A little farther down the road
There's a great article today in the Washington Post by Michael Powell, who debunks many of the myths of U.S. immigration history. His starting point is that fact that in 2006, there is roughly the same percentage of foreign-born New Yorkers as there were at the turn of the last century. Did your ancestors really have it tougher than today's migrants in their effort to gain legal entry into the States? It would seem not.The most relevant text follows, italicized for your corneal comfort:
"They waited in line. They passed the tests. They had to get permission to come... They had to get through Ellis Island.. get questioned and eyeballed by a bureaucrat with a badge."
But these accounts are flawed, historians say. Until 1918, the United States did not require passports; the term "illegal immigrant" had no meaning. New arrivals were required only to prove their identity and find a relative or friend who could vouch for them.
Customs agents kept an eye out for lunatics and the infirm (and after 1905, for anarchists.). Ninety-eight percent of the immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island were admitted to the United States, and 78 percent spent less than eight hours on the island. (The Mexico-United States border then was unguarded and freely crossed in either direction.) "Shipping companies did the health inspections in Europe because they didn't want to get stuck taking someone back," said Nancy Foner, a sociology professor at Hunter College and author of "From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration." "Eventually they introduced a literacy test," she added, "but it was in the immigrant's own language, not English."
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A lot of native-born U.S. residents should be thanking their lucky stars they never had to pass a literacy exam to earn their citizenship-- a disproportionate percentage, it seems, in California's Orange County.
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"Late Show" bandleader, Paul Shaffer, has written three songs for Worldwide Pants Incorporated's new film, "Strangers With Candy," due in theaters next month. Take a listen.
posted by CM @ 5:48 PM
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