Malgorzata Szejnert

Ellis Island (eBook, ePUB)

a people's history
Übersetzer: Bye, Sean Gasper

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEARA landmark work of history that brings the voices of the past vividly to life, transforming our understanding of the immigrant experience.Whilst living in New York, journalist MaA gorzata Szejnert would often gaze out from lower Manhattan at Ellis Island, a dark outline on the horizon. How many stories did this tiny patch of land hold? How many people had joyfully embarked on a new life there - or known the despair of being turned away? How many were held there against their will?Ellis Island draws on unpublished testimonies, memoirs and correspondence from many internees and immigrants, including Russians, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Germans, and Poles, along with commissioners, interpreters, doctors, and nurses - all of whom knew they were taking part in a tremendous historical phenomenon.It tells the many stories of the island, from Annie Moore, the Irishwoman who was the first to be processed there, to the diaries of Fiorello La Guardia, who worked at the station before going on to become one of New York City's greatest mayors, to depicting the ordeal the island went through during the 9/11 attacks. At the book's core are letters recovered from the Russian State Archive, a heartrending trove of correspondence from migrants to their loved ones back home. But their letters never reached their destination: instead, they were confiscated by intelligence services and remained largely unseen.Far from the open-door policy of myth, we see that deportations from Ellis Island were often based on pseudo-scientific ideas about race, gender, and disability. Sometimes, families were broken up, and new arrivals were held in detention at the Island for days, weeks, or months under quarantine. Indeed the island compound has spent longer as an internment camp than as a migration station.Today, the island is no less political. In popular culture, it is a romantic symbol of the generations of immigrants that reshaped the United States. But its true history reveals that today's immigration debate has deep roots. Now a master storyteller brings its past to life, illustrated with unique archival photographs.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
• Seitenzahl: 400
• Erscheinungstermin: 4. August 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781925938210
• Artikelnr.: 72337544

Autorenporträt

For forty years, Malgorzata Szejnert (b. 1936) has been one of Poland's most important nonfiction writers and editors, shaping a generation of Polish literary reportage. She began writing about challenging social issues in the 1970s, and was an active member of the opposition during the Solidarity period. After the fall of Communism, she co-founded Poland's leading daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and led its reportage division for 15 years. Since retiring, she has devoted herself entirely to book writing. Her topics range from Poland to America to Zanzibar, always with a warm, personal focus, allowing marginalized people to speak for themselves through her work.