Ellis Island

a people’s history
Malgorzata Szejnert (trans. Sean Gasper Bye)

‘Excellent … Ellis Island’s real achievement lies in recreating not just what it was like but what it felt like to be there. It is, in its understated way, quite remarkable.’

The Telegraph

‘From the internments of PoWs during the First and Second World Wars, to deportations based on social discrimination, this emotive account charts [Ellis Island’s] central role in decades of American political life.’

BBC History

View all reviews

‘The veteran Polish journalist Malgorzata Szejnert uncovers stories with a reporter’s instinct.’

New Statesman

‘One of the best evocations of the blend of yearning and disenchantment I have read.’

Fran Bigman, TLS

‘This ‘people’s history’ comprises intimate views of Ellis Island both from immigrants and from staff, including doctors, social workers, commissioners, and interpreters (among them the future mayor Fiorello LaGuardia). Policies were shaped by anti-Semitism, fear of Communism, and xenophobia, and monthly immigration quotas in the twenties led to ‘a peculiar type of boat race’ in New York Harbor, as ships rushed to deliver their passengers. Szejnert also records the idealism and the compassion of those employed there — such as the social worker who gave new arrivals stylish American clothing — many of whom were immigrants themselves.’

New Yorker

‘A deeply evocative social history in a fabulous translation.’

Clare Mulley, The Spectator

‘Making extensive use of primary documents, including letters written by immigrants to family in the old country, the author captures the mingled hope and fear experienced as people entered the massive main building … Szejnert does not scant the fear of “degraded, backward” people “unfit to join into American life” that culminated in the 1924 law that basically slammed the door on Italian and Jewish immigration. But her emphasis is on the immigrants’ fortitude and resilience and the empathetic assistance of Ellis Island personnel — many themselves immigrants … Warmly human and extremely moving — a welcome addition to the Ellis Island literature.’ STARRED REVIEW

Kirkus Reviews

‘Read these words and travel back in time.’

Mauricio Ruiz, Words Without Borders

‘With fine-grained details and fluid writing, Szejnert humanises the immigrant experience in late 19th- and early 20th-century America.’

Publishers Weekly

‘Drawing on a huge archive of previously unpublished correspondence and recordings, a Polish journalist and outstanding storyteller brings alive the experiences of immigrants who ended up at Ellis Island as well as the wide range of employees who dealt with them. It’s a story that is still relevant today.’

Matt Witt, World Wide Work

‘In addition to filling a gap in American history, [Ellis Island] gives attention to a female journalist in the male-dominated genre of Polish reportage. Anyone looking to learn more about the history of immigration in the United States will enjoy this intimate portrayal of American history.’

Asymptote Journal

‘A feat of historical documentation, Ellis Island tells the story of this fabled strip of land through the experiences of the people who sought a new life in America. A prescient and thought-provoking book about hope, despair and what it means to find yourself in a new world.’

Dan Shaw, Happy Magazine

‘As Szejnert shows, it would be difficult to find a scrap of land that better revealed the moral state of the Northern hemisphere during the first half of the 20th century than Ellis Island … a pleasurable read for anyone wanting to know more about those who immigrated to the United States and those who, because of prejudice or sheer bad luck, never made it.’

LA Review of Books

‘[A] giant account of testimonies, memoirs, photographs, and letters that bring to life all of the varied experiences of arguably the most famous landmark of immigration in the world.’

Three Percent

‘[Ellis Island] is a fascinating catalogue of the wonderful array of characters and broad spectrum of humanity which passed through the island’s buildings.’

Miles Kemp, The Advertiser, starred review

‘A vibrant addition to the sizeable bibliography in English [on Ellis Island] … Drawing freely on letters, diaries, photographs and oral histories, most of the book recounts what Ellis Island was like for immigrants and government employees. Some of the most poignant passages draw from hundreds of letters sent back home — when Poland was absorbed into Russia — by Polish immigrants … Though Szejnert’s book first appeared in 2009, its translation now is a reminder that the United States need not be defined only by a border wall.’

Steven G. Kellman, Forward

‘[Szejnert] provides a plethora of raw data, including nationality quotas, how many people arrived on ships, the date when commissioners left their post — but her primary mode of storytelling is encouraging her audience to read between the lines, and her book does much in the service of contextualising immigration to the US as fraught with discriminatory snap judgments on the merits of arriving individuals’ human value, rather than a triumphant articulation of American values, with a welcome mat in New York harbour.’

J. Howard Rosier, The Nation

‘Szejnert has a style distinguished by pithy realism, deft plotting via recurring details and motifs … Szejnert’s Ellis Island leads us down as many surprising, sobering paths as the corridors connecting almost all of the buildings on the island … Guided by a keenly perceptive, curious foreigner, we emerge from her reportage with vivid, individualised memories of newcomers’ hardships endured, nativist fears aroused, official injustices carried, and the wide range of goodwill efforts invested in the processing and treatment of the more than sixteen million people who risked everything to resettle in the United States.’

