Not Wanted

Growing up in the Buffalo area fifty years ago, our family frequently crossed the border into a “foreign” country. We’d bake in the sand at Sherkston Beach, ride the harrowing Comet roller coaster and lick butterscotch suckers at Crystal Beach amusement park, and saunter up Clifton Hill at Niagara Falls, Ontario, begging to go into the wax museum. We were always warned to behave as we went through customs while the adults answered the typical “where were you born” question, but the border crossing was painless.

Entering the United States as an immigrant has not been quite as easy. I wish I had paid more attention to whatever information my mother had about her ancestors and their immigration narratives. What was it like for young Amelia to leave behind her German homeland, for a whole family to flee the Irish potato famine, or for the French-speaking Anna to sail into Ellis Island? We visited their tombstones often during my childhood, but I never asked how they came to America.

In light of the recent executive order on immigration, I think a lot about my immigrant ancestors as I pass their stern portraits each day. Were they economic refugees? Did they pass through Ellis Island? I wonder if they were frightened, if they were welcomed into their new home, their new country. Whatever their “coming to America” story was, they made their way, creating a home in America, working, raising children, and embracing grandchildren (my mother).

My curiosity led me to research Ellis Island, the major portal for immigration for sixty-four years. As potential immigrants moved toward the registry room at Ellis Island, they faced two forms of vetting. The first was medical: was the individual healthy enough to enter the United States? This test became known as the six-second medical exam, primarily one of observation to weed out disease or defect. Often, a dreaded button hook was used to raise the eyelid, as doctors looked for trachoma, an eye infection that led to blindness (a Japanese immigrant later discovered a cure for trachoma). Those who cleared the brief medical exam were then asked a set of twenty-nine questions, and their answers needed to match the information on the ship’s manifest. If it did, they were vetted, walking the massive Ellis Island staircase to a new life.

What happened to those who didn’t pass the inspection? Some were treated in hospital wards on Ellis Island until their condition improved, and ultimately 99% of those arriving on these shores during the Ellis Island era were admitted. Yet 120,000 people were sent back because of serious disease or disability, with an “X” chalked on their forehead for insanity or feeblemindedness, a “P” for pulmonary (lung) problems, and a “K” for hernias. It’s a fascinating history. I’m putting a visit to Ellis Island on my bucket list.

There’s no six-second medical exam for today’s immigrant. Instead, by the time they reach our international airports, potential immigrants with refugee status have completed a two-year process involving a United Nations agency, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the State Department. They’ve been fingerprinted, background checked, and had a medical evaluation Biodata and biometrics are checked and re-checked. Through this exhaustive process, the relatively open-armed policies of Ellis Island are no longer, for fewer than 1% of global refugees are admitted to the United States.

Our world has changed. Crystal Beach is now a gated community. Ellis Island is a museum. The dreaded button hook has been replaced by an iris scan. The ship’s manifest has morphed into a voluminous background check. The welcome mat is narrower.

Can America’s shrinking welcome mat still be extended? Can we welcome the Iranian grandmother who has never held her Ohio-born grandchildren, the Sudanese student approved for post-doctoral research in cancer prevention, the Syrian mothers and children fleeing the horrors of Aleppo? Will a world-wide welcome still glow from the beacon hand of the Mother of Exiles, waiting patiently in New York Harbor? Or are we willing to trade the blue chalk of the Ellis Island gatekeepers for the permanent marker of exclusion, boldly writing “not wanted” on the foreheads of “the other?” To be determined . . .