Callie V.

The Statue of Liberty looms out of the fog. It's a rainy morning (the first in weeks) and the effect is breathtaking. With the high-rises of Manhattan hidden I can almost imagine what this statue must have looked like a hundred years ago in front of a shorter, older New York. Staring across this bay from the deck of a steamship it must have looked beautiful. Land. Solid ground for the first time in days if not weeks. Hope. For the first time in months, if not years, for many of those threadbare passengers.
This sight, almost timeless if I forget the sound of the grinding engine below my feet and the crowd of yellow-poncho covered tourists around me, is one that at one point, defined much of the American Immigrant Experience. Today over 100 million Americans can trace their routes to America through the Kissing Gate where families were reunited and hundreds of thousands of people took their first step onto American soil.
Stepping off the ferry onto Ellis island itself the crush of tourists rush forward. I hold back, watching the quiet edifice of the brick building shimmer in the rain. The voices trickling through the air are speaking in at least a dozen languages. They are walking in the footsteps of people who gave up everything to go through those doors. Their voices blend in the echo of the grand central hall. Today these crowds buy Christmas ornaments. A hundred years ago they piled their luggage, not knowing when they would see it again, and trudged up the stairs. They were waiting to pass a series of physical and legal tests that would determine their fate.
All of us today know where we’ll go when we leave the museum and step out into the rain. The people for whom these halls were built were neither welcome, nor wanted here---just like the immigrants of today. Yet, without these intrepid souls, and their willingness to walk into the unknown, thousands of the people who wander through this museum today would not be speaking English.