Immigration Notes from Ken Burns' New York City Documentary

Emma Lazarus, a Jewish-American poet, wrote this poem now inscribed on a bronze plaque at the base of our Statue of Liberty, as a response the rising antisemitism she witnessed during her travels to Europe:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883

[At the end of the 19th century in New York City] there were more Italians than in Rome, more Irish than in Dublin, more Greeks than in Athens.
1.2 million immigrants arrived in NYC in one year at the turn of the Century.
Ellis Island was a former ammo dump.
12 million people came through Ellis Island, tripling the population of  New York City in a lifetime.
Most of those who came were from the country.
During the busiest days each medical exam would last only six seconds
LaGuardia worked as an interpreter at Ellis Island.
Fewer than 1 in 50 were turned back

   -source: Rick Burns, the history of New York