Destination: America: a century ago, thousands of foreigners arrived daily in New York Harbor. As with today's immigration boom, reaction was mixed. (times past).

Liberty was someone you could talk to. "Lady, you're beautiful," thought a 15-year-old girl from Greece as she glimpsed the giant statue in the harbor. "Give me a chance to prove that I am worth it, to do something, to become somebody in America."

She got that chance. Between 1880 and 1924, she and 26 million other foreigners arrived to begin new lives in the United States. They were the "great wave" of immigrants, bigger in percentage terms than the wave that is changing the face of America today. And more than half of them passed through a single building near the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor: the federal immigration station at Ellis Island. That building came to symbolize the immigrant experience in a nation enriched by the talents and energies of the new arrivals, yet deeply conflicted about accepting them as equals.

In its first few decades, the U.S. drew millions of newcomers--mostly British, German, Irish, and Scandinavian. But they didn't have to check in. In 1855, the states began examining arrivals to keep out "undesirables" such as criminals and the mentally ill or retarded. State regulation of immigration was often inefficient and corrupt. The federal government took over the job in 1890, and opened the Ellis Island station two years later.

Immigration was on the rise--this time mostly from Italy and Eastern Europe. Political tyranny, religious persecution, and economic hardships in those places drove new millions to seek opportunity in the U.S., where labor was needed for burgeoning industry. There were personal reasons for the journey, too. One 16-year-old girl left Italy to avoid an arranged marriage. "My mama tell me," she later recalled, "`Either you marry this guy or you go to America.'"

The voyagers came on steamships, most of them crammed into a below-deck space called steerage, next to a ship's steering system. Steerage tickets sold for as little as $25 per person. One immigrant remembered that

... we'd have to hold on to the railing, the way the boat would rock, and go up the stairs. The first-class people, all the rich people, were way above. I'd look up at them, they were all dressed nice, and we were like a flock of sheep down below. Oh, it was terrible. Twenty-two days. And sick, so sick. I could smell coffee. To this day I could never get used to drinking coffee, never.

The first immigrant to check in at the new station in 1892, The New York Times reported, was "a little rosy-cheeked Irish girl" of 15 named Annie Moore. She was given a $10 gold piece and a speech of welcome. But after that, there wasn't time for ceremony for each of the up-to-11,000 arrivals the station handled each day.

Dirty and tired from their trip, the would-be Americans waited in long lines for interrogation and medical inspection, fearing that they might be sent back where they had come from. No more than 2 percent met that fate, but 20 percent were detained--often for days--because examiners thought they had noticed signs of physical or mental illness. ("Facetiousness" was deemed a danger sign.) For the immigrants, an official conceded, it was no fun:

... they were lined up--a motley crowd in colorful costumes, all ill at ease and wondering what was to happen to them. ... whenever a case aroused suspicion, the alien was set aside in a cage apart from the rest, for all the world like a segregated animal, and his coat lapel or skirt marked with colored chalk, the color indicating why he had been isolated. These methods, crude as they seem, had to be used, because of the great numbers and the language difficulties.

At Ellis Island, many immigrants saw their first chewing gum, sandwiches, and flush toilets. More surprises awaited when some went on to reunions with relatives living in America. Recalled an Italian boy who arrived in 1909:

She says, "It's Papa!" I looked. I had forgotten what he looked like, you know. My mother hugged him, kissed him. He hugged me and patted me on the hack.... Then ... he had a present for me. A baseball bat and glove, which I had never seen before. "What are these for?" I asked him. "You play with these," he said. "It's a game. It's called baseball."

But Americans didn't welcome the great wave of immigrants with completely open arms. Often, descendants of earlier immigrants looked down on the newer arrivals. A boy who immigrated in 1922 thought his Irish neighbors in Newark, New Jersey, "seemed to go out of their way to make life miserable for us. To them, we were the dumb Polaks."

Prejudice wasn't just a neighborhood affair. Congressmen openly argued that the old immigrants from northwest Europe had been "better" than more-recent arrivals such as Italians and Russian Jews, and so-called experts seemed to back them up. So Congress set up immigration quotas based on groups' proportions in the population in 1910, severely limiting the number of immigrants who would be admitted.

