When Annie Moore set off from Ireland's County Cork on December 20, 1891, she thought nothing special about her own desire to leave the land of her birth. Like so many others of her generation, she was forced to leave behind her beloved home because of poverty and hunger, setting off into a new horizon, a world unknown, where she hoped to make her fortune in a foreign land. Immigrants had been arriving on the shores of the United States since its very inception. They had come to a New World, leaving the past behind them and adopting a new home, where all would be equal and where each could rise to the highest ranks in society by honest toil and the goodness of his character. In the first decade after the American Revolution, about five thousand people immigrated to the United States every year. By 1900, the same number was arriving every day. In fact, so many people were arriving as immigrants in New York by the end of the nineteenth century that a new facility had to be built to receive them. If you have ever stood in the blistering sun outside the US or British embassies in Cairo, once the endless telephone and internet formalities have been got through, waiting for your turn to be admitted to apply for a visa, you will know how frustrating it is to be told that there is no time left and you will have to come again tomorrow. Imagine how much worse was the situation in 1900. You first of all had to cross the Atlantic Ocean before applying for entry, little knowing if your application would be accepted or not. So it was that on January 1, 1892, because of the vast numbers arriving on her shores, that the US authorities built a new facility at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbour, on a small island known as Ellis Island, to receive and process the thousands waiting to be admitted as citizens. This first wooden structure burned down five years later and on January 1, 1900 a brand new building, built in the French Renaissance style, was erected. It was to receive newcomers to the United States for the next fifty-four years. Little did Annie Moore know that she would be the first person to set ashore on January 1, 1900, the first one to be processed and received within the new facility. Little did she know either that many years later the President of the Republic of Ireland would unveil a statue to her honour, and to the millions like her who had trodden the path from the Old World to the New, making their home in the United States and forming a bond of friendship between the two countries which lasts to this day. It was another descendant of Irish immigrants, President John F. Kennedy, who had once written, “There were probably as many reasons for coming to America as there were people who came." Ellis island is now a National Historic Site, part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It is now owned by the Federal government and under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Ellis Island saw good times and bad. 12 million immigrants passed through and were inspected by the US Bureau of Immigration, before the job was passed over to consulates throughout the world in the 1920's. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. Some suggest that the time for medical inspection took, on average, six seconds. Doctors watched as immigrants entered the building and climbed the stairs; a limp, laboured breathing, or other suspected troubles warranted further medical inspection. The would-be immigrants were then asked a list of twenty-nine questions, including their name, home town, occupation, destination and how much money they had with them. On average, most people spent less than five hours on Ellis Island. Nowadays, Ellis Island is a museum dedicated to immigration. Visitors can watch a film, “Island of Hope, Island of Tears," before exploring the three storeys of the main visitor centre. They can rent audio tours of the museum, before visiting the extensive library or relaxing in the cafeteria. All of this a far cry from those first tortured few hours spent by those who had lived for weeks cramped on steamships waiting their arrival in the New World, not knowing whether or not they would be admitted or whether they would have to return. There is also a new research facility containing ships' passenger records on the more than 22 million people who entered through the Port of New York and Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. Within the grounds of the monument, some 600,000 names are inscribed on a special American Immigrant Wall of Honour, a memorial to America's immigrants, within sight of the imposing Statue of Liberty nearby. Muslims read in the holy Qur'an in Surat Al-An'am: It is He who doth take your souls by night, and hath knowledge of all that ye have done by day; by day doth he raise you up again; that a term appointed be fulfilled; in the end unto Him will be your return; then will He show you the truth of all that ye did. Holy Qur'an 6:60 Indeed, how many times we have heard our young people saying that they want “to travel". They want to leave this country and to go in search of something better elsewhere. Wouldn't it be better, though, if all of us were to plan ahead for the future, not just looking at the material benefits of the here and now, but looking to the eternal life of the world to come? That would surely be a journey worth planning for, worth crossing oceans for, yet we pay as little heed to it as if it would never come. It may come sooner than we think. British Muslim writer, Idris Tawfiq, teaches at Al-Azhar University and is the author of nine books about Islam. You can visit his website at www.idristawfiq.com, join him on Facebook at Idris Tawfiq Page and listen to his Radio Show, “A Life in Question," on Sundays at 11pm on Radio Cairo 95.4 FM.
