The hopeful immigrants wait in long queues, many with young children and babies in tow. They are hungry, scared and wondering what is going to happen to them next. Some are not in the best of health, worn down by poverty and long journeys. Their faces reflect an air of resignation as the waiting grows longer.
Officialdom takes over: the interminable questions, the filling out of forms, the processing of applications to see if people they are eligible to stay or are to be sent back where they came from.
This all sounds familiar. Is it the by-now everyday story of asylum-seekers and refugees coming to Ireland? No. The scenes just described took place between 1892 and 1924 on Ellis Island, the island in New York bay where immigrants from all over the world arrived after harrowing journeys across the seas and where their first assurance that they had really arrived was the sight of the Statue of Liberty as they sailed by.
20 million
To visit the museum and exhibition now sited on that island is a chastening experience. The most staggering fact is the sheer enormity of the numbers who passed through the doors of the immigration station. Over those years, more than 20 million people arrived at Ellis Island. More amazing is the fact that in the end, the US did manage to cope with the masses, including so many from Ireland, who went on to make new lives and to form the basis of the multicultural society that is the US today.
The strongest reaction to seeing the museum is the humbling realisation that when people are fleeing persecution and abject poverty, it doesn't matter whether they live in the 19th century or the 21st; their basic experiences are the same. The difficulties of the immigrants who came through Ellis Island are poignantly portrayed through written descriptions of their experiences and in recordings by some, now elderly, who entered America with their parents. These tell of the crowds, the continual waiting, the sleeping in bunk beds in holding stations, the separations from relatives, the strange food, the dirt.
Walls are lined with photographs showing the worn faces of figures, some still wearing national costume, carrying a few possessions tied up in bundles. Their eyes, staring straight at the camera, however, show something of the strength and determination that sustained them and brought them to the land of the American Dream.
Some idea of the immense logistical operation of admitting so many to the country and the ordeal the immigrants endured is given in a series of rooms which display the tests and examinations they had to go through. Aspiring immigrants were not admitted if disease was found. The medical examinations led to many being admitted to the hospital on the island with relatives having to wait there for weeks, sometimes months, before the patient recovered, or eventually died.
Mental tests
Immigrants were also subjected to mental agility tests and could be rejected if they were considered to be mentally impaired. They were asked what money they had as they would be deported if they did not have a minimum of $25 dollars.
The fatigued travellers were asked in detail about what relatives they had in the country and where. They were questioned about where they were going to stay and with whom. There was often confusion about finding contacts, particularly as most of them did not speak English. While they were waiting to be processed, they were sent for English language lessons at a school on the island.
The figure given for those rejected by the US authorities is 2 per cent. While this seems low, it represents thousands being rejected every month. There are stories of people jumping into the sea rather than be deported.
Officials were often less unsympathetic to the hordes coming through and immigration groups were formed to help with language problems, to liaise with the authorities and to help people contact and reach relatives in other parts of the US.
The groups also tried to stop the exploitation of immigrants once they got to cities such as New York by recommending approved workshops. Despite this, many immigrants found themselves working inhuman hours for a pittance in sweatshops.
Steerage
Those arriving at Ellis Island were the poorest of the immigrants, travelling steerage, mostly from Europe. Those who were well off and could afford to set themselves up in the US were let off at New York before the boats continued to the clearing house.
Although many people have heard of Ellis Island, perhaps having ancestors who travelled through it, nothing can prepare you for the impact of the exhibitions which bring to life so vividly the conditions immigrants endured.
These days Western countries, including the US, are closing their doors to immigrants. There are no countries now that make the expansive offer, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".
However, one thing does not change. The basic plight and suffering of refugees and asylum-seekers in various parts of the globe today is no different from the hardship, fear and uncertainty experienced by the masses who passed through Ellis Island all those years ago seeking safety and a brighter future.