Catherine Bancroft

Ellis Island Series - Page Five

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Alerted by an immigrant's demeanor, responsiveness and excitability, inspectors often asked additional questions, which varied from immigrant to immigrant, such as: Are you an anarchist? Are you a polygamist? Sometimes they chatted further with other family members, watching for signs of inadmissibility. If an alien was suspected of being inadmissible, or if further paperwork was needed for admittance, he was put in detention. - Peter Morton Coan from Ellis Island Interviews

Detention was a scary time for immigrants. It could last hours, but often lasted days, weeks, even months. Women and young children traveling alone were always detained until a male relative came for them. Penniless aliens were detained until someone could bring them money or vouch for them financially with a bond. Alien seamen and stowaways were detained until they could satisfy inspectors that they were admissible. Ill people or pregnant women were often detained for hospitalization. Criminals or others clearly undesirable were detained for immediate exclusion. - Peter Morton Coan from Ellis Island Interviews

We know little about the fates of most of the early 20th century immigrants processed at Ellis Island whose photos inspired these paintings.*

Yet at a moment when politicians invite us to fear the stranger, their faces remind us that America's greatness has traditionally resided in its inclusiveness -- in the extraordinary variety of the gifts that new arrivals contribute. Up to 40% of Americans today have an ancestor who passed through Ellis Island.

* An energetic researcher named Louis Takacs has recently found some startling and unexpected facts about a few of the immigrants pictured here. To read his discoveries of "complicated sometimes unsettling back stories," see his online chronicle, titled Let Me Get There https://scalar.usc.edu/works/let-me-get-there/

Key to Paintings

Italian Girl 12x12	Russian Man 12x12	Immigrants Waiting at Dock (sold) 20x24

In Detention (sold) 24x20	Three Doctors (sold) 12x12

I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong. -- George Washington

Catherine Bancroft

Ellis Island Series - Page Five

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Key to Paintings

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