Ellis Island:
a people’s history
Translated by Sean Gasper Bye
Overview
A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR
A landmark work of history that brings the voices of the past vividly to life, transforming our understanding of the immigrant’s experience in America.
Ellis Island. How many stories does this tiny patch of land hold? How many people had joyfully embarked on a new life here — or known the despair of being turned away? How many were held there against their will?
To tell its manifold stories, Ellis Island draws on unpublished testimonies, memoirs and correspondence from many internees and immigrants, including Russians, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Germans, and Poles, along with the commissioners, interpreters, doctors, and nurses who shepherded them — all of whom knew they were taking part in a significant historical phenomenon.
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 who reshaped the United States. But its true history reveals that today’s fierce immigration debate has deep roots. Now a master storyteller brings its past to life, illustrated with unique archival photographs.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Other rights
- Hardback
- 234mm x 153mm
- 400 pages
- 9781925849035
- AUD$49.99
- 1 September 2020
- World English
- Andrew Nurnberg Associates
Awards
- Shortlisted for the 2021 HWA Non-Fiction Crown Award
- Shortlisted for the 2021 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
Praise
‘To me Małgorzata Szejnert embodies the image of Poland … She has grace, a gentle tone, and a serene gaze.’
‘This ‘people’s history’ comprises intimate views of Ellis Island both from immigrants and from staff, including doctors, social workers, commissioners, and interpreters (among them the future mayor Fiorello LaGuardia). Policies were shaped by anti-Semitism, fear of Communism, and xenophobia, and monthly immigration quotas in the twenties led to ‘a peculiar type of boat race’ in New York Harbor, as ships rushed to deliver their passengers. Szejnert also records the idealism and the compassion of those employed there — such as the social worker who gave new arrivals stylish American clothing — many of whom were immigrants themselves.’
About the Author
For forty years, Małgorzata 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 marginalised people to speak for themselves through her work.
Translator
Sean Gasper Bye is a translator of Polish, French, and Russian literature. His translations of fiction, reportage, and drama have appeared in Words Without Borders, Catapult, and Continents, and he is a winner of the 2016 Asymptote Close Approximations Prize. He was awarded an NEA Translation Fellowship to work on this book.
