New Immigrants and Ellis Island Today

STEVE INSKEEP: There is no place to learn about immigration to the United States quite like Ellis Island.

(SOUND OF BOAT HORN)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Step up, please.

INSKEEP: Every day, tourists arrive by ferry on the island where 12 million immigrants arrived around the early 20th century. Today, the museum there opens a new exhibition about more recent immigrants. Here's NPR's Hansi Lo Wang.

(SOUND OF BOAT HORN)

HANSI LO WANG: It's been more than 60 years since Ellis Island closed as station for inspecting and detaining immigrants. But you can still cross the Hudson River along the old routes, right to the dock outside a red brick building trimmed with limestone.

And that's Ellis Island right there.

STEPHEN BRIGANTI: There it is. You're sailing in just the way a 1920s immigrant sailed in, only on a little better vessel. And you'll go up the walkway that they went up.

WANG: Stephen Briganti is a son of an Ellis Island immigrant from Italy. He leads the foundation that worked with the National Park Service to restore the island's main building. It reopened as a museum in 1990, and it was recently renamed the Ellis Island National Immigration Museum to tell immigrant stories beyond the Ellis Island years.

BRIGANTI: If we didn't talk about the people who have come since Ellis Island, we wouldn't be relevant to new Americans.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Through interpreter) The opportunity arose to go to the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Through interpreter) Many have dreams of coming to the United States and making money and living the American dream.

WANG: You hear the translated testimony of immigrants who came over the past half-century as you enter one of the museum's newest galleries. These rooms were once part of the kitchen and laundry building. Now they look like a high-tech airport terminal with video kiosks where you can meet immigrants like Trinh Doan.

TRINH DOAN: I came as a refugee from Vietnam to the United States in 1980. We were in a refugee camp in Hong Kong for about two years. And then, we were given one-way airplane tickets to Green Bay, Wisconsin (laughter).

WANG: Stephen Briganti says people are the focus of this new exhibition.

BRIGANTI: There's no great art here. There really aren't any artifacts in this section because this is today.

WANG: Mae Ngai, who teaches history at Columbia University, says there's one main reason why immigration today looks a lot different than it did at the turn of the century - the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

MAE NGAI: That's the biggest reason why we have a much more diverse and multicultural society since the late 20th century.

WANG: The 1965 law got rid of immigration quotas that favored Northern and Western Europeans. Instead, it created a system that gives each country the same number of visas to the U.S. every year. These new quota restrictions helped lead to millions of unauthorized immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Central America. Ngai says they ultimately made illegal immigration a widespread issue in the U.S.

NGAI: Illegal immigration wasn't a problem at the turn of 20th century. Ninety-nine percent of the people who showed up at Ellis Island got in. You know, 1 to 2 percent were excluded. That's all.

WANG: It was a different legal system than the one facing more recent immigrants like Lesley Lopez of Lexington, Kentucky.

LESLEY LOPEZ: We have been living here for almost 14 years, and I love the country. My kids are Americans, and sometimes I tell them, do you want to go back to Mexico? And they say, no.

WANG: Stephen Briganti says he hopes the museum will continue to tell the stories of immigrants like Lopez, although he admits he doesn't know what the next chapter of immigration to the U.S. will look like.

BRIGANTI: I guess it's really up to the American people. And we'll continue, I hope, to welcome people who will make this a better country.

WANG: Ellis Island may no longer play a part in receiving America's newest immigrants, but Briganti says there's plenty of space in the island's boarded-up brick buildings to tell their stories in future museums. Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News.