THE ELLIS ISLAND PROJECT

 

For the people of the United States, Ellis Island is frequently an experience commonly shared by our ancestors. In the period when the world’s immigrants poured into our country searching for a better life, this entry center processed and either admitted or rejected hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.  For us, this might be the ultimate example of migration.

 

Today, we are going to explore what Ellis Island was and what it meant to the people who came through the Great Hall.

 

  1. First, go to http://www.ellisisland.org/default.asp. Here one can search for a relative.  Then go to the actual immigrant experience and search family histories for Alex Woodle and Byron Yee. These are representative of the many stories of the many people who came here searching for a better life.  Check the timeline in the Peopling of America and read the timeline entries for the 1880’s and the 1930’s. In what way did the immigrant experience change?
  2. Go to the images of Ellis Island at http://www.cmp.ucr.edu/exhibitions/immigration_id.html and look at some of the pictures from the period when the immigrants from around the world poured through the processing center.
  3. Go to http://www.ellisisland.com/. Go to History and review the Overview, the Timeline, Experience, Passage, Inspection.  What was it like to leave your home and travel to a completely foreign land?
  4. Go to http://www.historychannel.com/ellisisland/index2.html. Try “Who Are You” and review “Gateway.”
  5. Go to http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/070_immi.html and look at the pictures.
  6. Go to  teacher.scholastic.com/immigrat/ellis.  Take the virtual tour going through the admissions building on Ellis Island. Explore this site looking for the same kinds of things you did in the previous questions.

 

 

Now that you have examined Ellis Island and the experiences of the people who came through there, you will create the Journal of an Immigrant. In this Journal, please write a first-person account of the trip of a teenager from his or her homeland to the United States. Why did you leave? How was the trip? Who came with you? What happened to you on Ellis Island? Did you make it in or were you sent home? Where did you go if you did make it in? What happened to you then?

 

Be creative but also be careful to make real, accurate allusions. This Journal should show an understanding of why people are willing to leave all that they know and move to a totally foreign land.

 

 

DUE:_______________________________________