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Producing heritage, remaking immigration: American cultural policies, 1950-2003

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Producing Heritage, Remaking Immigration: American Cultural Policies, 1950-2003

By:
Monica Pelayo
_____________________________________________________________________________

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA

August 2014

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ABSTRACT
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES
HISTORY DEPARTMENT

Doctor of Philosophy
PRODUCING HERITAGE, REMAKING IMMIGRATION: AMERICAN CULTURAL
POLICIES, 1950-2003
By Monica Pelayo
During the Cold War, the United States began to re-conceptualize itself as a “nation of
immigrants.” This new anthem allowed for the formation of a memory infrastructure across the
country where new museums could interpret American history as immigration history, while
established institutions created exhibitions that embraced immigration history as a form of
multiculturalism. Through the analysis of government proceedings, archival documents, and oral
histories, my research investigates how public history institutions like the Smithsonian, Ellis
Island and the American Museum of Immigration reproduced immigration history as a way of
creating national unity. I argue that even as these museums attempted to reshape American
history, they relied on traditional narratives of assimilation that favored the histories of European
immigrants and their children. However, a struggle erupted over who had the authority to narrate
these histories. This debate opened the door for the creation of other public spaces whose
missions centered on the empowerment of disenfranchised peoples. These new spaces countered
the ideas of the United States as a melting pot and presented conflicting histories about the
American immigration process. This research elucidates the ways in which public history
institutions worked towards creating a sense of belonging for millions of Americans while
serving two opposing narratives—America as a beacon of hope and American as a gatekeeping
nation.

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To My Family

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, George J. Sanchez, for his genuine support.
I always left our conversations feeling energized and confident in my research and my career
goals. George has been a great mentor and he always encouraged me to research my passions,
helping fuel my own intellectual curiosities. Thank you. I would also like to thank my
dissertation committee members, Jody Agius Vallejo and Karen Halttunen. Both of these
incredible female scholars have been great role models. They continuously pushed me to do
better research, while showing me how to try and balance my career with my general life goals.
Our conversations were always lively, energetic, and insightful. I am appreciative of my other
USC mentors, Bill Deverell and Peter Mancall, for the constant banter and support. Lastly,
thanks to Lori Rogers and Sandra Hopwood. Their hard work and dedication to the History
Department and USC made graduate school so much better.
I would also like to thank my partner. My years in graduate school were once filled with
trials and tribulations and he stuck through it all. He is my sounding board, my confidant, and my
partner, in every sense of the word. Without his love and support, I doubt I would be here today.
Thanks also go out to my family. My mother and godmother always make sure I keep my
priorities straight and my in-laws always give me wonderful words of encouragement. These
parents teach me how to talk about my research to non-academic/non-English speaking
audiences. I would like to thank Andrew who makes me smile with his love of soccer and his
inquisitive mind. I am also grateful to my sisters-in-law, who helped me feel like part of the
family. They are the sisters that I wished I had growing up. Lastly, I would like to thank my
friends and colleagues. My conversations with Heather Ashby, Max Felker-Kantor, and Christian
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Paiz always pushed me to think about my project in broader strokes. I also appreciate the guiding
words of my friends in the ICW Dissertation Writing Group. Our meetings were always
productive and fun. Finally, I would like to thank Matthew Garcia, Mireya Loza, Steve
Velasquez, Erik Greenberg, and Sharon Sekhon. All of these wonderful scholars have been
nothing but supportive of my love of public history and my dedication to civic engagement.
Thank you all.

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Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 9
Literature Review ........................................................................................................................................ 13
Theoretical Frameworks and Models .......................................................................................................... 23
Chapter Outline ............................................................................................................................................ 25

“Operation Unity:” Forming an American Museum of Immigration, 1955-1965 ................ 28
American Museum of Immigration Formation ........................................................................................... 40
Opening the Floodgates ............................................................................................................................... 50
Operation Unity ........................................................................................................................................... 54
Competition: Ellis Island ............................................................................................................................. 58
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 65

Aligning Narrative and Reality: Civil Rights Movement in American Museum of
Immigration’s ‘The Uprooted’ and Angel Island, 1960-1979 ................................................. 67
Uprooted: The African American Immigration Ordeal ............................................................................... 68
Civil Rights for White Ethnics .................................................................................................................... 72
Lackluster Showing: The AMI’s Fight with a New Generation of Immigration Historians ....................... 79
Revealing Chinese Exclusion as a Civil Rights Struggle ............................................................................ 83
Revealing the Gatekeeping Nation .............................................................................................................. 91
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 103

The Rise of Symbolic Ethnicity and White Ethnics’ Plymouth Rock: Bicentennial
Celebrations at Ellis Island and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History and
Technology ................................................................................................................................. 105
The New Plymouth Rock .......................................................................................................................... 107
Ellis Island Restoration Committee ........................................................................................................... 112
A Nation of Nations: The Smithsonian Exhibit ......................................................................................... 121
Opening the Ellis Island Museum ............................................................................................................. 135
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 142

Locating America's Gates in the West: The Border Patrol Museum in El Paso and the
Nationalizing of the Angel Island Immigration Station. ........................................................ 144
Debating Illegal Immigration .................................................................................................................... 146
The Border Patrol Museum and the Fraternal Order of Retired Border Patrol Officers ........................... 152
A Patrolmen’s Legacy ............................................................................................................................... 157
Angel Island Revisited ............................................................................................................................... 172
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 181

Memory Activism in Los Angeles and New York City .......................................................... 183
Recovering Forgotten Memories ............................................................................................................... 186
Personal Investments ................................................................................................................................. 188
Grassroots Recovery .................................................................................................................................. 193
Site of Social Justices and Moments of Reconciliation ............................................................................. 195
A Lower East Side Tenement .................................................................................................................... 205
Redefining A Community Museum’s Goals ............................................................................................. 210
Connecting to a Global Network ............................................................................................................... 219
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Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 221
Conceptual Frameworks ............................................................................................................................ 221
Narratives Revisited .................................................................................................................................. 225
Project Limitations .................................................................................................................................... 230
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 232

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Introduction

When the producers of Top Chef wanted to exhibit the international diversity of
American cuisine, they took their contestants to the iconic center of American immigration
history: Ellis Island.
1
As the contestants arrived at the island, they were greeted by their families
and expert genealogists. Each contestant received a file that detailed his or her ancestry—a file
each contestant used to create a dish that represented his or her specific heritage. Mike Isabella
and Antonia Lofaso realized that they were distant cousins, whose Italians families had entered
the United States through Ellis Island. Richard Blais learned of his Irish and English roots. Carla
Hall discovered that her great-great-grandfather, an ex-slave, fought in the Civil War as a soldier
in the U.S. Army Colored Troops, and Tiffany Derry’s genealogy revealed that her family was
deeply rooted in the American South and the suffering of African slavery. When it came to
choosing their dishes, Lofaso and Isabella plated their Italian ancestry; Blais gave a modern twist
to meat and potatoes; and Hall and Derry represented their southern roots. As touching as the
episode was, it was also peculiarly placed: only two contestants had any ancestral links to Ellis
Island.
But did this matter to the contestants? Seemingly, not. They, along with the nation,
accepted Ellis Island as the gateway to the United States. The concentration on Ellis Island
reflects the racial hierarchy of the United States as it primarily accounts for the experiences of
white ethnics during the second wave of migration at the turn of twentieth century. Ellis Island
was not, of course, nor has it been the sole space within which Americans have sought to
commemorate their migratory experiences. At the very moment that activists on the east coast

1
This episode’s title is “Give Me Your Huddled Masses.”
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were preserving Ellis Island, the Asian American community in San Francisco saved the Angel
Island immigration barracks from destruction. The Smithsonian’s Museum of History and
Technology celebrated the country’s two hundredth birthday by showcasing the country’s
immigrant history while in El Paso, Texas a group of border patrol agents produced the U.S.
Border Patrol Museum as a monument to their presence at the U.S.-Mexico Border. The
Japanese American National Museum in Los Angles and the Lower Eastside Tenement Museum
in New York City sought to move beyond ports of entry to address immigrants’ lived
experiences.
The United States has long fashioned itself as “a nation of immigrants.” According to
Donna Gabaccia, this idea came into fruition during the Civil War Era as a means of excluding
immigrants of “bad stock.” The phrase did not become a celebratory anthem until the 1960s.
Today, the phrase is used throughout public culture to encapsulate American identity. My project
will answer the questions of how and why this shift in meaning occurred. In Imagined
Communities, Benedict Anderson asserted that museums are a by-product of nationalism.
“Museums and the museumizing imagination are both profoundly political.”
2
Therefore, in
extrapolating how national narratives about immigration have been constructed, this dissertation
examines public history institutions and how they affected national discourse about
immigration.
3

