[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.

[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!

[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.