Leçon d'anglais, Ellis Island Digital Archive

Friday, October 20th 2017

Ellis Island Digital Archive

This document is a documentary about Ellis Island and its digital archive and museum. It can be divided into three parts.

The first part presents a historical overview of the immigration inspection process at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. In a second part, the documentary presents the Digital Archive which allows Americans to find information about their immigrant ancestors. In the third part, the documentary deals with the museum, the American Family Immigration History Center where documents and records can be found about immigrants.

This documentary depicts a very positive aspect of the archive, of the records but also of the immigration inspection process itself. We learn that the Digital Archive is a very quick and easy way for 40% of the American population to find their roots. It is very successful. It is also presented in a very emotional way, with many testimonies which give these stories a feeling of authenticity.

Nevertheless, we can question the objectivity of the documentary. Indeed, only the positive aspect is depicted here. They don’t talk about the mistreatments and disrespect a lot of immigrants had to go through. As we’ve seen in other documents, immigrants at Ellis Island were sometimes treated like cattle. Also, once they lived in America, some were still treated as immigrants and were scorned at. Some of them had to work very hard, had several jobs and their living conditions were difficult. It was far from their idea of the American Dream.

As a conclusion, we can say that this document is more an ad which promotes the museum (or an ode to America) than an actual documentary, as the point of view is clearly biased.

Notions :

Progress (technological progress, social progress)

Myths and Heroes (American Dream)

Spaces and exchanges (immigration, the reasons)

Locations and forms of power (New York, Ellis Island: symbols)

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