2
Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on Origins and Spread of Nationalism. (London:
Verso, 2006): 178.
3
I use the term, public history, to cover historical practices that are undertaken outside of specialized academic
settings after the 1970s. This definition encompasses museum curatorship, historic preservation, oral history,
archival science, and other related fields. Though these practices can and are used by academic historians, they are
also used to move history knowledge production beyond academic walls. The term did not come into use until the
1970s. The National Council of Public History currently defines it as “a movement, methodology, and approach that
promotes the collaborative study and practice of history; its practitioners embrace a mission to make their special
insights accessible and useful to the public.” After the establishment of this definition, public history practitioners
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My project illustrates the political and social circumstances that molded these public
history institutions. I argue that one integral way in which their narratives were produced was
through public policy. Therefore, public policy and public memory are intimately related, each
one informing the other. To best demonstrate this, my dissertation is organized chronologically
in five chapters, with each chapter framed by separate moments integral to the discourse
surrounding immigration. I begin my study in the 1950s and 1960s, during which immigration
restriction was at its highest point and historical immigration ports, such as Angel Island and
Ellis Island, were closed down. These immigration ports were saved through political
intervention and I demonstrate that the discourse that surrounded these sites and the emergences
of others was one of public morality and the United States’ stance vis-à-vis the world. The
United States was embroiled in the Cold War and Civil Rights Movement and the issue of
immigration was seen as part of foreign policies and international relations.
However, by the 1980s, the morality of immigration was no longer placed on the
shoulders of the nation. Discourse turned to issues of personal morality and individuality, and
immigration became a predominantly domestic issue. Newer administrations produced policies
that put the responsibilities of immigration on the shoulders of immigrants and business owners.
Similarly, the preservation efforts of Angel Island and Ellis Island, as well as the emergence of

challenged this definition. Some contested that public history was not a movement, methodology, nor approach.
Rather, they saw it as a joint endeavor between historians and various publics. Others saw it as historians serving the
public, and that it was not a separate discipline but rather another concentration, like political history, or social
history. Still others argued that public historians were inherently interdisciplinary, as they first learned historical
methodological approaches, and then found ways of making that work accessible. Throughout the debates, these
practitioners reminded their colleagues that there was no such thing as a singular public. Rather, there were many
publics that public historians interact with and when defining themselves, they have to stay attune to this. To best
understand these debates, please review Cathy Stanton, “‘What is Public History?’ Redux,” Public History News
(September 2007); James Gardner and Peter S. Lapaglia. Public History: Essays from the Field. (Krieger Publishing
Company, 2004); and Roy Rosenweig, Susan Porter Benson, and Stephen Brier. Presenting the Past: Essays on
History and the Public. (Temple University Press, 1986).
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the U.S. Border Patrol Museum and other community museums, gave way to a historical
narrative that focused on individuals limiting immigration history to American history.
This project is significant for three reasons. First, immigration historians have had little
interest in the historic preservation of immigration sites. Their historic preservation is seen as
either the demise of the spaces or as an inevitable step. Public historians, however, have hereto
missed the opportunity to discuss the sites as the battlegrounds where immigration history and
narratives were produced and subsequently reinforced. My project will place both
historiographies in conversation with one another and show that the historic preservation of these
sites was an important aspect of immigration discourse in the late twentieth century. More
importantly, I will show the significance of discourse in the shaping of immigration history and
policy. Second, Ellis Island came to dominate public discourse as the space where immigration
happened. In order to understand this site’s dominance in the public imagining, I will compare
and contrast how preservation efforts there differed from others across the country. Why did
Ellis Island stand out? Was it race/ethnicity, class, nationalism, or something else? My study will
argue that just as public discourse shaped public policy, Ellis Island became a site where the
United States’ racial, cultural, and citizenship-based nationalism coalesced.
4
Lastly, though
public history institutions attempt to use particular theories, be they progressive or otherwise, the
actual practice and reception of an exhibit, monument, or museum may not actually take place.

4
I am not the first to assert this statement. Matthew Frye Jacobson’s Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-
Civil Rights America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), also argues that Ellis Island became the
mythical birthplace of the United States as a nation of immigrants during the late twentieth century. He argues that
Ellis Island became the space were white ethnics asserted their heritage as a “usable past” in order to forge a sense
of identity and backlash against the civil rights movement. The language I used in this statement also borrows from
Christian Paiz’s term paper for George J. Sanchez’s course on Latin America. Paiz argues that early twentieth
century United States had three types of nationalism that did not compete with each other. Instead, they converged,
often in a confusing and convoluted mixture, for a common goal: legitimize illiberal politics in a liberal state. Paiz
uses Nira Yuval-Davis’ theorization on nationalist projects as his framework. “Coming to Terms with Immigration:
Race and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century United States,” (paper for American Studies and Ethnicity 599:
Race, Gender and Nation in the Americas, Spring 2011).

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Ideas and questions may be the impetus for certain projects, but on-the-ground concerns may
change the process and end product. Therefore this study will investigate the tensions that arise
between theory and practice in the public history profession. Though a museum may intend to be
a place of consciousness, how does this play out? Though a museum may claim to reproduce
“objective truths,” what are the politics and histories behind this? In tackling these questions, I
will address the larger issue of how public history institutions produced particular narratives
about immigrants and immigration.

Literature Review

German scholar Joachim Baur explained that the Ellis Island Museum conveys a notion
of immigration as an event, while the Lower Eastside Tenement Museum shows immigration as
a process. He concluded that even with this major difference the narrative is the same: the story
of immigration in the United States concludes with immigrants “becoming American.” Though
accurate, his portrayal of both immigration museums points to larger debates in immigration
historiography. Two major strands have emerged—one that describes immigrants’ assimilation
and accommodation, and another, which emphasizes the processes of immigrants’ racialization.
The first strand stems from Oscar Handlin’s classic study, The Uprooted, which places the
question of assimilation at the forefront. The latter strand implements critical race theory and
analyzes how race affects immigrants’ lived experiences. While the first strand questions
immigrants’ need and desire to become American, the second emphasizes the state’s role in the
creation of boundaries over who can and cannot become American.
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My study bridges these two strands by asking historians to understand why it is that even
as the United States has billed itself as “a nation of immigrations,” racial and ethnic inequalities
pervade American society. Similar to Joachim Baur, I will examine the Ellis Island Museum and
the Lower Eastside Tenement Museum. However, I will compare these sites with Angel Island,
the Smithsonian’s bicentennial exhibition, “A Nation of Nations,” the U.S. Border Patrol
Museum, and the Japanese American National Museum, in order to critically analyze just how
narratives of immigrants “becoming American” are themselves racialized. Public history
institutions serve as vehicles for the production of collective memories. In the United States,
these institutions manufacture public memories for local, regional, or national spaces. Therefore,
I will show that all of these immigrant public history institutions relay different narratives and
stories because they are fighting against different narratives that surround them.
In The Uprooted, Handlin asserted that European immigrants’ transatlantic migration was
a traumatic event victimizing immigrants to the extent that the institutions they held most dear--
property, religion, family, and tradition--were destroyed or rendered irrelevant. Emphasizing the
horrid conditions immigrants faced, Handlin argued that historians neglected to see that
immigration history was American history.
5
Handlin’s work opened the floodgates of
immigration scholarship as historians worked tirelessly to expand upon or counter Handlin’s
conclusions. Scholars, first, showed how different immigrant groups moved to the United States,
exposing immigrants’ various experiences. Then, scholars showed how immigrants actively
resisted social, cultural, and political pressures to assimilate into American culture.
6
This

