"By bringing us the inspiring and sometimes unsettling tales of Ellis Island, Vincent Cannato's American Passage helps us understand who we are as a nation." -- Walter Isaacson
The remarkable saga of America's landmark port of entry, from immigration post to deportation center to mythical icon.
For most of New York's early history, Ellis Island had been an obscure little island that barely held itself above high tide. Today the small island stands alongside Plymouth Rock in our nation's founding mythology as the place where many of our ancestors first touched American soil.
American Passage captures a time and a place unparalleled in American immigration and history, and articulates the dramatic and bittersweet accounts of the immigrants, officials, interpreters, and social reformers who all played an important role in Ellis Island's chronicle. In this sweeping, often heart-wrenching epic, Vincent J. Cannato reveals that the history of Ellis Island is ultimately the story of what it means to be an American.
"Immigration has long been a critical slice of the American narrative, and here, in American Passage, Vincent Cannato tells its story with great brio. From landing point to national Monument, from immigrants to interpreters, we see the veritable Babel of Ellis Island play out across the years." - Jay Winik, author of The Great Upheaval and April 1865
"To his great credit Cannato does not pretend to answer our tough questions about immigration, nor to find a 'usable past' in the history of Ellis Island. He just tells one heck of a story that oozes with relevance." - Walter A. McDougall, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of Throes of Democracy
"The story of America is one of immigration. By bringing us the inspiring and sometimes unsettling tales of Ellis Island, Vincent Cannato's American Passage helps us understand who we are as a nation." - Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein
Vincent J. Cannato teaches history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.