Navigating the Portals of America: Immigrant Challenges and Support at Post-War Ellis Island (1921)

📌 Explore the immigrant experience at Ellis Island post-WWI, focusing on the YMCA Immigrant Guide Service and the challenges of overcrowding and exploitation. Learn about the role of Americanization and the support systems in place for new arrivals.

At the Portals of America - Post War Ellis Island (1921)

Relevance to Immigration Studies for Teachers, Students, Genealogists, Historians, and Others

The article At the Portals of America: Post-War Ellis Island, written by Edwin Carty Ranck in 1921, provides a vivid snapshot of the immigrant experience at Ellis Island after World War I. It is particularly valuable for immigration studies as it highlights the social dynamics, the challenges faced by immigrants, and the reforms being introduced to help them integrate into American society.

For genealogists, it serves as a poignant reminder of the personal experiences of immigrants arriving on U.S. shores, offering a glimpse into how they were welcomed and sometimes exploited. The story also speaks to historians examining the immigration process during the early 20th century, as it sheds light on both the institutional framework at Ellis Island and the individual struggles of immigrants during their transition to the United States.

Frederick A. Wallis, Commissioner of Immigration Addresses Immigrants at Ellis Island 1921. Geo. G. Bain Collection, Library of Congress. GGA Image ID #

AT THE PORTALS OF AMERICA: The Hood of Brotherhood for Incoming Thousands at Ellis Island By EDWIN CARTY RANCK

A YOUNG Italian with a baffled look in his black eyes and all his worldly possessions in a bulging suitcase had just landed from the Ellis Island ferryboat at the portals of America. He stood forlornly amid the swirling stream of immigrants, equally forlorn. He held a soiled bit of paper and three ten-dollar gold pieces in one hand.

He was spotted by a voracious taxicab driver who ran his machine up close and looked expectantly at his prey.

"I want a go dis-a place." said the Immigrant, holding the soiled paper to the chauffeur. "My uncle lives there."

The chauffeur glanced from the East Side address on the paper to the three gold pieces clutched in the fit of the Immigrant, and his eyes glowed.

"Surest thing you know. Get in, and I'll take you to your uncle."

"Is it enough?" asked the Immigrant dubiously, holding out the three coins.

"Just enough," said the chauffeur, pocketing the three pieces of gold. He then bundled the bewildered Immigrant and his bulbous suitcase into the taxicab and drove him to the Fast Side address, charging him ten times what it was worth.

This is a true story of one Immigrant's reception at the portals of America. But here is a more cheerful story: A ship-weary Spaniard stands in the vortex of humanity at Ellis Island.

His wife, a young baby, stands by his side in her arms. She clings to her husband, frightened by the strange sights surrounding her, and her baby begins to whimper.

A young man steps up to the helpless foreigner. On the lapel of his coat is a white enameled button with a red triangle and the words: Y. M. C. A. IMMIGRANT Guide Service.

He speaks a few words in Spanish to the bewildered stranger within our gates, and the man's tired eyes light up. Then, a flood of words tumbles from his lips. He has finally found a friend who can tell him where to go and how to get there.

His address is found, and the guide takes him from Ellis Island directly to the given address and delivers him safely into the hands of his friend or relative. However, before the guide releases his responsibility, he must receive a signed statement that the Immigrant is safe at last.

This is the sort of work that the recently organized Association Immigrant Guide Service does every day. It is helping Commissioner of Immigration Frederick A. Wallis solve some of the complex problems that have followed thousands of immigrants' daily inundation of Ellis Island.

These red triangle guides can converse with the immigrants in Spanish, Italian, Greek, German, Slav, Armenian, Portuguese, Czech, French, Polish, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and forty more languages or dialects. They are waiting with outstretched hands, ready to give the arriving Immigrant a human welcome and initiate him into the mysteries of Americanism.

These men are daily saving the Immigrant from the clutches of the harpies, who are waiting to separate him from the money he has slowly gathered to come to America and keep him until he finds employment.

Twelve are engaged in this work, most of whom have seen service in the American or Allied armies. They are all linguists and combine a knowledge of sixty-two tongues.

Every day, they guide hundreds of immigrants to their respective destinations. merely charging them the actual rock-bottom expenses.

When one stops to consider that three thousand immigrants are arriving at Ellis Island every day and that the actual facilities are only adequate for half that number. It is easy to picture these foreign knockers' congestion and bodily discomfort at our gates.

