They told me the streets of America were paved with gold.
But when I arrived, I found they weren’t paved with gold.
I found out they weren’t paved at all.
I’m one of the people who paved them.”
— Unknown Irish Immigrant

Some time around 1895, my great-great grandfather Samuel Aiken left County Antrim, Ireland, to make a new life in the United States.

For him and another 12 million immigrants, the benefits of American citizenship came at the expense of a long and difficult journey through Ellis Island.

When we visited the Ellis Island Immigration Musuem shortly after Easter, the trip was considerably easier: Nothing more than a short ferry ride from Battery Park in lower Manhattan, following a brief stopover on Liberty Island.

But the relative ease of our journey was only the most obvious difference.

[Read more →]