Through the Narrow Gate: the Immigrant Story of Ellis Island
About This Novel
"Ellis Island is the great outpost of this vibrant new republic, guarding the open door of the United States. The footsteps of a steady stream of immigrants once echoed here." When they crossed this barrier, was it really freedom and dreams that greeted them? How should a country treat strangers outside its gates? Ellis Island, located at the junction of the East River and the Hudson River in New York, was the main immigration checkpoint in the United States at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. 12 Million immigrants were inspected there. During World War II and the Cold War, tens of thousands of enemy aliens and political prisoners were imprisoned here. It is like a sophisticated sieve, screening immigrants according to various criteria and deporting the undesirable ones. Until the end of the 20th century, Ellis Island, which had been abandoned and forgotten, was reborn as an immigration museum and a national monument... Canato captured this unprecedented time and place in the history of American immigration, collecting a large number of official historical materials, local archives, folk narratives and popular culture, telling stories from immigrants, prosecutors, translators, doctors, to politicians, social reformers and even past presidents, giving a panoramic and epic presentation of the history of the island. Through this process, we have seen the modernization process of the United States, including the evolution of sovereignty laws, changes in economic models, and how American identity was formed, etc.
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