This Association Guide Service was organized early in October partly to relieve this congestion by facilitating the rapid distribution of immigrants from Ellis Island to New York. During the last six weeks, the guides escorted 3,372 immigrants to their destinations.

An attractive young Polish girl arrived at Ellis Island the other day. She had relatives in New York and was anxious to find them. An association guide who spoke Polish volunteered to take charge of her and see that she had reached her destination safely.

So he escorted her to the ferry boat. On the way over, she asked him about this wonderful America that had been the Mecca of her dreams for so long.

As they stepped off the ferryboat hard-faced, a flashily dressed man approached the girl with an air of assurance and took her by the arm.

"This is my wife." he told the Association guide, "I will take charge of her.'

The Polish girl shrank back, and the guide looked narrowly at the stranger.

"Do you know this man?" he asked her in Polish.

"1 never saw him before in my life," she gasped.

"If you don't make yourself scarce.' began the Association man, but he did not have to say anymore. The hard-featured harpic slunk away and vanished in the crowd.

The Association guide was not satisfied until he saw her in her sister's embrace in a walk-up apartment on Bleecker Street.

ONE guide recently had the most strenuous experience of his guiding career when he undertook to see that a thirteen-year-old Italian boy who had been detained in one of the Ellis Island hospitals with scalp disease was reunited with his frantic parents, who had already found quarters far out in Harlem.

All went well until the train was more than halfway to its destination when the guide discovered that his youthful charge had vanished. A search of the train failed to disclose him.

Now, these guides are required to fill out a printed slip, which is numbered and dated, with the charge's name, address, name of the person in whose care he is placed, district, and amount paid in transportation.

He signs his mime on this slip, and a duplicate is kept by E. I. Ernes, who is in charge of this work at 11 State Street, New York. So, when the small Italian gave the guide the slip, the Association man knew it was up to him to recover the youngster and deliver him to his parents as per the contract.

It was an all-day job to locate that elusive youngster and the Association man Lad to do some first-class detective work [doer he obtained a clue to work upon.

First, he went to Harlem and talked with the distracted parents. They casually mentioned that the 'bambino' had an uncle in Brooklyn. After looking through their letters, the guide found an address and hiked to Brooklyn.

There, his long search was rewarded by the sight of the missing "bambino" safe in his uncle's home. He had a scrap of paper with his uncle's address on it, and, chafing under chaperonage, he had slipped off the tram and gone adventuring by himself.

It wasn't hard to find my way to Brooklyn and my uncle's house," explained the -bambino," "Why, there are as many people who speak Italian in New York as there are in Italy."

So the guide had to return to Harlem Oh, the independent young Italian. And he watched him like a hawk until he was restored to his grateful parents.

THAT one-half of the world never knows how the other half lives is as true today as it ever was. M. bile the masses go up and down every day on Fifth Avenue, and theater-goers swarm along Broadway in search of amusement; Ellis Island, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, only half an hour distant from Forty-Second Street and Broadway, is a world in itself, populated by all the races of the earth.

Hundreds of humans, friends, and relatives of arriving immigrants stand for hours in a fenced/ waiting room, their faces pressed against a wire screen, looking for all the world like human flies, waiting for the ships to come in loaded with human freight. In the steerage of these arriving teasels are their loved ones, for whom they watch with a poignant, affecting patience.

Then comes the onrush of immigrants, thousands of them, bewildered and helpless, "like dumb, driven cattle," entering a great stockyard for human beings. Pandemonium reigns for a while until the systematized efforts of the immigration authorities begin to bring order out of chaos.

Into the inspection room pours the stream of immigrants. Some of the immigrants and their children are sick; they need hospital attention. Frequently heart-rending scenes are witnessed when children must be separated from their parents and kept in the Ellis Island hospitals, sometimes for days, until they are sufficiently well to be restored to their worried parents.

Here is the work cut out for the Association Guide Service. The guides go in and out among these swarming strangers from the ends of the earth. A babel of tongues makes the task more difficult. Still, these trained guides are equal to the task, and it is not long before the newcomers are rounded up and started on the road to American citizenship.

Each one of these immigrants has his own little story of hardships endured and sacrifices made to cross the ocean to America—the Promised Land. Some of these stories would bring tears to the eyes of any man or woman with a spark of human sympathy. And they are all so childlike in their utter naivety, so certain that America is going to prove the panacea for all their ills!

