[This is another true story from my immigrant oral histories collection.] “I was born in 1900 and grew up on the island of Rhodes in Greece. I had heard about the great life in America from others who had been there and I wanted to go. It was wartime though, and we couldn’t travel because … More True Immigrant Tales_9: Jordan’s Journey
[If you didn’t read last week’s post, I suggest you do so first, as this is a continuation of Helen’s immigrant experience. This is a true story, told in her own words. This material comes from my research for my historical novel about Ellis Island in the 1890s, Guardians of the Gate, and its sequel, … More True Immigrant Tales_8:Hunger in the Ellis Island Cages
[This is another true immigrant story from my oral history collection, gathered as part of my research for the historical novel, Guardians of the Gate, and its sequel, Defenders of Freedom. In 1925 at age 13, Heinz sailed alone from Bremen to live with his aunt and uncle in the United States. “We arrived on … More True Immigrant Stories_4: Young Teenager at Ellis Island
[This is another true story from my oral histories collection of immigrants who came through Ellis Island as part of my research for my historical novel, Guardians of the Gate, and its sequel, Defenders of Freedom .] Ida Napolitano was just three years old when her father emigrated from Italy into the United States, with the … More True Immigrant Stories_3: Ida and Thomas Jefferson
Our lives involve a series of choices: to go to college or not, where to go to college or work, where to live, with whom to live, and later to make changes or not, and so on. Yet, even as we make these choices along life’s path, we do so … More Life’s Unplanned Journey
I was asked an interesting question about how the characters in Guardians of the Gate convey the message of the American Dream and the strength of the human spirit. The easy answer lies in the immigrants going through Ellis Island, leaving behind poverty, repression, and limited life choices to pursue freedom and a better life … More Personifying the American Dream and the American Spirit
As its title implies, Guardians of the Gate is primarily about the people who worked at Ellis Island and the numerous situations they faced while working on the island. I’ve been asked, though, why I didn’t write this historical novel from the perspective of the immigrants instead. Certainly, the millions of immigrants who came through … More Ellis Island Employees Instead of Immigrants
As with many other Americans, Ellis Island is a link to my heritage. Three to four generations ago, it was the first American soil upon which my German, Irish, and Italian ancestors stepped after their overseas voyages. Although I was never able to learn and preserve their stories of the journey and processing at Ellis … More Writing about Ellis Island
Vince Parrillo 