Forgotten Ellis Island
Throughout this extremely information movie I learned a lot of new things about Ellis Island and how much these poor immigrants risked for a dream of a better life. From 1880-1924 twenty five million immigrants left home and travel across seas to come to Ellis Island due to such poor living conditions back at home. The movies states that some of the immigrants did not even know what a bathtub was, which goes to show you how bad their way of living was back at home. Ellis Island represented opportunity and a new life, but for some of the immigrants dreams ended as they failed the medical test and were retained to the hospital. In 1903 congress passed a law to keep the immigrants out of the country that had disease. Ellis Island hospital was Americas first line of defense against contagious disease, the hospital contained a crew of over 300 people, the best medical techniques anywhere in the world was practiced at Ellis Island Hospital. But there were very few vaccines and there was no penicillin, which meant very painful surgeries and recovery. Even people who were being held there until verified caught diseases. Many diseases were deadly due to the fact that antibiotics were not invented yet which meant that many died and a lot of families split up. The United States needed labor force so they hired William Williams to be the Ellis Island commissioner. William Williams thought people from Northern and Western Europe would fit in better; many Southern and eastern European people were labeled as mentally unfit, and denied entry. Williams stated that every emigrant as Ellis Island was to be treated with respect, which was true to an extent because for the rich, citizenship was almost automatic.
This movie shows how the immigrants had to give up everything to go to Ellis Island in search of a better life for themselves and there families for generations to come.