5
Oscar Handlin. The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People.
(Philadelphia: Penn University Press, 2002).
6
John Bodnar, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. (Indiana University Press, 1987);
Nathan Glazer, and Daniel P. Moynihan. Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians and
Irish of New York City. (Cambridge, 1963);
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literature culminated in John Bodnar’s The Transplanted.
7
In Bodnar’s view, European migration
was a key component to capitalism. As capitalism generated inequality, Bodnar argued,
European emigrants were most likely to move in search of opportunity. Bodnar showed the pull
and push factors that made immigrants move, and how immigrants reacted to the economic and
political systems surrounding them. In Bodnar’s conclusion, it was not that immigrants had to
assimilate; it was that immigrants chose to accommodate to the world around them. In similar
fashion, the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and the Lower Eastside Tenement Museum
present narratives showing European immigration as either an event or process of becoming
American because they are grounded in different arenas of the debate.
Though insightful, this body of literature did not fully address why certain immigrants
were able to blur the boundaries of whiteness, and/or why the white category expanded to enfold
some immigrant groups while not others. At the turn-of-the-twentieth century, immigrants
entered the United States from Europe, Asia, and Latin America; however, all of the studies used
European immigrants as their case studies. Historians placed European immigration as the
example of immigration without acknowledging divergent immigrant trajectories in American
history.
8
In these case studies, race was normalized and remained a non-issue. It was not until
David Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness, and the creation of whiteness studies as a new field, that
immigrant historians began to thoroughly investigate how race affected the ways in which

7
I am not first person to draw these conclusions. George J. Sanchez wrote a historiography for the Committee
of International Migration in where he draws the same conclusions. See “The Views from the Disciplines and the
Social Science Research Council,” Immigration Research for a New Century: Multidisciplinary Perspective eds.
Nancy Foner, Ruben G. Rumbaut, and Steven J. Gold (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000): 54-60.
8
Historians are not the only ones to fall into this trap. Until recently, immigration sociologists used European
immigration to theorize on possible immigration assimilation trajectories. The most classical case is Robert Ezra
Park, Race and Culture (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1950). Contemporary assimilation theories, however, have
developed that address the racial discrepancies of classical assimilation theory. For the most notable theories see
Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou. “The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and its Variants. “ Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 530 (1993) and Kathryn M. Neckerman, Prudence Carter,
and Jennifer Lee. 1999. “Segmented Assimilation and Minority Culture of Mobility.” Ethnic and Racial Studies
22(1999).
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European immigrants dealt with social and cultural systems in the United States. Whiteness
studies critically challenged immigration historians to acknowledge the fact that race played a
pivotal role in the issues surrounding assimilation. Assimilation occurred as a strategy for social
mobility, and after more than one generation in the United States.
9
These studies also presented
the idea that European immigrants were elevated to whiteness through the racialization of Asian
and Latino immigrants. Though whiteness studies, and Roediger’s study in particular, ignited a
debate over the issue of race, it also pushed many immigration historians to use race-based
analysis in interrogating the experiences of all immigrants in the United States.
Contemporary immigration, moreover, forced historians to investigate historical
migration patterns from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Using a race-based analysis,
these immigrant historians acknowledged the centrality of Asian and Latino immigration in the
production of social categories for immigrants and ethnic Americans alike. Scholars such as
Roger Daniels and Erika Lee showed the importance of discriminatory laws against Asian
immigrants in the construction of the United States as a gate-keeping nation.
10
Mae Ngai and
Kelly Lytle Hernandez addressed how labor interests in agricultural played a pivotal role in the

9
This point is one that is markedly emphasized in whiteness studies. For more information, please see Matthew
Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1998); and David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the
American Working Class, 1998. David Gutierrez, among others, has contended that European immigrants were not
the only groups to claim whiteness as means for social mobility. Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican
Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Univ. of California Press, 1995). However, it must be emphasized that
because of the intersectionality between race and class in American society, social mobility, and assimilation, can
only happen with a claim to whiteness. For immigrant groups who cannot claim whiteness, or have been legally
denied access to whiteness, assimilation is impossible. Again, this is in line with contemporary assimilation theories
produced by sociologists.
10
Erika Lee, At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943. (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2003) and Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration
Policy and Immigrants since 1882. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004).
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shaping of U.S. immigration law and law enforcement.
11
Along with Kitty Calavita, Aristide
Zolberg, George Sanchez, and Gilbert Gonzalez, these scholars confirmed the influence of
nativism, national sovereignty, and agribusiness in the shaping of the American southwest region
and the immigration flow from Mexico and the Pacific Rim.
12
Collectively these scholars
expanded immigration scholarship shifting the questions of study towards the nation-state’s need
to regulate and categorize immigrants.
13

It was through these studies that the nation-state was more closely interrogated. Ngai, for
instance, demonstrated how state institutions produced legal categories that prevented or limited
immigrants’ abilities to become full American citizens.
14
She demonstrated how the immigration
policies of the 1920s, created several racialized categories for immigrants. It is under these
policies that Asians, and Asian Americans, became cemented as “ineligible for citizenship,”
while the term “illegal alien” was constructed to bound and exploit Mexican laborers. In so
doing, she articulated the narratives that Asian immigration museums, such as the Chinese
American Museum of Los Angeles and Angel Island, fight to counter in the twenty-first century.
Moreover, Lytle Hernandez’s work addressed the importance of the National Border Patrol
Museum in the landscape of immigration museums across the country. Like, Ngai, Lytle
Hernandez defined the border patrol as a federal law enforcement agency that manages and

11
Mae M. Ngai Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern American (Politics and Society
in Twentieth Century America). (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Kelly Lytle Hernandez Migra! A
History of the U.S. Border Patrol (American Crossroads) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).
12
Kitty Calavita, Inside the State: Bracero Program, Immigration and I.N.S. (Quid Pro, 2010); Douglas
Massey, Durand, Jorge and Nola Malone. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigrations in an Era of
Economic Integration. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003); George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican
American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1993); Aristide R. Zolberg, A Nation by Design. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Gilbert
Gonzalez Guest Workers or Colonized Labor? Mexican Labor Migration to the United States (Paradigm Publishers,
2007).
13
It is important for me to note that even though these examine the social construction of race and importance
of immigrants in these categories, these studies do not completely victimize immigrants. Immigrants are agents
within the confines of their circumstances.
14
Ngai, Impossible Subjects.
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shapes the categories of legal and illegal. She rightfully demonstrated that the border patrol
helped racialize the term illegal making it synonymous with Mexican.
15
Therefore in examining
museums like National Border Patrol Museum and Angel Island, my project will assess how the
national narrative of a “nation of immigrants,” mimicked notions of national belonging.
My study points to the fact that, though insightful, current immigration literature has not
explained why it is that the United States addresses itself as “a nation of immigrants” despite its
discriminatory policies towards certain immigrants in the past and the present. As important as it
is to see how the nation-state functions in relation to immigration and policy, public memory also
plays a pivotal role in how the country constructs its public image. Studying public memory
serves as a window into understanding public discourse surrounding immigration and issues of
national belonging.
16
My project is grounded in public history institutions, as they are sites of
contention where the issues of collective memory are fought. It is here where narratives are
created and reproduced. In the case of the United States, it is in public monuments and museums
where the ideas of the country as a “nation of immigrants” circulated. My study, therefore, not
only sharpens our understanding of the ideas behind public memory and immigration, but it also
brings to the forefront the importance of acknowledging public history institutions as
contributors to these ideas.
By centering my study on public history institutions, my objective is to understand the
correlation between the regional difference in the national narrative of “a nation of immigrants”
and American collective memory. Gabaccia’s research of has also uncovered regional

15
Lytle Hernandez states that the border patrol’s “policing of Mexicans always drew degrees of logic, support,
and legitimacy from black/white racial stratification. She asserts that the “black/white divide shaped the Border
Patrol’s Mexicanization of the legal/illegal divide.” Lytle Hernandez, 10-11.
16
Roy Rosenzweig & David Thelen The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
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differences in the usage of “a nation of immigrants.” In Los Angeles, the phrase is only used for
European immigrants while the phrase is used for everyone (except German immigrants) in New
York. Her study, therefore, shows the importance of contextualizing the phrase not only by time
period, but also by region.
17
Similarly, my study will show change over time and differences in
regional understandings of immigration.
Scholarship surrounding public history has predominantly addressed the issue of war and
memory.
18
It has shown that during and after wars, people try to make sense of what it means to
go to war. Diverse meanings arise as people struggle to reconcile their individual memories with
those of their communities.
19
In certain cases, as Bodnar pointed out, these commemorations and
memories take on regional and local character as individual communities develop methods of
remembering that are distinct and unique from those of larger national practices.
20
These local
memories, however, serve to remake national discourse furthering the commemoration of war
and the nation. My study shows that similar to war commemoration, immigrant narratives take

