This America is an amazing country!
We are in Midtown New York, New York.
Today we visited Ellis Island again after a decade. It has been a major entry point for emigrants between 1892 and 1924. They have made a museum out of the emigration office of a century ago.
It was very touching for me watching the pictures and reading the highlights of that process in that era. At the entrance level a big poster caught my eyes:
"Each of their [emigrants] stories is unique and bears witness to their courage and determination that enables men and women to leave their homes and seek new opportunities in an unknown land." I could relate to that remotely. Then all the pictures hunt me; the fear and hope in the eyes in those pictures, their costume, their baggages, the narrated stories ... it all touched me deeply.
I've been thinking, they came by boats, I came by a plane; they carried all their worthly and portable belongings in a few suitcase, so did I; they possibly never went back home, I did several time; they got through medical exams and emigration documents at the port, I went through medical exams and background checking while still at home... I was amazed how similar the stories are after a century. I'm not sure how they felt when they arrived; and it is undescribeable but I feel more alienated eventhough I'm more educated and more affluent compared to most of that wave of emigrants. I cannot stop but wonder, is this only a matter of race?...
I have have lots of respect for the earlier emigrants because I think their unknown was more unknown than mine so their courage is highlighted more strongly.
I like this land!
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