Ellis Island

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1979

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Red Brick

The color red carries a variety of symbols and meanings throughout many cultures. Typical associations with the color include life, health, vigor, war, courage, anger, and fervor. Red can also represent passion and evil. It is also used in many areas as a representation of a warning or a direction to stop. In Native American cultures, the color red also has many different meanings. For some, it represents war, victory, courage, death, and defeat. It can also represent earth and strength. In “Ellis Island,” the speaker looks “Beyond the red brick of Ellis Island” (Line 1), and their usage of the word “brick” creates the image of a solid foundation or a building. “Ellis Island” (Line 1) is often associated with primarily European immigration, and symbolically, the “red brick” (Line 1) forms the foundation upon which everything is built. The speaker also uses the word “Beyond,” which means that people must look past the European colonialism shaping America and recognize the nation’s true foundations–those of its indigenous people who had their lands taken from them by Europeans. The word “red” (Line 1) also echoes with the word “blood” (Line 18) in the line “Yet only part of my blood loves that memory” (Line 18). “Blood” implies life or heritage and is often associated with the color red. The speaker’s statement communicates that they recognize their European self as well as their Native self, and how the two juxtapose one another.

The Statue of Liberty

The color green is typically associated with nature, regrowth, rebirth, renewal, and spring. Another association is that of taking action and moving forward. Green can also represent money, greed, envy, jealousy, luck, and health. Native American cultures consider green the color of youth, fertility, growth, freedom, usefulness, peace, and spring. In “Ellis Island,” the speaker states that immigrants arriving at Ellis Island first saw “the tall woman, green / as dreams of forests and meadows” (Lines 9-10). The “tall woman, green” (Line 9) is the Statue of Liberty, or Lady Liberty, a symbol of freedom. The statue is one of the most famous American landmarks. The speaker juxtaposes the striking image of the tall green copper statue with “dreams of forests and meadows” (Line 10), creating an association between the green of the metal with the softer, natural greens of lush plants, grasses, and trees in the immigrants’ dreams. The statue, a human-made object juxtaposing the natural setting, is also representative of Europe’s colonization of the Indigenous people’s lands, since white settlers imposed their religious, economic, and political views on the Native Americans. At Ellis Island, the statue waits “for those who’d worked / a thousand years / yet never owned their own” (Lines 11-13), speaking to the aristocratic systems that also oppressed the poor and uneducated in Europe, and the many immigrants fleeing that oppression to find new freedom in America. However, the imposing figure of Lady Liberty does not mean freedom for Natives, for while immigrants gain property rights, the communal nature of Native American societies becomes displaced and freedoms become increasingly threatened and limited.

Ellis Island

Ellis Island became a symbolic landmark to many immigrants and their families, officially opening in 1892. For many, Ellis Island represented a new, better life. It also became known as “the Isle of Hope” to many immigrants and their families because it was an open doorway to the promises and opportunities America offered. More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island, at the rate of 5,000 immigrants per day. However, though Ellis Island offered hope for a better life, for others it crushed their dreams when their entry into the land of opportunity was denied. In Bruchac’s poem, the speaker reflects on “the two Slovak children” (Line 2) who became the speaker’s grandparents. They “waited the long days of quarantine” (Line 4), as they had left “the sickness” (Line 5) and “the Empires of Europe” (Line 6) behind. For the speaker’s grandparents, Ellis Island offered hope, a new life, and freedom. The speaker also recognizes that the Ellis Island story is only part of their own story, remarking that “only part of my blood loves that memory” (Line 18). The speaker’s Native identity, which appears in the poem’s conclusion, juxtaposes and complicates the idealistic Ellis Island story.

The speaker’s focus on Ellis Island at the poem’s beginning and their focus on their Native identity at the poem’s conclusion is also significant. By focusing on the Ellis Island experience at the poem’s beginning, the speaker reiterates how the colonialist viewpoint overshadows the Native one. For many, the white, European experience is not the only existing foundation, and the speaker is challenging readers to look beyond the superficial and well-known narratives to see those stories and histories that the colonial viewpoint silences.