Celeb Descendants of Immigrants Distort History

Military Families Voice of Victory ^ | Sept 3, 2007 | Becky D.

[armymarinedad]

Google "Help save America's birthplace" and see how many times this website shows up.

[muawiyah]

I always thought Jean Bo’s mud hut in Carter’s Grove was far more important than all that later stuff anyway.

[Will88]

Ellis Island belongs more to the recent immigration debate than to any notion that it’s where our nation began. It’s not, but too many PC stooges are more comfortable with Ellis Island than with Jamestown and other early settlements, and other early contact with American Indians.

And, as the article says, there was 270 years of Europeans in America, creating and building and founding the USA, long, long, before anyone thought of making Ellis Island an immigrant receiving center, or before the Statue of Liberty was erected.

We are NOT a nation of immigrants, but a nation of settlers and builders who created a nation that later immigrants desired to become a part of.

[DoughtyOne]

I agree with your comments.

The left wants to convince US Citizens that there is nothing different about Mexicans crossing our borders illegaly, and people being processed through Ellis Island.

It’s rather humorous to see them make this claim, because about everyone knows there is a big difference.

[struwwelpeter]

Refereeing to the immigration processing facility as the Birthplace of our Country

Windows spell check strikes again!

[armymarinedad]

Exactly the point that was intended in this article. I have begun to notice a shift in the writings about our nation in things written after the turn of the century.

Around the time of Ellis Island I see a shift away from the Founders thinking.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“We are NOT a nation of immigrants, but a nation of settlers and builders who created a nation that later immigrants desired to become a part of”

Exactly!

[TLEIBY308]

You are so right and I as a son of the revolution on both side of my family get very angry with these pc dopes.

[Onelifetogive]

I goggled save Ellis Island.

And again...

[denydenydeny]

The concept of “Ellis Island” has of course been bastardized by people like Senator Domenici with his idiotic “Little Pete” stories who emotionalize it into this magical wonderland.

In fact, Ellis Island was a place where all immigrants were subject to strict screening for health and criminal records—which is the very least we should demand of our current immigration system. In this sense “Ellis Island” is a model which still has validity, as long as it’s the real one, not an exercise in phony nostalgia.

[Vigilanteman]

You are correct. I suspect my genetic background, while unique to me, shares a lot in common with other Americans including:

1. Dutch who settled New Amsterdam before it became New York.
   
2. English who settled in Massachusetts, some as a result of removal orders in England.
   
3. Natives who met and married the above.
   
4. Irish deported to Maine as it was one of the less desireable areas at the time.
   
5. English who settled Virginia not long after John Rolfe returned to England with his lovely Native American bride.
   
6. Natives who met and married the above.
   
7. English who came in the 1840's and 1850's before Castle Garden, the predecessor of Ellis Island had even reached its peak.
   
8. Danes who arrived 10 years later and were processed through Castle Garden.
   
9. Not one entrant through Ellis Island, which wasn't even open for business until about 30 years after the Danes arrived.

No knock on people who came through Ellis Island. There are a lot of great Americans whose families came through Ellis Island. There are also a lot who did not. To call it the "birthplace of America" is a slap in the face to everyone on the above list and, I suspect, similar lists which a lot of Americans could make.

[Andrew Byler]

We are NOT a nation of immigrants, but a nation of settlers and builders who created a nation that later immigrants desired to become a part of.

If only more people would grasp this!

The original American settlers did not "immigrate" because all they did was move from one part of England, Netherlands, Sweden, France or Spain to New England, New Netherlands, New Sweden, New France, and New Spain, which were also parts of the same country.

My ancestors no more immigrated than I would immigrate today by moving to Alaska.

[ansel12]

“”Around the time of Ellis Island I see a shift away from the Founders thinking.””

---

America didn’t survive Ellis Island.

[Verginius Rufus]

The academic left seems to view the history of immigration as a way of (1) encouraging sympathy with illegal immigration and (2) propagandizing for organized labor (by emphasizing that part of the earlier immigration which ended up as factory workers or mine workers). The agenda always seems to be: Vote Democratic!

I had some ancestors who were here before the Revolution (I belong to the SAR), and six immigrant ancestors, but only two of them came through Ellis Island. A lot of 19th-century immigrants (such as Irish and Germans) came before Ellis Island was in operation, and many came though ports other than New York.

[armymarinedad]

Seems by the time Ellis Island was started in 1892 there had evolved two definite mindsets. There was a definite American way of thinking evolving from our founding fathers and our experience as a nation. There was a different way of thinking that was definitely European. As these two met we have lost much of our distinct American personality.

[DoughtyOne]

I agree with your comments. The part about knowing the information about your pre-revolutionary war ancesters, was particulary interesting. Very good.

[Will88]

“The original American settlers did not “immigrate” because all they did was move from one part of England, Netherlands, Sweden, France or Spain to New England, New Netherlands, New Sweden, New France, and New Spain, which were also parts of the same country.”

I think they technically migrated and settled in a vast land which then contained around 10 million people. My ancestors settled around Jamestown about 1610. This “Nation of Immigrants” nonsense gets old, and is a definite, self-serving distortion of America’s history.

Also nothing against later immigrants, but Europeans had been here 270 years, and the revolution and constitution were about a century in the past before Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty came into existence. Everyone seems to desire to maximize their story and importance to the good old USA, which just celebrated its 400 anniversary of the true beginning of America.

[AuntB]

Ellis Island is an important part of our History but let’s not forget our entire two hundred seventy year history prior to Ellis Island. Our forefathers gave a lot in order for immigrants to blend into American society. We were born for Religious Freedom, to allow our citizens to become successful with hard work, and give us all the right to life, and liberty. Arriving in a ship to a Nation already forged is an honor not a birthright. You are here due to hospitality of a Nation of people who had a dream and made it a reality.

Thanks for posting this. VERY good point!

[AuntB]

Around the time of Ellis Island I see a shift away from the Founders thinking.

That's because we let too many in too fast. That's how we got the likes of Teddy Kennedy and some other lefties. Hey, corporations wanted cheap labor then too. We were finally smart enough to see the light. I guess it's going to take some more violence like 'the gangs of New York'. One would have thought that 9/11 would have done it.

[armymarinedad]

I’ve just begun wondering how much of our problem with liberal America has come from Ellis Island. It seems there was a big shift in the roll of our government around the turn of the century, when Ellis Island was in it’s hay day. Seems like the impact of a lot of European thinking people shifted the American way of life and these were legal immigrants wanting the American dream. How much worse will it be now.