17
Donna Gabaccia “Nations of Immigrants: Do Words Matter,” The Pluralist 5, 3 (Fall 2010): 5-31.
18
Benedict Anderson addressed the cultural roots of nationalism in the beginning of Imagined Communities. He
showed that as nationalism appeared towards the end of the eighteenth century, it aligned itself with existing cultural
systems. Nationalism was, in other words, not a purely political phenomenon but also a cultural one. Anderson used
cenotaphs and tombs of unknown soldiers to illustrate the way in which nations and nationalists culturally valued
and memorialized the deaths of comrades or co-ethnics. For Anderson, this process of national imaginings was one
of the first ways in which nationalism pre-empted religiosity, giving these deaths, and the events that produced these
deaths, national meanings. Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on Origins and Spread of
Nationalism. (London: Verso, 2006): 9.
19
For studies about war and memory in the United States, please see David W. Blight, Beyond the Battlefield:
Race, Memory, and the American Civil War. (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002); Steven Trout, On
the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919-1941 (Tuscaloosa, AL:
University of Alabama Press, 2010); and Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt. History Wars: The Enola Gay
and Other Battles for the American Past. (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1996.) For studies about war and memory in
other countries, please see Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008); Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys
(Harvard University Press, 1999); George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of World Wars
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991); and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production
of History. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997).
20
John Bodnar Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in Twentieth Century.
(Princeton: University Press, 1993).
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20
on regional and local character as communities attempt to reconcile their experiences with the
histories that predominate in national discourses.
David W. Blight’s work with the Civil War, and slavery more generally, introduced the
importance of understanding race when discussing public memory and issues of national
belonging. His work created a debate over who has the authority to shape public discourse.
Blight shows how Southerners managed to manipulate the national press, historiography, and
literature in order to retell the history of the Civil War as a war about states’ rights, the right to
property, and the right to live an agrarian life free of class strife. In demonstrating the process of
the Civil War’s reconceptualization, he also exposes the ramifications this retelling had on the
African American community at a national scale. Similarly, my study shows that many of the
debates that surrounded the retelling of immigrant history centered on who had the authority to
recount immigrants’ experiences.
Since Blight, studies surrounding race and public memory have blossomed pushing the
debates beyond wartime. Scholars like Patricia West, James M. Linden and Kathleen S. Fine-
Dare have examined how certain communities manipulate public memory in order to organize
who can and cannot be a part of national discourse.
21
The struggle over authority becomes one of
the spaces where the battles of public memory get played out. These battles shape the purpose of
these historical sites as the stories told can contribute to commemoration and patriotism, or
reconciliation and social justice. In these struggles, issues like identity politics and nationalism

21
Patricia West. Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums. (Smithsonian
Books, 1999); James M. Linden, Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism, and the Remaking
of Memory. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Kathleen S. Fine-Dare, Grave Injustice: The American Indian
Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA (Fourth World Rising). (University of Nebraska Press, 2002).
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21
come to the forefront as public historians negotiate what identities to privilege and which to
forget. Therefore, my project benefits from having these sites as their focal points.
In terms of immigration, the issue of authority becomes most apparent in Karen L.
Ishizuka’s Lost and Found. Ishizuka’s study examined the story of the Japanese American
National Museum’s 1998 groundbreaking exhibit, “America’s Concentration Camps:
Remembering the Japanese American Experience.”
22
Ishizuka, not only narrated the exhibition’s
history, but she also framed it around the process of reclaiming a story silenced within the larger
American collective memory, and a history almost forgotten, at the community and national
levels. Specifically, she addressed the debate the ensued when the exhibition was installed in
Ellis Island. Ishizuka recounted her struggle to maintain the term “concentration camp,” in her
exhibition regarding Japanese internment during World War II. Her study served as a window
into understanding the identity politics that get imbued in public memory as Jewish Americans
and Japanese Americans were pitted against each other by the media. Both communities had to
reconcile their differences, compromising their positions to find some common ground.
However, this study also points to some important issues regarding the site itself. This national
discussion around American and Nazi concentration camps happened at Ellis Island. Why was
this case? Why was Ellis Island seen as the natural site for this public discourse and not the
Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles were the exhibit had already opened? It is
these questions that my project serves to answer. By the time this debate ensued, Ellis Island had
become the natural site for this kind of discourse, where the country stored its public memory
surrounding immigration. My project will point to the fact that the reasons behind this are not
only imbued in regional differences, but in racial ones as well.

22
Karen L. Ishizuka Lost and Found: Reclaiming the Japanese American Incarceration (Champaign:
University of Illinois Press, 2006.)
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22
In addressing the issues of public memory and immigration, I have to pay close attention
to the actual public historians doing the work, and the culture that surrounds them. Both West
and Linden point to the fact that gender played a major role over who had the authority to retell
American history in the public eye. After the nineteenth century, public history began to
professionalize and women were pushed out of their leadership roles. Moreover, in discussing
issues of national belonging I must be cognizant of the importance of nationalism. Gary Gerstle
argues, in American Crucible, that American society had two kinds of nationalism during the
twentieth century: civic nationalism and racial nationalism. Civic nationalism emerged from the
Declaration of Independence, affirming equality in all aspects including the idea that people can
self-govern democratically. Racial nationalism originated from similar traditions embedded in
the Constitution and the Immigration Act of 1790. For Gerstle, Rooseveltian nationalism began
to fall apart after the Civil Rights Movement and this moment segmented nationalisms emerged.
In addressing the issues that surrounded these public history sites, I have to not only assess the
regional variants and the racial differences in public memory, but also examine the gendered
notions of who could tell these stories, and the political culture that surrounded these histories. In
so doing, my project will further historians’ understanding of the surrounding immigration
discourse, and American collective memory.

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Theoretical Frameworks and Models

In the following segment I will show three important frameworks and models that
informed the analysis I used to organize my study.
The Power of Place
While Benedict Anderson stressed the importance of cultural institutions in the creation
of the nation, he also explained that nationalism is firmly grounded in territories and social
spaces.
23
I, intend, therefore, to marry his work with that of public historian Dolores Hayden,
who has theorized that memory is intimately tied to “the power of place.” Like Anderson, she
argued that people use social spaces to ground their personal and collective memories, intimately
tying their identity to space: “both our personal memories (where we come from and where we
have dwelt) and the collective or social memories interconnected with the histories of our
families, neighbors, fellow workers, and ethnic communities.”
24
For my research I will further
engage her idea that cultural citizenship is an identity demarked not by legal membership but by
a sense of cultural belonging. The regional characteristics of cultural belonging are something
Gabaccia and Bodnar point in their research on immigration and memory, respectively.
Similarly, I will examine how these historic sites gave people cultural citizenship, grounding
them to the imaginary of their immediate spaces and the nation.

23
Anderson, 2.
24
Dolores Hayden. The Power of Place: Urban Landscape as Public History, (Boston: MIT Press, 1995), 8-9.
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24
Public History as Political Culture
I rely on the framework of public history as political culture to analyze how public
historians used, established, and disseminated immigration narratives within particular political
contexts. This framework forces me to consider public historians as political agents who not only
consciously preserved and memorialized particular histories, but also chose to forget or
downplay other histories.
This approach would also allow me to place the various immigration sites in local and
national frameworks. “Analyses of the politics of communication about history,” historian David
Glassberg stated, “must not only explain how the nation-state appropriates and transforms
vernacular memories into its official history, but also how national imagery acquires diverse
meanings from local contexts in which it is displayed.”
25
Lastly, this framework would place me
in conversation with other scholarship interested in the intersections among nationalism, public
history, and memory.
Front-Door, Back-Door Approach
According to Aristide Zolberg, immigration policies created multiple entrances for
immigrants into the United States. First, there were “front door” policies that were shaped by
“relatively free play of competing societal interests.”
26
This led to legal and permanent residency
for white Europeans who entered the United States at the turn-of-the-twentieth century; Ellis
Island became the front-gate entrance and the iconic site. Other immigrants came in through
“back door” policies that allowed for immigrations grounded in realism and state interest. An

25
David Glassberg, “Public History and the Study of Memory,” The Public Historian. 18:2 (Spring 2006), 13.
26
Zolberg, 22.
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25
example is that of refugees entering the country after American intervention in wars in Latin
America, the Caribbean, or Asia.
Similar to these policies, immigration has been remembered in the public sphere within a
two-tier system in which “front-door” policies are accorded as the archetypal narratives of
immigration and become the dominate narratives in American collective memory. In contrast,
the immigrants that came to the United States through state-sponsored policies grounded in
realism are accorded a lower status in public discourse as they are just recently being discussed
and because they are histories that are told to counter popular imaginings of immigration. What
arises is a two-tier immigration history in the public discourse, where Ellis Island becomes the
“front-door” memory and all other immigration spaces become the “back-door” memories.
Through this theoretical framework it is easier to understand how the historical debate has arisen
of how to remember an influx of immigrants not entering from Ellis Island.

