(pensive music) (boat whistling) (person running) (pensive music) (indistinct talking) - [David] When did they stop using Ellis Island as a immigration center?

- [Caitlin] By the '30s, Ellis Island was primarily a detention center and then I think it was the mid-'50s when they shut it down completely.

And then it was vacant for several years before.

- So from this amazing building in Ellis Island, you can see the Statue of Liberty.

- Yeah.

Wow.

Definitely one of the most well-known icons in the United States.

Probably the most well known.

It's interesting.

She is a very powerful symbol.

She's not in Central Park, she's not downtown.

She's actually on the water, literally welcoming people and holding up a torch as if to say, "Come on in.

I'll show you the way."

I think, the way that the statue looks and what it says just lends itself to this immigration narrative so easily that it was co-opted.

- Right.

- Shall we?

(tranquil music) (footsteps walking) What's interesting about these pictures to me is that they really showcase how difficult the immigration story is.

So often it's glossed over and kind of romanticized in the way that we tell it but you can see in people's faces, I mean, they look exhausted, they look really run down, and yet, at the same time, you also see people who looked like they wore their very best clothes to come to the United States.

(pensive music) - I can't imagine how those circumstances were on the boat.

I assume they weren't exactly in first class.

- Right.

- Interestingly, today, when people have pictures taken of them, they generally smile but you don't see people smiling so much in these pictures.

When you think about it, you've lived your whole life in a country and all of a sudden, you're picking up, taking whatever possessions you have with you.

You're going to another country you've never been to before.

In some case, you have no relatives there.

It's a pretty daunting experience, and I don't know whether I would've done it in the same circumstances.

- I don't know whether I would have either.

I mean, immigrating, often it becomes the defining feature of a person's life, especially those who feel like they've done it because they have no other choice.

Their immigration story becomes the story of their life.

- Right.

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