Beth Holmgren, The Women's Review of Books

‘An almost poetic, deeply evocative social history of the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island en route to the USA, and the officials and officialdom that met them. This timely book about immigrant experience has huge resonance and impact. A fabulous translation too.’

Judges’ comments from the HWA Non-Fiction Crown shortlist 2021

‘To me Malgorzata Szejnert embodies the image of Poland … She has grace, a gentle tone, and a serene gaze.’

Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Secondhand Time

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR

Whilst living in New York, journalist Malgorzata Szejnert would often gaze out from lower Manhattan at Ellis Island, a dark outline on the horizon. How many stories did this tiny patch of land hold? How many people had joyfully embarked on a new life there — or known the despair of being turned away? How many were held there against their will? In this landmark work of history, she brings the voices of the past vividly to life, transforming our understanding of the immigrant experience.

Ellis Island draws on unpublished testimonies, memoirs, and correspondence from internees and immigrants, including Russians, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Germans, and Poles, along with commissioners, interpreters, doctors, and nurses — all of whom knew they were taking part in a tremendous historical phenomenon.

It tells the many stories of the island, from Annie Moore, the Irishwoman who was the first to be processed there, to the diaries of Fiorello La Guardia, who worked at the station before going on to become one of New York City’s greatest mayors, to the ordeal the island went through during the 9/11 attacks.

Far from the open-door policy of myth, we see that deportations from Ellis Island were often based on pseudo-scientific ideas about race, gender, and disability. Sometimes, families were broken up, and new arrivals were held in detention at the Island for days, weeks, or months under quarantine. Indeed, the island compound has spent longer as an internment camp than as a migration station.

Today, the island is no less political. In popular culture, it is a romantic symbol of the generations of immigrants that reshaped the United States. But its true history reveals that today’s immigration debate has deep roots. Now a master storyteller brings its past to life, illustrated with unique archival photographs.

‘Excellent … Ellis Island’s real achievement lies in recreating not just what it was like but what it felt like to be there. It is, in its understated way, quite remarkable.’

The Telegraph

BBC History

View all reviews

‘The veteran Polish journalist Malgorzata Szejnert uncovers stories with a reporter’s instinct.’

New Statesman

‘One of the best evocations of the blend of yearning and disenchantment I have read.’

Fran Bigman, TLS

New Yorker

‘A deeply evocative social history in a fabulous translation.’

Clare Mulley, The Spectator

Kirkus Reviews

‘Read these words and travel back in time.’

Mauricio Ruiz, Words Without Borders

‘With fine-grained details and fluid writing, Szejnert humanises the immigrant experience in late 19th- and early 20th-century America.’

Publishers Weekly

Matt Witt, World Wide Work

Asymptote Journal

Dan Shaw, Happy Magazine

LA Review of Books

‘[A] giant account of testimonies, memoirs, photographs, and letters that bring to life all of the varied experiences of arguably the most famous landmark of immigration in the world.’

Three Percent

‘[Ellis Island] is a fascinating catalogue of the wonderful array of characters and broad spectrum of humanity which passed through the island’s buildings.’

Miles Kemp, The Advertiser, starred review

Steven G. Kellman, Forward

J. Howard Rosier, The Nation

Beth Holmgren, The Women's Review of Books

Judges’ comments from the HWA Non-Fiction Crown shortlist 2021

BUY EBOOK

Details

Format:Hardback

Size: 234mm × 153mm

Extent:400pp with 60 b&w illos

ISBN (13):9781911617976

RRP:£20.00

Pub date:8 Oct 2020

Rights Held: World English

High-res cover:Download Image

AWARDS

2021 HWA Non-Fiction Crown Award - Short-listed 2021 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation - Short-listed

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AUTHOR

Malgorzata Szejnert

For forty years, Malgorzata Szejnert (b. 1936) has been one of Poland’s most important nonfiction writers and editors, shaping a generation of Polish literary reportage. She began writing about challenging social issues in the 1970s, and was an active member of the opposition during the Solidarity period. After the fall of Communism, she co-founded Poland’s leading daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and led its reportage division for 15 years. Since retiring, she has devoted herself entirely to book writing. Her topics range from Poland to America to Zanzibar, always with a warm, personal focus, allowing marginalised people to speak for themselves through her work.

TRANSLATOR

Sean Gasper Bye

Sean Gasper Bye is a translator of Polish, French, and Russian literature. His translations of fiction, reportage, and drama have appeared in Words Without Borders, Catapult, and Continents, and he is a winner of the 2016 Asymptote Close Approximations Prize. He was awarded an NEA Translation Fellowship to work on this book.

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Ellis Island

a people’s history
Malgorzata Szejnert (trans. Sean Gasper Bye)

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Ellis Island

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a people’s history
Malgorzata Szejnert (trans. Sean Gasper Bye)