Chapter Outline

The dissertation is broken down into five substantive chapters. As stated earlier, these
chapters argue that the way in which Americans remembered immigration was directly
correlated to public policy. In other words, as public policy changed, the public history
practitioners needed to find strategies that accorded to public opinions and public discourse.
Moreover, though each chapter shows change over time, there is one constant factor throughout
this history. Curators and preservationists employed the latest assimilation theories when
showcasing immigration history. This meant that as academic thought about immigration
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26
changed, public history institutions tweaked their strategies employed and narratives discussed,
right along with them.
My first chapter focuses on the impetus of community groups, private citizens, and
government officials to re-conceptualize the United States as a “nation of immigrants” during the
Cold War period. They developed the idea of the American Museum of immigration in order to
interpret American history as immigration history. However, their interpretation of immigration
history focused on the melting pot theory and as my second chapter demonstrates, the American
Museum of Immigration received major opposition by African Americans and white ethnic
Congressmen who felt that their histories were not duly represented. This chapter also covers the
initial preservation efforts of Angel Island on West Coast. This island had once served as an
immigration processing center and military site. Some San Franciscans wanted to use the site as
a recreational safe haven, while others wanted to preserve its immigration legacies. Both
interested parties needed to find ways to negotiate and compromise with local, regional, and
national government entities in order to have their goals met.
In the third chapter, I focus on the American government efforts to commemorate its two
hundredth anniversary. In 1976, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History and Technology
debuted its bicentennial exhibition, “A Nation of Nations.” This exhibition detailed the United
States’ two-hundred-year history as an immigrant nation, rather than focusing on the country’s
independence from British colonial rule. However, instead of using the melting pot theory, the
Smithsonian staff chose to showcase immigration history as a form of multiculturalism. In this
chapter, I argue that even as the Smithsonian staff attempted to be all-inclusive, they relied on
traditional narratives of assimilation that favored the histories of European immigrants and their
children. Furthermore, during the planning of the country’s bicentennial commemorations, white
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ethnics galvanized to save Ellis Island and turn it into a museum that showcased their families
processing experiences through the island’s immigration station. Ellis Island was to serve as a
counter narrative to the American Museum of Immigration, which had opened in 1972.
My fourth chapter focuses on the re-conceptualizing of American immigrant history in
the Southwest. Even as Eastern seaboard institutions continued to emphasize white ethnics
immigration history process, national immigration debates arose over the apparent onset of
unauthorized immigration. Two institutions surfaced to place this new wave of immigration into
historical context. The first institution, the U.S. Border Patrol Museum, emphasized the
importance of the U.S. Mexico borderlands, and more specifically the Border Patrol, to the
history of immigration in the 20
th
century. The second institution was the Angel Island
Immigration Station Foundation. This institution worked to place Angel Island’s history in a
national context. By the 1990s, these two institutions showcased an important fact—there are
two major narratives in American immigration history: one that emphasized the American
melting pot theory, and another that detailed the nation-state’s gatekeeping immigration policies.
My final chapter works to show how two institutions used the two major narratives in
American immigration history to create a sense of belonging for millions of Americans. These
institutions—the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and Lower East
Tenement Museum in New York City—used immigration history to create public spaces whose
missions centered on the empowerment of disenfranchised peoples. Their goals centered on
using the past to better the future of immigrants and their descendants.

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“Operation Unity:” Forming an American Museum of Immigration, 1955-1965

In 1941, Robert Moses, head of the Tri-borough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, proposed
to destroy Castle Clinton in the Battery Park of New York City.
27
The site had served as a
nineteenth century fort, a theater, a beer garden, an immigration depot, and later an aquarium. By
1941, Castle Clinton sat abandoned in the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Moses claimed that
demolition of the site was necessary in order to build the Brooklyn Bridge from Battery Park into
Brooklyn. Public outcry, however, stymied his proposal. The American Scenic and Historic
Preservation Society in New York led a public charge against Moses and they spearheaded a
campaign to preserve the historic site.
28
By February 25 of that year, Moses wrote an op-ed in
the New York Times explaining that Castle Clinton had “no history worth writing about.”
29
His
article enticed his opponents further. By 1946, Congress designated the site as a national
monument, however Moses fought to have the title retracted. It was not until July 18, 1950 that
the site received its federal recognition.
30

27
Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and The Fall of New York. (New York: Vintage, 1975), 647-
688.
28
From this point forward, I will refer to the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society as the
Preservation Society. According to NPS historian Barbara Blumberg, the Preservation Society incorporated in 1895
and its membership included “a goodly sprinkling of New York’s old, upper-class elite.” Celebrating the Immigrant:
An Administrative History of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, 1952-1982 (New York: Division of Cultural
Resources, North Atlantic Regional Office, National Park Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1985), 28.
29
Robert Moses, “Mr. Moses and the Aquarium,” New York Times, 25 February 1941, 22.
30
“Committee Approves Congressional Bill to Save Old Aquarium as National Shrine,” New York Times, 24
July 1946, 3; “Aquarium Block Made A Monument; Truman Signs Bill Designating Castle Clinton, Battery Park, a
National Shrine,” New York Times, 13 August 1946, 25; Brunini, John Gilland, “Historic Sites; Obstacles Cited to
Preserving Fort Clinton as a National Monument,” New York Times, 28 July 1947, 14; “Underpass is Delayed; Plans
Must Wait Till Status of Aquarium is Decided,” New York Times, 8 August 1947, 4; “Ancient Aquarium Wins New
Chance; Court Bars its Demolition Unless Act is Approved by City Art Commission,” New York Times, 14
December 1948, 36; Binger, Walter D. “Judging National Monuments: Park Commissioner’s Concept Disputed,
Legal Opinion Cited,” New York Times, 3 January 1949, 22; “Fort Clinton as a National Monument Discussed by
Truman in Letter to Delano,” New York Times, 1924, February 24, 26; “Moses Wins Plea on Castle Clinton; Court
Rules Former Aquarium Is No ‘Monument’ and May Be Demolished,” New York Times, 30 March 1949, 27; “Fort
Clinton Bill Signed by Dewey; Restoration in Battery Park Now Up to City, He Says in Recognizing Split on Idea,”
New York Times, 29 April 1949, 25; “Aquarium Becomes a U.S. Monument; Action on Castle Clinton at Battery
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29
By 1952, Ronald F. Lee, Assistant Director of the National Park Service, began to
examine the historical merits of Castle Clinton. Like the Preservation Society, Lee felt that
Castle Clinton should be historically restored. William Baldwin, a trustee of the Preservation
Society, loved the idea and took it a step further. He suggested that instead of just preserving the
site, the Park Service should reinterpret the space as the first immigration depot in the United
States. With this new reinterpretation, the Park Service would create a museum that chronicled
American immigration to the United States. On April 11, Lee responded that Castle Clinton was
not well suited “physically or historically” for this kind of interpretation; but, he found the idea
of a museum of American immigration “to be [an] admirable one.” He disclosed that the Park
Service had long contemplated the notion of “remodeling the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty,”
and that this site could be “the proper place for a museum of American immigration.”
31
Baldwin
and the Preservation Society loved the idea and soon put a committee together to begin the
construction of the new immigration museum.
32

This chapter shows that the idea of the United States as a “nation of immigrants” came
about as a Cold War agenda to portray the United States as a haven for the oppressed. During the
1950s and 1960s, the federal government worked with preservationists so as to produce a
narrative that portrayed immigrants as contributors to American modernity, and their children as
defenders of liberty against the international communist threat. In other words, immigration
history was framed around the ideals of liberty and democracy to reflect the needs of the

Taken After City Deeds Site to Government, Much Work to Be Done Building Stated in 1808 Now Only a Shell--
$166,750 in Restoration Funds Work Started in 1808 Announcement is Hailed,” New York Times, 19 July 1950, 33.
31
Ronald F. Lee, National Park Service, to Mr. Alexander Hamilton, The American Scenic and Historic
Preservation Society, April 11, 1952, D-Development: D6215 Museum and Exhibit Activities, Planning,
Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits, Statue of Liberty National Monument, 1948-54
(D6215), Administrative Files, 1949-1971, Records of the National Park Service, Record Group 79 (RG 79),
National Archives, College Park, MD (NACP).
32
William H. Baldwin, “The Proposed Museum of American Immigration,” December 2, 1952, D6215,
Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
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American government. The Preservation Society’s impassioned battle to save Castle Clinton and
to create an immigration museum developed from a similar cold war mentality. The Preservation
Society’s backers were staunchly anti-communist and they realized that by creating a museum
that spoke about American immigration, they could illustrate the merits of American democracy.
This portrayal also came in the midst of calls for immigration reform. During this time, backers
of the American Museum of Immigration had to actively portray American immigrants in a
positive light while simultaneously celebrating the deportation and censure of immigrants who
espoused communist sentiments. In the public arena, these historic preservationists and
philanthropist amalgamated these seemingly contradictory narratives by adopting a liberal
ideology that posited the United States as a united front against communists.

