USA - Welcome to your new life

Today it was time for the most important of New York's sights - no not the Trump Tower, not the Trump Building on Wall Street either, not even the Trump International Hotel. 

Lady Liberty herself.

 

Now I knew that the statue was a gift from the people of France to the people of America what I didn't know was that it was to celebrate the "special relationship" between France and the US remembering that France fought alongside the US during the revolutionary wars to get the British out of North America. They really should warn you about these things. Just like "May contain nuts" on food, these sights should say "May contain references to the nasty British".

The Statue of Liberty is reached by ferry and you can buy a landing trip (land on the island, see it from the outside), a pedestal package (go by lift to the top of the stone pedestal) or a crown package (from the top of the pedestal you climb up stairs to the inside of the crown). The latter only has a set number of tickets per day. I chose a pedestal trip. The actual statue is a metal frame produced by Gustav Eiffel clad in worked copper to a design by Frederic Bartholdi and from the top of the pedestal you can look up through the inside of the statue.

After Liberty the ferry takes you on to the National Immigration Museum at Ellis Island. Ever since visiting the Pier 21 Museum in Halifax, Nova Scotia which was in the very building through which my great uncle and aunt entered Canada, I have wanted to visit Ellis Island. One very interesting difference here though is that while Canada, Australia and New Zealand all had assisted migration programmes - essentially the government subsidised your fare to encourage you to come - the United States simply had people constantly turning up. Immigration was, however, mainly across the Atlantic from Europe. Immigration across the Pacific from Asia was heavily controlled with quotas and a list of countries whose citizens were not eligible to enter the US - so the current debate is not a new concept!

Ellis Island from Liberty Island

Registry Room

The newly arrived immigrants had to first go up some stairs to reach the Registry Room, they did not know it but they were being watched at that point to see how well they climbed the stairs as a gauge to their general health. They were then subjected to more medical checks before sitting on long benches in the Registry Room. The immigration officials would then go through the ships manifests, call them forward and ask them questions (often through an interpreter) before saying "Yes" or "No". Only 2% of the millions that arrived at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954 were sent back home.