obscure little island that barely held itself above high tide. Today the small island stands alongside Plymouth Rock in our nation's founding mythology as the place where many of our ancestors first touched American soil. Ellis Island's heyday—from 1892 to 1924—coincided with one of the greatest mass movements of individuals the world has ever seen, with some twelve million immigrants inspected at its gates. In American Passage, Vincent J. Cannato masterfully illuminates the story of Ellis Island from the days when it hosted pirate hangings witnessed by thousands of New Yorkers in the nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century when massive migrations sparked fierce debate and hopeful new immigrants often encountered corruption, harsh conditions, and political scheming. American Passage captures a time and a place unparalleled in American immigration and history, and articulates the dramatic and bittersweet accounts of the immigrants, officials, interpreters, and social reformers who all play an important role in Ellis Island's chronicle. Cannato traces the politics, prejudices, and ideologies that surrounded the great immigration debate, to the shift from immigration to detention of aliens during World War II and the Cold War, all the way to the rebirth of the island as a national monument. Long after Ellis Island ceased to be the nation's preeminent immigrant inspection station, the debates that once swirled around it are still relevant to Americans a century later. In this sweeping, often heart-wrenching epic, Cannato reveals that the history of Ellis Island is ultimately the story of what it means to be an American.

Jeni Enjaian

The narrator made this book incredibly boring. Well, it's not entirely his fault. He didn't have great material to work with to start. This book lacks focus. Instead of there being a unifying theme, the author seems to delight in telling the tales of every rejected immigrant for which he has primary source data. At the same time, he repeatedly reminds the reader that only a small percentage of immigrants were turned away. It would be difficult to discern that from his narrative. His chronology also suffers from a lack of focus. He seems to love forward generally through the book but often flits back and forth to whatever time frame suits his fancy. I do not recommend this book. Hopefully someone with a better grasp of historiography has written a history of Ellis Island and given it the treatment it deserves.

American Passage The History of Ellis Island

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