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Useful
Information
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Patronato
Epasa
65-54 Myrtle Avenue
Glendale, NY 11385-7067
Tel.: +1 (718) 386-5212
e-mail epasausa@aol.com
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Ambasciata
d'Italia Washington
3000 Whitehaven Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
Tel.: +1 (202) 612-4400
Fax: +1 (202) 518-2151
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JUST
A FEW GREAT ITALIAN EMIGRANTS
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Click
to view video, ''Gallesi d’America''
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This is a small example of
what emigrants had to go through in the early to mid 19 hundreds.Today
anyone is allowed to enter this country with very little background
check, if any at all.
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Closing
the Open Door
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, anti-immigration
sentiment and isolationist hostilities were at their highest.
Congress had just passed legislation, over the veto of President
Woodrow Wilson, requiring immigrants to pass a literacy test,
and barring virtually all immigration from Asia. The activities
of the Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1915, would reach their greatest
support by 1920, and their voice echoed that of restrictionists
who denounced immigrants as racially inferior, drawing an alarming
portrait of an impoverished, criminal, radical, and diseased invading
horde. Violent
strikes and a rash of
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bombings followed the outbreak of the war, prompting the Department
of Justice to order the arrest of aliens suspected of communist
or anarchist sympathies. As immigrants faced hostilities from all
sides, Ellis Island's role quickly changed from a depot to that
of a detention center. The Red Scare saw hundreds of aliens rounded
up and detained at Ellis Island. In addition, over the next year
1,800 German merchant mariners, their ships seized at East Coast
ports, were added to the Island's population. "I have become
a jailer," |
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Frederic C. Howe wrote despondently in 1919 as the wave of anti-immigration
hysteria swept the country. With Atlantic ports and shipping lanes
closed to commercial traffic, immigration dropped significantly
with the start of World War I. In 1915 Ellis Island admitted 178,000
people. By 1919 that number fell to 26,000. With the war's end thousands
of refugees from Europe's war damaged areas sailed to the U.S.,
as did immigrants still holding tickets purchased in 1914. By 1920,
immigration had risen again-to a brisk 225,206 arrivals annually.
In 1921 the numbers climbed back to prewar figures of 560,971. For
six years the war had delayed the reunion of family and friends,
and the postwar immigration crush caught Ellis Island with its resources
badly depleted. Experienced staff had been laid off during wartime
and the Registry Room, which had been used by the U. S. Army as
a ward for wounded servicemen, badly needed repairs and cleaning.
Unfortunately,
peace overseas did not |
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bring
peace at home. World War I had crystallized anti-immigration sentiment.
Nativists continued to criticize the nation's ability to assimilate
the flood-tide of "human flotsam," and popular tunes such
as Neel and Clark's 1923 song O! Close the Gates called for a halt
to immigration "before this mob from Europe shall drag our
Colors down." Restrictionists in Congress remained vigilant
in their warnings about the "danger of the melting pot,"
and on May l9, l92l succeeded in pressuring President Warren G.
Harding into signing the first Quota Act.
This effectively ended America's open-door policy by setting monthly
quotas, limiting admission of each nationality to three percent
of its representation in the U.S. Census of 1910. Passengers considered
excess quota were automatically excluded. Immigration was now more
than ever a game of numbers. Steamships jockeyed for position at
the mouth of New York Harbor to steam across at the stroke of midnight
each month. The 1924 National Origins Act made further cuts by limiting
immigration from any nation to two percent of its representation
in the 1890 census. The bill's sponsors made no attempt to conceal
its discriminatory intent-directed at restricting "less desirable"
immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Very quickly, the
gateway to the promised land had all but slammed shut. |
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The
National Origins Act also allowed prospective immigrants to undergo
inspection before they left their country of origin, making the
trip to Ellis Island unnecessary. Shortly after the Act went into
effect Ellis Island "looked like a deserted village,"
commented one official. In 1931 Labor Secretary William Doak declared
that he would rid the economically depressed nation of "everyone
who cannot prove he is a lawful resident here," and in 1932,
for the first time ever, more aliens left the country than arrived.
By 1937 the island's population had dwindled to about 160 deportees
and 30 detained immigrants, mostly Chinese children whose parents,
already living in the U.S., had to prove their citizenship.In the
1940s Ellis Island experienced a renewed flurry of activity. Japanese,
German, and Italian citizens were detained on the island during
World War II, and later the International Security Act bolstered
the detainee population with suspected Communists and Fascists.
When Ellis Island's administration moved to an office in Manhattan
in 1943, the detained enemy aliens at the station numbered about
one thousand. The
Coast Guard had also taken up residence on the island, using the
main Hospital complex for office and storage space, but by 1949
officials were already discussing closing the old immigration depot.
Ellis Island was becoming too costly to run. In 1953 the island's
Staff numbered roughly 250, to
serve approximately 230 detained immigrants. A 1954 Justice Department
ruling, which gave |
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detained aliens parole until their cases
could be heard by a ruling board, finally closed Ellis Island's
doors on November 19. Its last resident, detainee Arne Peterson,
a seaman who had overstayed his shore leave, was granted parole
and ferried back to the mainland... |
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©
2008 BenItalRok | BenItalRok
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