What America’s immigrants looked like when they arrived on Ellis Island

[MADem]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/24/what-americas-immigrants-looked-like-when-they-arrived-on-ellis-island/



A German stowaway


Three Dutch women


An Algerian man


Three women from Guadeloupe


Slovakian women

[babylonsister]

1. Fabulous! We were a melting pot; I loved that about us. nt

[madokie]

2. We still are

and that’s what makes us great, if indeed we are great that is. Sometimes I wonder if we really are, still.

We need to demand that everyone be brought out of the shadows.

[JDPriestly]

13. Let's remember. Many of us are a bit of this and that.

Unless our families immigrated just a generation or two ago, we really are mixtures, each a little different.

[TexasBushwhacker]

17. Let's hear it for the mutts!

I'm English, Irish and Cherokee from my dad's side and Irish, Scottish, German and Czech from my mother's side.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Would have been interesting to see these with no country of origin named

and try to figure out where they were all from.
Some are obvious, like Dutch wooden shoes, but others, not so much.

[senseandsensibility]

4. I can't see the Dutch womens' shoes

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. the kids have the shoes....I was looking at the photos in the link.

Tho the Dutch headgear is also a give away.

[BlueJazz]

6. You have to tilt your screen waaay back.

[BlueJazz]

7. The Dutch women look like they'd kick your ass if you messed with them.

[senseandsensibility]

8. That explains my

mother in law. Lol. I kid......

[JDPriestly]

12. They would have. Trust me on that!!!!

To live in Holland, you have to be pretty hardy. Or maybe, you develop strength living in that kind of climate on the ocean with the very ground beneath your feet only as safe as the dykes.

[MADem]

14. Yeah, that head gear is something.

Reminds me of that advice if you run into a bear in the woods--you put your hands in your coat pocket and spread it out up over your head to create a larger profile while you growl ferociously (squeak, squeak....!!!).


Those outfits make them look bigger than they are....and they do look intimidating!!!!

[treestar]

29. I thought they were men at first

and wondered what culture that headress was from.

[BlueJazz]

32. Can't blame you. If you look at the fists of the one in front, she's ready to go 12 rounds...easily.

"Are you lookin' at ME!"

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Nowadays, everyone looks like they shop at the same Walmart.

[narnian60]

27. +100

[Bluenorthwest]

28. In the photos in the OP, both the German and Algerian men could be present day while

all of the women are wearing a bunch of what I will simply call 'stuff' that fully indicates class, rank and even marital status. Perhaps I notice this because I live in a place where men and women alike tend to have a great deal of creativity and even occasional whimsy in sartorial choices. Every day I see someone whose attire impresses me or amuses me or makes me wish I had one too.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. Traditional garb is considered to be a costume for the tourists.

[sheshe2]

10. Awesome photographs!

Thanks MADem.

[MADem]

15. I love old pics! nt

[JDPriestly]

11. Great pictures! It's good for us to remember where we come from.

[Mendocino]

16. My maternal grandparents

came from Europe in the mid 1920's; Grandma through Boston, Grandpa Ellis Island. Escaped the turmoil and extremely harsh conditions of post WWI Germany.

[MADem]

18. I hope you have pictures--they can really bring the past alive, and you can see your

face and those of your relations in your ancestors.

[laundry_queen]

21. Funny story

My grandmother and my aunt's common law husband do NOT get along. Hate each other in fact - my grandmother asserts it's because my aunt and 'uncle' never got married. My grandmother is a total narcissist and tried more than once to break up my aunt and uncle because he wasn't good enough for her. (They've now been together 32 years, LOL) Anyhow, my aunt managed to get ahold of a picture of my grandmother's parents from another family member, because my grandmother refused to ever discuss her parents (dysfunctional upbringing, she hates her parents).

The horror when my uncle saw the picture - my grandmother's mother had HIS FACE. It was like someone took a picture of my uncle and cut it out and pasted it on some old Ukrainian immigrant woman. Oh, how we laughed. And it made much more sense after that why my grandmother hated him so...he looked exactly like her own mother that she so despised!

So sometimes you don't even have to be blood relatives to see the family resemblance, LOL.

[MADem]

22. That IS hilarious!!! Would make a great scene in a comedic movie!!! nt

[laundry_queen]

23. I suppose it would, lol. To me, it was darn good evidence that karma/reincarnation exists

That's what my uncle said to my aunt..."I've been friggin reincarnated from old Ukrainian baba to hunky young guy to help your darn mother get over her hatred of me/her mother. My purpose in this life is to help your mother. Fuck me."


The timeline works anyway...my great grandmother was dead at least a quarter century before my aunt was even born, and my uncle is a few years younger than her yet.

[JI7]

19. i wonder where their families are right now

[laundry_queen]

20. I have a picture

of my great great grandparents back in 'the old country' (Austria Hungary). My great great grandmother looked an awful lot like the woman on the right in the Slovakian picture.

They weren't the ones that came over though, it was their daughter that came over when her own daughter, my grandmother, was 4, a few years before the depression. My great grandmother never stopped longing for the old country. She missed it so much, didn't like her new, hard life on the farm in the boonies. Missed her family. etc. Plus, they were not treated well, especially as ethnic germans during WW2. Not an easy life for immigrants back then...not an easy life now either for most.

[a la izquierda]

24. One of the Italian women...

Looks exactly like my mother.
My great-grandfather came after his 7 siblings and both parents died in an earthquake in southern Italy in 1907. My great-grandmother came as a young lady.
For some of my family, it's not clear when they arrived, nor do we know their ethnic background. Spanish, French, possibly Native American.
My dad's family is all 20th century arrivals from Ireland.

[phylny]

31. That earthquake is the reason I cannot find information about my

ancestors. I couldn't understand why I was hitting a brick wall, until a relative's husband told me all documents were destroyed in the earthquake.

I'm the descendant of great grandfathers and great grandmothers who immigrated to this country from Italy through Ellis Island.

[Xipe Totec]

25. The Dutch!

[MADem]

26. No one delivers an ironic line without any trace of irony better than CAINE!!

Masterful actor!!!

[Bluenorthwest]

30. My father's parents both came through Ellis Island, at different times. They met in the US.

They were dressed as what they were, poor farmers. She died in childbirth at the dawn of the depression, he farmed until the day he died in the 60's.

[Rex]

34. I'm getting this impression of many different cultures coming together to create a new one.