Ellis Island Quotes

No, my family is Russian, Georgian, via Ellis Island.

Well, I do want to talk about the challenges at the border. New Mexico, if you will, has become an Ellis Island and we want to take that issue seriously and we're not going to shy away that it presents significant challenges.

To Arms! To Arms! 100 Men Needed.

I was born in New York City in 1926, four years after my parents and my brother migrated to the United States from the city of Odessa in Russia.

There's a lot of history in Boston and a lot of history, obviously, in New York with all the championships.

I was born in Russia in 1901 of Jewish parents and came to the United States in 1922 to join my father, who left Russia for the United States before World War I.

Most American Jews came from the lower middle classes, and therefore they brought with them not a lot of Jewish culture. The American Jewish story starts with Ellis Island, and the candy store in the Bronx.

About 1900 my parents came to the United States as children from what was then the Polish area of Russia.

The thing I love about Vegas is that it's a melting pot. It's like working Ellis Island.

You, the Spirit of the Settlement! ... Not understand that America is God's crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries.

For me, America is New York.

Ellis Island lies in New York Harbor 1,300 feet from Jersey City, New Jersey, and one mile from the tip of Manhattan. At the time of the first European settlement, it was mostly mud, sand, and oyster shells, which nearly disappeared at high tide.

I am the byproduct of an Ellis Island orgy, basically. I'm everything. I've got quite a mixture in me. I know a lot of it and I don't know some of it. I'm pretty mixed up, but mostly Russian and Irish.

Millions upon millions of people came here full of hope and aspiration to this extraordinary land of liberty and opportunity, and helped build the United States. So the Atlantic Ocean was absolutely critical to the story of America.

The most visible symbol in New York is the spirit of a free people.

I always remember to go on the Staten Island Ferry because it's the most amazing view of New York. And it's free! You see Ellis Island, and it conjures up something of that great moment: you know, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It's staggering.

My grandmother was born in Russia, and she came through Poland on her way to America in the early 20s. She moved to Brooklyn.

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.

The Statue of Liberty's gender changed nothing. It was the same here as anywhere: men and their wars.

My grandparents, they came through Ellis Island in 1923, and you know, I'd heard all the stories.

The diversity in the CNN makeup room - it's like Ellis Island! No, it's like Noah's Ark: there are two of everything.

At Ellis Island, I mean, you didn't go there if you arrived in first class. It was only the poorest, the people in the worst shape.

El Paso in many ways is the Ellis Island for Mexico and much of Latin America.

Beginning with a trip out to Ellis Island, I saw for myself where thousands of European immigrants took their first steps onto American soil, bringing with them nothing but their ambition: people such as Erich von Stroheim and Adolph Zukor.

My grandparents used to tell me stories about their trip to Ellis Island from Russia and life on the Lower East Side of New York.