Cold War Beginnings: Mission 66

Ronald F. Lee’s interest in preserving Castle Clinton grew out of a larger federal
initiative titled Mission 66. The main objective of this program was to modernize and update the
national park system by 1966. The national park service created the program under the guise of
cold war rhetoric. The Cold War encompassed most of the federal budget and in order for
domestic issues to receive money, politicians had to take on the rhetoric of the day, presenting
their work in similar fashion.
33
The national park service, therefore, needed projects that not only

33
Dudziak points to the fact that the Cold War constrained domestic politics and gave rise to “new opportunities
for those who could exploit Cold War anxieties,” Cold War Civil Rights, 15.
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showed the United States’ strength, but also showcased American ideals. The park service found
both in the American Museum of Immigration.
Mission 66 was the brainchild of National Park Service (NPS) Director, Conrad L. Wirth.
He first entered the park service in 1931 under the New Deal agency Civilian Conservation
Corps (CCC). He found a park service that was quickly expanding. Under the park service, Wirth
acquired over 560 state, county, and municipal parks.
34
With the labor and funds of the CCC, the
parks were redeveloped to accommodate the public during the Depression; however, by the
beginning of World War II, many of these parks began to deteriorate. With the onset of the war
and consequently the Cold War, the federal government began to slash the park service’s
budget.
35
These budget cuts occurred as demand for the park systems grew.
After World War II, many Americans had begun to re-use local, state, and national parks
in record numbers. The national parks had become part of the American leisure culture after
World War I. However, the Depression, World War II, and the rationing of the natural resources
like gasoline had shrunk the number of its visitors. With the end of World War II, returning
American GIs and their growing families needed inexpensive ways to entertain themselves, and
the national parks became a renewed American pastime. Moreover, with the boom in car culture
and consumerism, Americans found the national park system readily available.
36
The park

34
Ethan Carr, Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma, (Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts Press, 2007), 40-41.
35
Laurence Burd, “Interior Dept. Budget Cut 50% By House Group; Ickes Rapped for Waste and Inefficiency,”
Chicago Daily Tribune, 1946 May 8, 14; Richard Morris, “Cut in Park Service Budget Gives $1.5 Billion for
Immediate Work on D.C.-Baltimore Road,” The Washington Post, 18 October 1950, B5; Jerry Kluttz, “The Federal
Diary: 5000 Face Layoff In Interior Dept.; 750 Here Involved,” The Washington Post, 25 April 1953, 17.
36
Many studies point to World War I as the first moment in American history where parks, with the help of
cars, become a national pastime. David Louter, Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads and Nature in Washington’s
National Parks, (University of Washington Press, 2010); and, Paul S. Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight Against
Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement, (University of Washington Press, 2004). Furthermore, in
his retelling of NPS’ history, Wirth had calculated that NPS’ number of visitors reached astronomical records during
the interwar years. See, Conrad L. Wirth, Parks, Politics, and the People, (University of Oklahoma Press, 1980). For
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system, however, was not as easily accommodating. Many of the parks had been created to
preserve the natural beauty of the United States, or to commemorate a national event. Under this
mantra, the park system limited the amount of services available to its patrons.
By the late 1940s, the lack of services meant overcrowding and overuse. Local and
national newspapers wrote about the record numbers of national park visitors, while lamenting
the state of the parks. One of the most notable public displays of dissatisfaction was a five-part
series of articles written by the New York Times, entitled “Parks in Peril,” in where the authors
decry the parks’ inadequacy in terms of their “facilities, maintenance, personnel, and
appropriations…to take care of the increasing number of visitors.” Each article conveyed the
same story; the problem lay in the lack of appropriations dedicated to the upkeep of the national
parks.
37
Social critic Bernard DeVoto even wrote a Harper’s column suggesting that the national
parks should be closed until proper funding could be allocated for their upkeep.
38
As the historic
landscape architect Ethan Carr denotes, many of these arguments did not center on the
deterioration of the parks themselves, but rather on the state of public services offered. The
media attention described what park rangers and other staff members had noticed long before.
These federal employees begged their superiors in Washington to change the parks’ operations

studies on car culture and consumerism in postwar America, please see Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer's Republic:
The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 2003); Glenn Altschuler &
Stuart Blumin, The GI Bill: The New Deal for Veterans (Pivotal Moments in American History) (Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2009); Anthony Macias, Mexican American Mojo: Popular Music, Dance, and Urban Culture in
Los Angeles, 1935-1968 (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2008).
37
“Our Parks in Peril,” New York Times, 5 April 1954, 24. There were many other similar articles in tone. Here
are a few: “Park Repair Lags as Use Mounts, House Group Says in Plea for Aid,” New York Times, 2 October 1950,
X24; Bert Pierce, “Automobiles: U.S. Parks; Congress Is Asked to Appropriate Funds to Improve Facilities for
Tourists,” New York Times, 15 February 1953, 5; AK Dickinson, “Funds for National Parks,” Los Angeles Times, 5
March 1954, A4; “Our Neglected Parks,” The Washington Post and Times Herald, 10 May 1954, 8. The article that
impacted NPS and Wirth the most was printed in The Reader’s Digest. Titled “The Shocking Truth About Our
National Parks,” the article quoted Wirth as saying that “some of the camps are approaching rural slums;” a situation
that frightened Wirth. Charles Stevenson, “The Shocking Truth about Our National Parks,” The Reader’s Digest,
January 1955.
38
Bernard DeVoto, “Let’s Close the National Parks,” Harper’s 207 (October 1953): 49-52.
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and the ways in which funds were allocated. They needed more parking, picnic areas, lodging,
and bathrooms.
The public displays of horror became Wirth’s main weapon. Wirth announced that he,
and the National Park Service writ large, had fallen victim to Congress’ need for a smaller
federal government. Though Wirth pointed the Park Service’s record number of visitors, he
never blamed them for the parks’ crisis.
39
Instead he pointed the finger at Congress, citing
inadequate funding. Wirth was not the first director to make this assertion. His fiscally
conservative predecessor, Newton B. Drury had written a confidential report noting that the Park
Service had two missions—conservation and planned development for public use. In the report,
Drury lamented that a major modernization of the park system was needed, though he could not
secure enough funding.
40
He asserted that the parks were “victims of the war.”
41
According to
Wirth, Drury was correct in his assertion. Never before had the Park Service taken a prominent
place in the American psyche, and Congress had to do something about elevating the parks to the
modern standards of the American public.
42
Furthermore, the federal government’s investment in
infrastructure, and in particular the highway system, gave way to the congestion faced in the park
systems. American families could take road trips across the country, visiting national monuments

39
In a study, the park service revealed that in 1936, the annual number of visitors was almost 12 million. By
1946, the number reached 21.8 million and by 1955 it had more than doubled to 50 million. They projected that by
1966 the number could reach 80 million. National Park Service, Mission 66: To Provide Adequate Protection and
Development of the National Park System for Human Use. (Washington D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National
Park Service, 1956), 5a.
40
Newton B. Drury, “Park Conservation: A Report on Park & Outdoor Recreational Resources in the U.S. for
the Secretary of the Interior,” January 28, 1946, [General Records] [200 Administration and Personnel] 204-20
Inspections and Investigation, By Headquarter Officers, Newton B. Drury, 1940-1949 (file 2), Central Classified
Files, 1925-1949, RG 79, NACP.
41
Newton Drury, “The Dilemma of Our Parks,” American Forests 55 (June 1949): 6-11.
42
Carr, Mission 66, 33.
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and parks, both under the Park Service jurisdiction. These roads gave Americans the opportunity
to move more freely than before, intimately tying the freeways and the Park Service.
43