However, the New York City Association Guide Service does more than merely escort these arrivals to their destinations. Its duty is to glean from these immigrants their stories and devise means of aiding them.

For Instance, it frequently happens that a guide takes an immigrant to a certain destination only to discover that the relatives have moved to another city or, perhaps. are dead. In such instances, the bewildered young man is taken to the Bowery Association, where he is provided with lodging at a minimum cost until something can be done about his case.

One man arrived recently and learned his relatives had moved to Los Angeles. lie was in despair when told that all the money he had would not take him to California, but was eager to go to work until he could earn enough to make the journey.

So he was lodged in the Bowery Association, and his case was taken under advisement. Work was found for him, as he was a most deserving case. The Association secured a cut-rate ticket for him to California.

With this help, he scraped up the railroad fare and departed happily for California and his new life. Another immigrant, who had expected to find his sister and brother-in-law in Brooklyn, discovered upon his arrival in that borough that they had moved to Cambridge.

The Association wired to the address and was instructed to send the homesick Immigrant immediately. His sister would meet him upon the arrival of the train in Boston. So the guide helped him get the ticket, put him on the right train, and sent him on his way.

From these cited cases, it may be seen that the Association immigrant guide must first of all be a sympathetic student of human nature, able to make quick decisions, and, above all, unimpeachable in honesty. The immigrant seems to feel that he must always be ready to pay for any service rendered, and many occasions arise when the guide has the opportunity to receive tips.

Receiving such gratuities means instant dismissal from the Guide Service. The guide must also know New York like a book so that no time is wasted getting the Immigrant to his destination quickly.

When one adds to these qualities a speaking knowledge of half a dozen languages, it is no exaggeration to say that the guide is a rather extraordinary' fellow.

Many a man holds an important diplomatic position abroad with far fewer qualifications. Indeed, the guide is a diplomat because he must be possessed of infinite tact, patience, and self-control to deal with the multitudinous problems that are part of the day's work.

Sometimes, as many as six or eight vessels are waiting with immigrants who trust they will be examined at Ellis Island before thousands of coming Americans can land in New York. By the way, it is estimated that ninety percent of the males fought in the various Allied armies during the World War.

One has to look at them to realize that they are a far better type of Immigrant than those who formerly came to this country. They have the makings of good Americans.

After all, this Association Guide Service is something bigger and broader than just taking immigrants to their destinations. It is the first step in the Americanization of the alien within our gates, who is the American of the future.

These men who enter the front door of the United States are guided in the paths of idealism and good citizenship marked out by great pioneers. One such pioneer was Theodore Roosevelt, who constantly preached this doctrine with all the sincerity and picturesque force of his rugged personality.

Here is what he once wrote on the subject :

"From his standpoint, it is beyond all question that the wise thing for the immigrant is to become thoroughly Americanized. Moreover, from our standpoint, we have the right to demand It.

We freely extend the hand of welcome and good fellowship to every man. No matter what his creed or birthplace. Who comes here honestly intent on becoming a good United States citizen like the rest of us, but we have a right. We must demand that he become so, and Rind shall not confuse the issues we are struggling with in introducing him to old-world quarrels. and prejudices.

"There are certain Ideas which he must give up. For Instance, he must learn that American life Is incompatible with the existence of any form of anarchy, and he must learn that we exact full religious toleration and the complete separation of Church and State.

Moreover, he must not bring in his Old World religious, race, and national antipathies but merge them into love for our common country and take pride in the things we can all take pride in. He must revere only our flag: not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second."

Those were Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on the subject, and the Association Guide Service tried to inculcate those ideas in the minds of the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island.

To further this Americanization plan, the Association has motion picture entertainment for the newcomers in the island's big auditorium. The pictures are educational and teach the Immigrant what is expected of a loyal American citizen.

Thus, they are prepared for other lessons in Americanization that they will have to learn later in the rough school of everyday experience. It is only fair to mention the names of those directing this inspiring work at Ellis Island.

George Warwick, who was overseas with the "Y" during the war, has been in charge of the organization's work on the island from the start. Miss Gertrude Lawrence, formerly of the Women's Motor Corps of America, who was also an overseas Association worker, is associated with him.