By the 1930s, the great wave of immigration had become a trickle, and Ellis Island was finally closed in 1954. By then millions of new families were making a life in America and contributing to the nation's rich mosaic of ethnic cultures, customs, and cuisines. And in years to come, another immigrant wave would test the sincerity of the poem by Emma Lazarus that has appeared on the Statue of Liberty since 1903:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

IMMIGRATION, THEN AND NOW

Foreign-born share of U.S. population, 1900-2000

1900    13.6
1910    14.7
1920    13.2
1930    11.6
1940     8.8
1950     6.9
1960     5.4
1970     4.7
1980     6.2
1990     8.0
2000    10.4

SOURCE: BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, U.S. DEPT. OF COMMERCE.

Note: Table made from bar graph.

Destination: America FOCUS: Immigration's "Great Wave": The 26 Million Who Came Between 1880 and 1924

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand that immigration isn't new--and neither is the resentment of some native-born Americans toward new arrivals from other lands. Ellis Island was the gateway to this country for millions, including the ancestors of many of today's students.

Discussion Questions:

* Why, if industry needed more workers in the early 20th century, did many Americans resent immigrants?

* Do you agree with Congress's decision, in 1986, to grant amnesty to longtime illegal immigrants?

* Do most Americans still endorse the theme of the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty?

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

Critical Thinking: Point out that historians and sociologists say immigration has helped to enrich American culture. Ask students for examples of things we take for granted that actually have come from other cultures through immigration. You might mention "American" foods such as pasta and pizza (from Italy) and hot dogs (from Germany). Does a mix of peoples enhance understanding and appreciation of varied cultures? Does such a mix also make special demands on a society?

Next, ask students to consider the prejudice encountered by some immigrants--such as the boy in Newark, New Jersey, on page 30, who recalls the abuse his family received from their Irish neighbors. Had Irish immigrants faced prejudice themselves? What might students tell a grandchild of that boy who was critical of today's influx of Latin Americans and Asians?

Research and Writing: Ask for a student volunteer who knows of an ancestor who came to the U.S. through Ellis Island. Have that student look up the ancestor on the Ellis Island Web site, read other available records, and talk to family members in order to prepare a brief narrative of what is known of that relative's immigration to the U.S. Assign others to prepare similar narratives about when a relative came to this country or began a new life in another way--moving from farm to city, for example. Have students compare their narratives with the Ellis Island account, and to the anecdotes in the article. Is the immigrant experience something all families can relate to?

RELATED ARTICLE: Ambivalent invitation.

SHOULD FOREIGNERS BE ADMITTED? A TIME LINE OF CHANGING U.S. VIEWS.

The U.S. has a well-worn welcome mat, No other nation has taken in more immigrants, or gained more from their contributions. But Americans have always debated about how many foreigners to accept--and which ones.

1619: The first African laborers are brought to North America, destined for slavery. Eventually, about half a million would make the trip.

1751: Benjamin Franklin fears new additions to the Colonies' mostly English population "will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us."

1840s-1850s: A potato blight in Ireland sends more than 1.5 million Irish to America.

1882: Chinese, who have provided cheap labor for the transcontinental railroad, are barred.

1907: Japan agrees not to send its people.

1917: Immigration is limited to the literate.

1921: Quotas restrict immigrants by national origin, based on shares of the foreign-born population in 1910 (meaning Europeans).

1965: The old quotas are junked, opening the way to immigrants of color. But new hemispheric quotas limit people from Latin America, who previously could enter on temporary permits. Illegal immigration soars.

1986: Congress strikes at illegal immigration by cracking down on employers--but also offers amnesty to longtime illegal residents.

RELATED ARTICLE: Find your ancestors.

TODAY'S ELLIS ISLAND INVITES YOU TO VISIT--IN PERSON OR ONLINE

After decades of cobwebs and peeling paint, the Ellis Island station was spruced up and reopened in 1990 as a museum. If you're one of the 40 percent of Americans related to an Ellis Island immigrant, a brief ferry ride from Manhattan will take you to the spot where your ancestor's life in the U.S. began. But even if you're far from New York, you can visit www.ellisislandrecords.org, the museum's Web site. Its archive of passenger lists will let you look up immigrants' names, ages, places of origin, arrival dates, and photos of the ships they arrived on. But gather all the data you can from family sources first, and remember: Ellis Island was famous for creative spellings of names.