When trying to solve his problems, Wirth studied varies legislative pieces to understand
how Congress allocated monies to some projects and not others. Among the many projects,
Wirth reviewed Eisenhower’s “Grand Plan” for the highways in 1954 and the dam projects
created by the Army Corps of Engineers.
44
Though he never directly mentioned the Interstate
Highway Act of 1956, or more specifically the planning of this legislative piece, Wirth
concocted a plan that had many fiscal similarities. Wirth noticed that these major projects were
not tied to federal annual budgets, giving him the ammunition needed to face Congress. He
devised a ten-year plan to revitalize and modernize the park system that would be flexible
enough for the Park Service to request additional funds for individual parks and monuments
without directly affecting the larger project. Specifically, funds for Mission 66 would be
allocated towards the planning, implementation, and staffing of the project, but the Park Service
would have to apply for additional funding when modernizing or creating new sites. Wirth
quickly set up two small committees to work out the details of the new project—a steering
committee and a Mission 66 committee. The Park Service decided to name the project Mission
66, because they felt a sense of “mission” and wanted to complete the project by 1966, marking
the Park Service’s golden anniversary.
45

Wirth set the Public Services Conference at Great Smoky Mountains National Park on
September 18, 1955 as the program’s public revelation date. The committees worked vigorously

43
Jeannie Kim, “Mission 66,” in Cold War Hothouses: Inventing Postwar Culture, from Cockpit to Playboy,
eds. Beatriz Colomina, Annmarie Brennan, and Jeannie Kim, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004), 169.
44
Wirth, Parks, Politics, and the People, 238-9.
45
Ibid., 240-1.
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to tease out the details of the program. They settled on a plan that would place 1916 National
Park Service Act as its framework. This act not only established the park service but set its
agenda—“to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein
and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave
them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
46
With this in mind, the committee
began to research the best practices for achieving unimpaired enjoyment for park visitors. They
created eight pilot studies to test out different methods of improvement. From the results of the
pilot studies, the Park Service was able to determine the baseline for park standards and used this
information towards streamlining visitors’ experiences. Their goal was to meet and implement
these standards for all the sites within the system. The committees generated two major reports.
The first was a one hundred-page Mission 66 report that detailed the Park Service’s history, the
problem, the plan, the cost, the pilot programs, the benefits of the plan, and the specific
legislation needed to implement the program. The second publication was a condensed version of
the first. Titled Our Heritage, this “brief, popular-style book” contained pictorial presentations of
the problems and solutions as well as the important statistics on visitor use, needs, proposed
facilities, and cost.
47
This publication also received monetary support from private institutions
such as the American Automobile Association (AAA) and Standard Oil.
48
Debuting at the
conference, these reports produced a considerable positive buzz around the program.
Our Heritage reflected the intent of the Park Service, and their understanding of the
nation and its people. Starting with the cover of the book, the Park Service showcased a white,
middle-class nuclear family walking in front of the Liberty Bell. Though the family was known

46
National Park Service Organic Act of 1916, U.S. Statutes at Large 39 (1916): 535.
47
Wirth, Parks, Politics, and the People, 250.
48
National Park Service, Our Heritage: A Plan for Its Protection and Use, Mission 66 (Washington, D.C.:
Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, 1956), not paginated.
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to be the Riley family from Williamsburg, Virginia, they were referred to as “Mr. and Mrs.
America, and their children” throughout the book.
49
This cover image reflected the results of a
survey of visitors conducted by the public relations firm Audience Research. They found that
ninety percent of park visitors arrived in a car, sixty-four percent of households had at least one
child, and ninety-five percent were white.
50
This cover also reinforced the arguments recent
cultural historians have made about Americans in the 1950s. When addressing popular “visions
of belonging,” Judith E. Smith demonstrated that even though the end of World War II saw a rise
in inclusion of racial minorities in popular culture, by the 1950s, “’ordinary’ implied both white
and familial.”
51
In the case of Our Heritage, Mr. and Mrs. America were white, middle-class
adults.
These racialized images of Mr. and Mrs. America also contained a political use.
Roosevelt’s four-term presidency and Truman’s presidency thereafter galvanized the right, and
public discourse turned to their favor. Under the guise of the Cold War, conservatives sought to
shrink the domestic federal budget, fight communism abroad, and regulate the boundaries of
family life. The Park Service had to work within these political constrains, and Mr. and Mrs.
America helped them market Mission 66 to a significantly conservative political arena and
public. This idealized family, however, were not the only tools employed by the park service.
Our Heritage stressed that the program was economically valuable and that the parks’
modernization would serve as a capital investment for the federal government. It emphasized a

49
Sarah Allaback, Mission 66 Visitor Centers: The History of A Building Type, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept.
of the Interior: National Park Service, 2000): 5.
50
Kim, “Mission 66,” 172. She quoted the original Audience Research study. Audience Research, Inc. A Survey
of the Public Concerning the National Parks, (Princeton: Audience Research, Inc., 1955), 117.
51
Judith E. Smith, Visions of Belonging: Family Stories, Popular Culture, and Postwar Democracy, 1940-1960
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 7.
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best practices “package” that balanced and integrated planning, development, and staffing.
52
The
Park Service also highlighted their private cooperation initiative, which would incentivize private
enterprises to cover three quarters of concession expenses while the government built the
infrastructure (roads, walks, parking spaces, water lines, power lines and sewage disposal
systems) with only a quarter of concessions budget.
53
This type of public-private partnership
became a commonplace occurrence in the Park Service, and in so doing these allocations
projected a narrative that appealed to fiscal and social conservatives across the country.
Under Wirth, interpretation became a major necessity for the Park Service and one of the
major components of Wirth’s message during the conference. He stressed that the Park Service
needed to ensure that audio-visual media and publications were readily available to the masses,
as he believed that many left the parks “with curiosity unsatisfied and enjoyment and
appreciation incomplete.”
54
Wirth, therefore, unveiled the creation of the Office of Interpretation
Service. This new office would streamline the information researched, gathered, and
disseminated by the Park Service. They would also ensure the increase in self-service
interpretation services, which Wirth asserted would proportionally decrease the Park Service’s
staff.
55
Again, this sort of cost-analysis allowed him to proclaim that even though he was
creating a new office, he was not actually growing the federal government, deflecting any
possible conservative opposition to the project.

52
National Park Service, Our Heritage, [8].
53
Ibid.
54
Carr, Mission 66, 180. He found Wirth’s sentiments in his personal papers. “Public Services” agenda, Sep.
20, 1955, box 6, Conrad L. Wirth Collection, University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center; “Statement by
Conrad L. Wirth, Public Service Conference,” Sep. 20, 1955, box 4, Wirth Collection, University of Wyoming,
American Heritage Center.
55
National Park Service, Our Heritage, 18.
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To ensure that the new department remained at par with Mission 66 goals, Wirth placed
Ronald F. Lee in the role of Chief of the Division of Interpretation. Lee was a longtime
employee of the Park Service. He had served as a historian at the Shiloh National Military Park
under the CCC and moved to Washington D.C., to assist the chief historian in drafting the
Historic Sites Bill in 1934. By 1938, Lee was the Park Service’s chief historian and by 1949, he
had worked to create the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
56
Within the Park Service, Lee
staunchly advocated for the preservation of historic sites and the collaboration of the Park
Service with private and local organization. Therefore under his leadership, the Park Service
announced that it desired to update and maintain the Historic Sites Survey, a task that was
abandoned during World War II in 1941.
57
Under Lee’s leadership, Wirth explained, the
preservation of historic sites would become a collaborative effort between local, state, and
national authorities, leading to their one common goal—to reinterpret American history for the
masses.
58

Wirth successfully sold his project. Enthusiasm abound as the public supported the
prospect of Mission 66’s implementation with the Christian Science Monitor calling it a
“reasonable ten-year program.”
59
Sectary of the Interior Douglas McKay enjoyed the fact that the
plan balanced conservative values with those of conservationists. He scheduled a meeting with
President Eisenhower and Wirth met with the President and his Cabinet on January 27, 1956,
introducing Mission 66. The President immediately approved and by February 1956 the

