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PHOTO:
Noel Pangilinan
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| Ellis
Island: From an immigration screening center to a
museum. |
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Ellis Workers Honor Immigrant Ancestors
By Noel Pangilinan
 very
morning for the past 19 years, Jeffrey Dosik has reenacted his
grandparents' passage to America - sailing past the Statue of Liberty
and setting foot on Ellis Island.
On some of these trips, Dosik finds himself wondering what his forebears
thought upon entering the New York Harbor and seeing the 151-foot-tall
statue on their way to the Ellis Island immigration screening center.
"They must have been overwhelmed by the sight of the New Colossus,"
he said.
As
a librarian for Ellis Island, Dosik, 44, gets to retrace his grandparents'
footsteps five days a week on his way to work aboard the staffboat
of the National Park Service.
About one-third of the people who work on Ellis Island come from
immigrant families who passed through it, said Janet Levine, an
oral historian at the island's library. At the library alone, at
least four workers trace their roots to European immigrants who
crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed on the island from the early
1900s to the late 1920s.
As descendants of immigrants, they are happy to work on the island
where their families' American history began. By participating in
the preservation of the nation's immigration history, the librarians
feel they maintain a link with their ancestors.
Dosik's grandparents on both sides of his family were immigrants
who came to the United States through Ellis Island. His paternal
grandfather, Moses Dosik, a hat maker originally from Shetuma, Russia,
traveled from the Netherlands in the steer of a ship and arrived
on Ellis Island in 1906. His grandmother, Yetta Dosik, also from
Russia, arrived aboard the same ship with her siblings one year
later.
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Dosik's
grandfather on his mother's side, Alexander Rogersin, passed through
Ellis Island in 1913; while his grandmother, Anna Sadleck, came
from Slovakia in 1924.
Dosik was able to piece together his family's history when he found
their arrival records on the electronic archive of the American
Family Immigration History Center. The center, which allows
visitors to search for their ancestors' names on the passenger manifests
of ships that docked on the island, is one of the museum's main
attractions.
"When the center opened in 2001, park employees were used to
testing it. We were the first to try it; we were the guinea pigs,"
said Dosik.
Other Ellis Island employees were not as lucky in their search as
Dosik. Levine, whose work involves interviewing Ellis Island immigrants
who are still alive, could not find her grandparents' records. "There
were so many Levines on the ship manifests, but I could not find
my grandfather, "she said.
Her grandparents from her father's side, Abraham Levine and Celia
Eig, were Russians from Minsk. On her mother's side, it was her
great-grandmother who crossed the Atlantic from England and started
a family in America.
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PHOTO:
Noel Pangilinan
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Byron: Immigrants "were too busy being Americanized." |
George
Tselos, the library's chief archivist, has another story. Eighty-eight
years ago, his Greek father set foot on the island after a week-long
transatlantic journey. But his search for his immigration record
yielded no result. "Probably a matter of spelling," he
said with a shrug.
Eric Byron, an exhibit technician at the library, said he was not
interested in searching for his grandparents' records. Everything
he knows about his grandfather, Isaacs Fleischman, a Jew from Lithuania,
and his grandmother, Rose Levine (no relation to Janet Levine) from
modern-day Belarus, he learned from his mother. "That's enough
for me. That's all I need to know," he said.
But aside from their ancestors' country of origin and the approximate
year of their arrival in the United States, the descendants often
know little about their forebears' former life. "There
was a time when immigrants did not want to talk about their past,"
said Levine, because in those days, they were often stigmatized.
"Newly arrived immigrants were looked down upon even by other
immigrant groups who came earlier."
One
woman Levine interviewed said she has never told anybody about her
life in her native country.
Most of the immigrants from Russia and Southern and Eastern Europe
were driven away from their countries by economic hardship and religious
persecution. "They were escaping anti-Jewish pogroms and the
anti-Semitic drives taking place in Tsarist Russia," said Dosik.
"Those were very painful memories, perhaps too painful to recall."
For Byron, immigrants were simply too busy adjusting to their new
life and finding ways to make it in America. "They came here
lured by the American dream. They were too busy being Americanized.
They want their kids to grow up as Americans," said Byron.
"For most immigrants, it's no longer about the past; it's all
about the present and the future."
Levine
has noticed that many of the surviving Ellis Island immigrants she
has interviewed care a lot about being American. "Especially
those who suffered religious persecution in their old countries,"
she said.
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PHOTO:
Noel Pangilinan
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Dosik: "Immigrants were escaping from anti-Jewish
pogroms and anti-Semitic drives of Tsarist Russia." |
Levine,
Dosik, Byron and Tselos said that their forebearers' passage through
Ellis Island had nothing to do with their decision to seek out the
job there.
“I
just wanted a job,” said Dosik.
“I
just wanted a job related to my interest,” said Byron, who
was into anthropology and art archaeology.
But
all four said that their immigrant roots have made them interested
in U.S. immigration history. “Ellis Island is thenational monument
to immigrants,” said Levine. ”I feel privileged working
here, meeting Ellis Island immigrants and seeing the Statue of Liberty
everyday.”
<Click here for a video tour of Ellis and Liberty islands>
Eventually, after a few years, it finally dawned on them that there
was something
special about working in the island gateway where their grandparents
and parents passed through.
“My
father had died by the time I started working in Ellis Island in
1999,” said Tselos. “I have always wished he’d live
long enough to see me working here. It would have pleased him.”
Dosik
stood in the reading room of the Ellis island library, reviewing
historical photographs of immigrants in Ellis Island. He realized
that he might as well have been looking at pictures of his own grandparents.
“Working
in a place where my family began its history in the U.S., that means
something to me,” he said. “I have come full circle.”.
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