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Ellis Island a people's history

This is the people's history of Ellis Island: the people who passed through it, and the people who were turned away from it. Szejnert draws on unpublished testimonies, memoirs, archival photographs, and correspondence from many internees and immigrants, including Russians, Italians, Jews, Japanese,...

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Main Author: Szejnert, Małgorzata (Author)
Other Authors: Bye, Sean Gasper (Translator)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Polish
Published: London, United Kingdom ; Brunswick, Victoria ; Minneapolis, Minnesota : Scribe Publications, 2020.
Subjects:
Immigrants > United States > History.
Ellis Island Immigration Station (N.Y. and N.J.) > History.
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Summary:This is the people's history of Ellis Island: the people who passed through it, and the people who were turned away from it. Szejnert draws on unpublished testimonies, memoirs, archival photographs, and correspondence from many internees and immigrants, including Russians, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Germans, and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.. At the book's core is a trove of personal letters from immigrants to their loved ones back home-- letters which were confiscated and never delivered, finally discovered in a basement in Warsaw. Szejnert weaves together the personal experiences of forgotten individuals as well as Ellis Island employees. The result is a story of a place and its people, steeped in politics and history, that reshaped the United States. --From publisher description.
Item Description:"Originally published in Polish by Znak as Wyspa klucz in 2009"--Title page verso
"First published in English by Scribe in 2020"--Title page verso
Physical Description:391 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 351-377) and index.
ISBN:9781957363028
1957363029
9781950354054
1950354059
9781911617976
1911617974
9781925849035
1925849031
Author Notes: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 marginalized people to speak for themselves through her work.
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.

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