A seemingly uninviting Island compared to Liberty Island, it would be a crime not to visit Ellis Island and miss the opportunity to appreciate how this small island changed the landscape of the United States.
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| Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration |
We stopped here on our way to Liberty Island but didn't go inside. On our way to Battery Park, Ellis Island was again a stop and we gave in.
Upom entering the museum you'll see a display of old luggage. It makes you realize how difficult it is to travel during that time. This was a time when chests were the norm and there were no 360 degrees spinners in sight.
Exploring the museum more you get to understand how difficult it was for people to travel, let alone to leave their families and start a new life in unfamiliar territory uncertain of the future.
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| Ships travelling to New York |
There were a lot of interesting exhibit in the museum. There were small TVs showing the plight of the immigrants coming to New York.
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| Old brochures and time tables |
On one station there are phones you can pick-up and hear the voices of the immigrants themselves sharing their stories on how difficult it is leaving their countries, leaving their families not knowing if they will ever see each other again. Most of them never did.
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| A bricklayer earning $7 a day, that's almost what I'm earning on my first job a hundred years later |
Most Europeans enter America through Ellis Island. Even
Don Vito Corleone (in The Godfather series) passed through Ellis Island.
Just A week after we arrived from the US, the documentary How The World Made America was on HIstory Channel and it makes you appreciate the island even more.
