Saturday 5 July – America, “Land of the Free”? Liberty Island and Ellis Island

This is our last full day in New York, and in America – tomorrow we board the Queen Mary 2 for our week's journey back to England. After 2 months of moving from place to place, we have to admit that we're looking forward to having a rest!

After breakfast in our usual diner, we take the subway to Bowling Green, from where we will catch the ferry to Liberty Island, then Ellis Island.

We bought our tickets on the internet, and need to call at the pre-paid ticket booth in Castle Clinton, right by the ferry dock, to collect our tickets. Reg gets talking to a security attendant there, who explains that Castle Clinton was the very first immigration centre for individual American states, New York being one of them. In 1890 the Federal Government of the USA took over immigration issues, and Ellis Island became the chief immigration centre for the USA from 1892 – 1924, when it closed down.

It's about 10 am, and we are among probably 200 people queuing at the Castle Clinton dock, waiting to board the ferry which will take us to Liberty Island, on which stands the Statue of Liberty. Very few of us will actually climb up the Statue of Liberty; since 9/11 security has increased dramatically, and numbers of people allowed to go up are limited. If you really want to do this, you need to buy your tickets some time in advance. We will be quite content just to view this magnificent statue from close quarters.

We are impressed by how efficient the ferry boarding process is – what a huge difference from the laborious process we went through to ascend the Empire State Building! Before boarding the ferry we have to go through security, for both our bags, and ourselves (walking through the airport-style security arch). However, the powers that be have got it off to a “t” , and it really is a very quick process. The ferries run every 20 minutes and each boat has a huge capacity; disembarkation and boarding are both extremely efficient too. Soon the ferry is on its way to Liberty Island.

When we arrive at the island, it's time for a coffee (and green tea), and it's lovely to sit in the tree-shaded cafe gardens and overlook the waters of New York Harbour. We feel relaxed and Reg comments on how much he is enjoying today. It's great to be by the sea, watching the ferries come and go.

Liberty Island is very small indeed and of course the dominant feature of it is the Statue of Liberty. I would think that whatever nationality you are, when you see this truly magnificent statue, you cannot fail to be moved by the sculptor's portrayal of Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. The figure itself, green with age, is made of copper built around an iron interior framework. She stretches 151 feet tall, on her 89 foot high pedestal base. She carries a flaming torch in her right hand, her right arm lifted straight and high above her head; her left hand clutches a tablet, on which is engraved the date of the American Treaty of Independence – 4 July 1776. A broken chain lies at Libertas' feet.

For Americans of course, the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom, and somehow must be even more precious to them since the destruction of the twin towers on 11 September 2001. Security is very much in evidence; we assume that the helicopters we see flying in the airspace around the statue are all part of the security aspect.

The statue has also served to welcome generations of immigrants to the USA, especially when Ellis Island was the main immigration centre for the USA, and people were being encouraged to come to this vast land of opportunity.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to America. It was agreed that France would provide the statue, and America the pedestal. Interestingly, the torch bearing arm and head of the statue were completed by the statue's sculptor, Bartholdi, even before the design was finished; the head and arm were used as exhibits at public places in order to raise money for the project. In America, raising money for the pedestal proved difficult, until a publicity campaign initiated by Joseph Pulitzer, the editor of the New York World, encouraged people to give small amounts. About 120,000 people contributed, most giving less than a dollar.

Like other tourists, we stroll around this tiny island, taking photos of the Statue from various viewpoints, and also photographing the New York Harbour and skyline seen from Liberty Island. Soon we're on the ferry again, this time to Ellis Island, which as we've said, was the chief immigration point for America from 1892 – 1924.

Ellis Island is also very small. We learn that over 12 million immigrants entered the USA through this island, and that 100 million Americans can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who entered America here. Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened in 1990, although the island was open to visits from the public in 1976.

At the museum, it's possible to gain an overall view of the “peopling of America” over 4 centuries of immigration, from 1550 – 1890. It's interesting to discover who came, and why. Some of the reasons for people leaving their homelands to come to America were poverty in the home country, starvation (eg the potato famine in Ireland), religious persecution, and lack of land to farm on in the homeland; in the 19^th century, economic downturns in Europe and Asia encouraged people to come to America.

People were also attracted to America because it was a “land of opportunity” - there was plentiful land, although many thousands of Native American – Indians - lost their land to the new settlers. This is often described as the “Trail of Tears”, particularly in relation to the Cherokee Native Americans, who fought a legal battle to retain their land, and initially won their case. However this decision was soon revoked. Many,many tribes of Native Americans suffered horribly, through physical abuse, torture, starvation and neglect, and through being forcibly removed from their land, and made to walk long long distances to other, less fertile areas. In the 1830's the USA made the removal and displacement of Native tribes official government policy.

What were the other reasons for people to emigrate to America? The Gold Rush in the 1800's, and religious tolerance; also, the fact that there was peace in America when there was war in Europe; and the huge growth in cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, needing cheap labour.

Of course some immigrants were brought to America against their will – 12 million African peoples were brought here during the 300 plus years of the slave trade.

In the 1830's, thousands of Jews came from Germany, Austria and Hungary, to escape anti-semetic discrimination and violence. In the 50 years from 1830, almost 175,000 Jews arrived in the USA.

There was discrimination in immigration too – the Americans came to view the Chinese peoples as a threat and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented the Chinese from entering the USA. In the 19^th century, 2 million people left South China to escape the economic and political crisis there. In 1848 the gold rush lured many Chinese to America; they left their wives and children behind to come here.

From 1900 – 1924, when immigration to the USA was at its peak, sometimes 5,000 immigrants an day would be registered at Ellis Island.

We find it interesting to to learn how these new peoples crossed America – often social ties determined where they settled; relatives, neighbours and friends would travel across America together, to support each other. They travelled by boat, wagon, on horseback or on foot; by 1890 a vast overland network had been established. The development of the railways (railroads) across America from 1863 – 1869 ncreased immigration, as it was then so much easier to cross the continent. In addition, the invention of steamships in the late 18^th century meant it became much quicker to travel from Europe to America – and easier to go back to your homeland if you wanted to – and some people did.

Eventually Reg and I are saturated with information and are tired! We queue again for the ferry and are soon sailing across New York Harbour once more, back to the mainland. We have one more thing we want to do in New York; walk down Wall Street to the 9/11 memorial fountain. We don't have time (or energy) to go into the new museum to hear survivors stories of what happened on that fateful day on 11 September 2001, but it is sobering to see the huge “walls of water” cascading down into an amphitheatre-sized central well in the ground, and to see the huge wall memorial erected in memory of all the fire-fighters who lost their lives trying to rescue the victims of this act of terrorism.

The Statue of Liberty stands tall in New York Harbour, a symbol of the patriotism of the people of America, and their ability to bounce back in the face of adversity. America, like the rest of the capitalist world, has many faults. In the end though, when you are only able to skim the surface of the life of a country, you judge a nation by the attitude of those you meet. We've come across so many wonderful people in America, some residents, some tourists; even today, several people have come up to us on the subway in New York, when they've seen us gazing at a map, and asked where we're going, so that they can offer us help.

Our trip around America by train has been a journey of discovery, where we've learned such a lot about America – and about her people.

This is the end of our star spangled journey; tomorrow, as we've said, we board the Queen Mary 2 for our voyage back to England. There will be an extra blog post about our journey home once we arrive back in England; plus some observations/facts about how Americans do things differently – which we thought were worth noting down! So the next (and last) postings for this blog will be in about a week or so. Thank you for reading!!