American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [219]
Because Ellis Island had great meaning in the Iacocca household, Lee saw his fundraising work as a “labor of love for my mother and father.” For him, the Great Hall took on near-religious significance. It was “a cathedral, a churchlike setting, a place to pray. It brings tears to your eyes.” Iacocca wrote in his autobiography that Ellis Island “was part of my being, not the place itself, but what it stood for and how tough an experience it was.”
“Hard work, the dignity of labor, the fight for what’s right—these are the things the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island stand for,” Iacocca argued. Although the Iacocca family’s experience at Ellis Island was one of potential pitfalls and tragedy averted, it had now become a symbol of pride and success for the descendants of immigrants who passed through there. For Iacocca and many others with similar backgrounds, Ellis Island was increasingly entwined with their vision of the American Dream.
To others, that vision had distinct political and ideological implications. Some historians did not want the museum’s theme to be about the old melting pot, but rather about cultural pluralism. Gratz and Fettmann, who criticized the fundraising for the Statue of Liberty, also took on the restoration of Ellis Island. “Should Ellis . . . portray the history of the great immigration wave, warts and all, or will it become . . . ‘an ethnic Disneyland’?” The authors worried that its history might be “prettified” and wondered how “historical appropriateness” would be balanced with “commercial hucksterism.” Deeply suspicious of the private sector, Gratz and Fettmann could only see the “logoization” of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. “As often happens when private control is substituted for public accountability, the unifying power of the public good is diminished,” they wrote. “A great opportunity was lost to place our common heritage above private gain.”
A historian made a similar point, worrying that the new museum would reflect corporate values and become nothing more than “a Disney-like ‘Immigrant Land’—with smiling native-garbed workers selling Coca-Cola to strains of ‘It’s a Small World After All.’ ” Even worse, the museum might actually end up glorifying Ellis Island immigrants in a kind of “ethnic populism.”
How should the old immigration station be remembered? Two 1984 letters to the New York Times symbolized this conflicted memory. The first called Ellis Island a “best forgotten” symbol. “It offered neither welcome nor haven,” the writer continued. “Like the Bastille, it has not been missed.” The second letter argued that it was the “struggle and eventual triumph” of immigrants “that Ellis Island rightly commemorates.” How people interpreted the meaning of Ellis Island was becoming more important than what had actually occurred there.
The former inspection station was well on its way to becoming a national shrine, which meant linking Ellis Island to that original founding place of memory: Plymouth Rock. This formulation not only elevated the dreary former inspection station into the nation’s symbolic pantheon; it also resonated with the idea that newer immigrant groups were supplanting the nation’s Pilgrim founders. Much as groups like the Society of Mayflower Descendants helped to establish their claim to ownership of America, the descendants of Ellis Island immigrants were now claiming their place. Ellis Island was the new Plymouth Rock and the immigrants who passed through it were the Pilgrims of a modern, multicultural America.
This process began much earlier than most people believe. One can trace Ellis Island’s evolution