"Marion, Give Us a Smile!" An American Immigration Story ... and a Detective Story
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In 1922, Marion leaves a small Eastern European town with her father (Meyer, a butcher), mother (Sarah), brother (Hymie), and sister (Ruthie) to set sail for their new life in America. But it is a time of cataclysmic change in US immigration policy. Upon reaching Ellis Island, the family is detained and ordered to be sent back to Europe. Go back?!Years later, Marion would tell how a Bronx aunt came to the family's rescue by "riding the train" to Washington, DC, and "personally convincing President Coolidge" to let the family stay. Could there be truth to that legend? Nearly one hundred years l...
In 1922, Marion leaves a small Eastern European town with her father (Meyer, a butcher), mother (Sarah), brother (Hymie), and sister (Ruthie) to set sail for their new life in America. But it is a time of cataclysmic change in US immigration policy. Upon reaching Ellis Island, the family is detained and ordered to be sent back to Europe. Go back?!Years later, Marion would tell how a Bronx aunt came to the family's rescue by "riding the train" to Washington, DC, and "personally convincing President Coolidge" to let the family stay. Could there be truth to that legend? Nearly one hundred years later, the author of this book, Marion's granddaughter, embarks on her own journey to find out.This gripping memoir, told with humor and insight, is a detective story, American history lesson, political drama, and coming-of-age tale about the glamorous, young Marion. It takes the reader from Galician towns to Ellis Island's detention wards, from the floor of the US House of Representatives to the halls of Harvard and New York City in the Roaring Twenties. It exposes the political backlash to America's peak immigration years and reveals the unheralded saviors of Marion's family, whom Marion never knew.
