Why did millions of immigrants come to America, and what was Ellis Island?
The Journey Home
Why did millions of immigrants come to America, and what was Ellis Island?
Picture an ocean, gray and enormous, and a ship crammed with people leaning over the rail. Some are exhausted. Some are seasick. But almost every face is pointed the same way — toward a smudge of land that hasn't appeared yet. For millions of people, more than a hundred years ago, that smudge was the whole reason they got on the boat.
Why leave home at all? Home, after all, is home. But for many families in Europe, home had gotten hard. Some places ran short of food. Some places had no work, no matter how willing your hands were. And some people were treated cruelly simply for their religion or who they were. America, far across the water, had a reputation: room to work, and freedom to be yourself.