The headquarters of the Guide Service 4 is on the first floor of No. 11 State Street, and the work there is in the capable hands of Edward L. Emes, who was physical director at Pelham Bay Naval Training Station at Fort Schuyler and later salvage director at both Eagle and Victory huts. Before tackling this immigration job, he worked with the New York Public Service Commission.

This experience has proved invaluable in directing the guide work at the New York end of the line. His assistant is Miss Maud Murray. formerly of the Fort Slocum staff.

They are in active cooperation with the Association forces on Ellis Island, and the results achieved up to date have more than justified the hope that the Service may become a permanent force in the nationwide movement to turn raw immigrant material into American cloth, all wool, and a yard sale.

Edwin Carty Ranck, "First Steps on American Soil", Official Magazine Of The North American Young Men's Christian Association, Volume XLVI, Number Five, January 1921.

Key Highlights and Engaging Content

Personal Immigrant Stories

The article opens with two striking personal narratives that capture the mixed experiences of immigrants at Ellis Island. The first describes a young Italian immigrant, who arrives with little money and is exploited by a taxi driver, illustrating the vulnerability immigrants faced when they entered an unfamiliar land.

In contrast, a second story presents a more hopeful scenario in which a Spanish-speaking immigrant is assisted by a YMCA guide, showcasing the humanitarian efforts underway to help immigrants navigate their new lives in America. These personal stories provide an emotional entry point for readers, allowing them to empathize with the struggles and triumphs of immigrants.

YMCA Immigrant Guide Service

One of the most engaging aspects of the article is its focus on the YMCA Immigrant Guide Service. These guides were linguistic experts capable of speaking over sixty languages and dialects, helping immigrants find their relatives, navigate their new environment, and avoid falling prey to exploitative individuals.

This service offered immigrants critical support, ensuring that they were not abandoned upon arrival. The guides' work represents one of the first steps in an immigrant's assimilation and Americanization, making this section highly relevant to educators teaching about immigration policy and humanitarian responses.

Challenges of Overcrowding and Exploitation

The article brings attention to the overcrowding at Ellis Island, where thousands of immigrants arrived daily, often without adequate facilities to accommodate them. The story of the Polish girl who narrowly escapes being taken by a stranger is a powerful example of the risks immigrants faced upon arrival.

This section is critical for those studying the human toll of early immigration policies and the pressures on immigration services in the face of rising numbers of immigrants.

Cultural and Linguistic Barriers

The article also touches on the cultural diversity of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. The guides, speaking in multiple languages, helped ease the linguistic and cultural divides that could otherwise lead to confusion, isolation, and exploitation. This is an essential point for students exploring cultural assimilation and language barriers in the immigrant experience.

Historical Context and Americanization Efforts

The article emphasizes that the work of the YMCA guides was not only logistical but also part of a broader Americanization effort, aiming to instill in immigrants the values of citizenship and national unity.

The reference to Theodore Roosevelt’s views on Americanization adds a historical perspective on the expectations for immigrants during the early 20th century, which is insightful for historians examining the intersection of immigration and national identity.

Educational and Historical Insights

Immigrant Assistance and Integration: The YMCA Immigrant Guide Service plays a pivotal role in helping immigrants adjust to their new lives in the U.S., emphasizing the importance of community support in the immigration process. For teachers, this section offers a strong example of how volunteer organizations supported governmental efforts and contributed to social integration.

Challenges of Early 20th Century Immigration: The article’s portrayal of immigrants’ hardships—from being exploited by taxi drivers to dealing with overcrowded facilities—helps students and historians understand the difficulties of early 20th-century immigration. The social and economic challenges faced by immigrants offer valuable insights into the realities of American immigration policy at the time.

Role of Language in Immigration

The importance of language skills and cross-cultural communication in helping immigrants find success is central to understanding the immigration process. For genealogists, understanding the linguistic diversity of immigrant populations can aid in researching family histories and ancestral roots.

Final Thoughts

At the Portals of America offers a human-centered view of Ellis Island and the immigrant experience, providing valuable perspectives on the struggles and assistance immigrants faced upon arriving in the United States. The article balances personal anecdotes with institutional efforts, making it a significant resource for anyone studying immigration history.

By focusing on the efforts to Americanize immigrants through guidance, the article offers insight into the early 20th-century American vision of integrating immigrants into the national fabric.