56
Carr, Mission 66, 181.
57
In 1935, Congress passed the Historic Sites Act, which created the Historic Sites Survey. The Survey
inventoried buildings, archaeological sites, and objects across the nation, which “possessed exceptional value as
commemorating or illustrating the history of the United States. “Historic Sites Act,” Title 16 U.S. Code, Pts. 462(b).
August 21, 1935.
58
Carr, Mission 66, 183.
59
“Opportunity for Americans,” Christian Science Monitor, 22 October 1955, 20.
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documents for authorization were officially signed.
60
On February 8, 1956, AAA joined the
Department of the Interior in sponsoring an elaborate dinner in Washington, D.C. Themed as an
“American Pioneer Dinner,” it inaugurated the program with an elk and bison meat main course.
Many tourism and recreational organization officials, heads of state park departments, and
conservation groups were in attendance, but those that created the most buzz were the sixty
members of Congress who decided to join the celebration.
61

The project’s funding, however, did not go as Wirth had hoped. The Park Service had
estimated that the ten-year program would cost $787 million. This cost included all of the
expenses they would incur for park rehabilitation, development (including roads, trails,
parkways, and other facilities), acquisitions (of lands property, and water rights), operation, and
interpretive maintenance.
62
According to their estimates, the first year would cost $66 million.
President Eisenhower endorsed the project but not the budget lay out. He agreed to give Wirth
the first $66 million, plus an additional $2 million, with the condition that Wirth resubmit his
budget to the Congressional appropriations committee to be scrutinized annually on its merits.
The idea was predicated on the notion that if the Park Service misspent the money, their fiscal
support would dissolve. This minor setback became an important financial opportunity. Samuel
Dodd, a Bureau of the Budget official, met with the Park Service, giving them tips on how to
secure their monies. He made clear that in order to retain the funds, the Mission 66 project had to
result in visible improvements, such as roads, buildings, and public services. His advice worked
and by the end of the project, the Park Service had secured over $1 billion in appropriations.
63

60
Allaback, Mission 66 Visitor Centers, 4.
61
Carr, Mission 66, 116-117.
62
National Park Service, Mission 66, 115-115b; National Park Service, Our Heritage, 8.
63
Carr, Mission 66, 115-119.
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American Museum of Immigration Formation

The American Museum of Immigration was the Mission 66 project for the Statue of
Liberty. The Park Service had received letters from concerned Americans, which complained
that the Statue’s physical appearance exposed their neglect. Similar to the editorials written about
the state of the national parks, these Americans railed against perceived government inefficiency.
One woman, for instance, wrote several letters asking Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and
Eisenhower to install a device on the Statue of Liberty that could play “the National Anthem as
our ships glide in the harbor.”
64
Others questioned whether the federal government ever attended
to the statue’s upkeep. When William Baldwin approached the Park Service regarding Castle
Clinton, the Park Service jumped on the golden opportunity. Despite installing a special plastic
coating to prevent graffiti in 1947, the Park Service needed a visible symbol that demonstrated
their work on the grounds.
65
The American Museum of Immigration could serve as this symbol.
Furthermore, the museum gave the Park Service an excuse to install a larger pedestal that had
originally been planned for the Statue of Liberty.
66
However, the most important purpose of the
museum was to demonstrate the American public that America’s immigrant past made it a nation
of liberty.

64
Ida May Page to President Eisenhower, June 6, 1954, K-Interpretation and Information: K1815 Interpretive
Activities, Services, Statue of Liberty National Monument, 1951-69 (K1815), Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG
79, NACP; Ida May Page to President & Mrs. Eisenhower, January 6, 1955, K1815, Administrative Files, 1949-
1971, RG 79 NACP.
65
Jonathan Harris, A Statue of America: The First 100 Years of the Statue of Liberty, (New York: Four Winds
Press, 1985): 169.
66
Ronald F. Lee, National Park Service, to Mr. Alexander Hamilton, The American Scenic and Historic
Preservation Society, April 11, 1952, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP. Park Service
historian, Barbara Blumberg, explained that the original pedestal was chosen out of a plethora of proposals because
it “did not fill the entire fort area.” Therefore, even though the Park Service was right to assert that architect Richard
M. Hunt may have envisioned a bigger pedestal, they were wrong to assert that it was the only vision. Barbara
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant: An Administrative History of the Statue of Liberty National Monument,
1952-1982 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, 1985): 29.
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Even before its inception, however, the American Museum of Immigration suffered from
major setbacks. On July 9, 1953, the Preservation Society sent Ulysses S. Grant III, the grandson
of the eighteenth U.S. President, an invitation to become the chairman of the American Museum
of Immigration Committee. In the letter, the Preservation Society detailed its plans to erect the
museum at the base of the Statue of Liberty as “a rallying point and an impetus that would unify
the American people both here at home and in their relations with the free world.” This museum,
they assumed, would be built with the monies from a public fundraising campaign. They
presumed that there would be a surplus, which could be used to form an endowment for the
creation of “special exhibits and events associated with national anniversaries of the major
immigrant stocks.”
67
The Preservation Society, however, would not meet those goals. Despite
their best efforts, the committee came to heavily depend on the federal government for financial
support. They quickly realized that their cold war politics more easily persuaded the politicians
in Washington, D.C., than the American public. Their intentions and motivations, however, are
telling. After World War II, many people became hyperaware of the county’s discriminatory
politics towards immigrants. Committee members understood that as they lived in a world where
developing countries could be easily swayed towards communism, they had to clean the image
of the United States and trumpet it as “a nation of immigrants.”
Despite the Preservation Society’s best efforts, Grant III initially declined their
chairmanship offer. His refusal stemmed from the committee members’ lack of organization. In
his response, he enumerated several deficiencies in their plans including the lack of preliminary
plan of the museum’s layout, scope of the museum, historical research of material covered,

67
Francis S. Ronalds, To General Ulysses S. Grant, III, July 9, 1953, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971,
RG 79, NACP; Francis S. Ronalds To Elbert Cox, Regional Director, Region One, July 15, 1953, D6215,
Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
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adoption of policies and procedures for artifacts collected, strategic planning for the nation-wide
public campaign, and incorporation as a non-profit.
68
The letter raised many of the highly
contentious issues within the committee, but the latter was pivotal to the formation of the
American Museum of Immigration. Many of the Preservation Society members felt that the
project clashed with the mission of the organization while others stressed that it was perfectly
inline with the founders’ goals.
Founded in 1895 by city planner Andrew Haswell Green, the Preservation Society
became the leading historic organization in New York City. Unlike other historic preservation
institutions, they strove to create what architectural historian Randall Mason has dubbed a
“memory infrastructure.” This infrastructure ensured that particular narratives were built and
wedded to the city’s environment. Historical plaques, monuments, house museums, and other
historic landmarks would physically marry the collective memories of the past with the goals of
the future. Specifically, the Preservation Society worked with New York City’s bureaucrats to
ensure that as the city grew and developed, the historic sites would also be administered. Their
1923 Mission Statement best exemplifies these views:
The activities of most historical societies deal with events of the past. But the American
Scenic and Historic Preservation Society was organized to deal with the past, the present,
and the future. The work of the Society is designed to minister to both the physical and
spiritual well-being of the people. Parks and playgrounds and good civic conditions tend
to promote the health and happiness of the community. The cherishing of our historical
landmarks and the perpetuation of our patriotic traditions tend to make better citizens of
our people and to stabilize our cherished political institutions. The preservation of the
beautiful places and the wonderful works of Nature serves to raise the people's thoughts
to the Author and Giver of all good things.
69

68
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, III to Alexander Hamilton, July 31, 1953, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971,
RG 79, NACP.
69
Randall Mason, The Once and Future New York: Historic Preservation and the Modern City, (Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota Press, 2009): 12.
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The Preservation Society, therefore, took on a progressive agenda, aligning their work in New
York City to that in the fields of education, health, environmental and urban studies. By the
beginning of the twentieth century, they “managed some-state owned parks, brokered historic
preservation projects, and served as a clearinghouse for the emergent preservation field.”
70
The
historical content of their sites, however, was narrowly focused on the history of New York
State, and the city in particular.
71

The American Museum of Immigration, therefore, would be the first national project for
the organization. Despite the fact that this project was unchartered territory, and did not
emphasize urban renewal, many of its backers pointed to the belief that the project was in line
with the founders’ goals. The Preservation Society had overseen many projects that inspired a
sense of civic patriotism (for instance, the organization took on the responsibility of caring for
Alexander Hamilton’s home, Hamilton Grange in Harlem), and the American Museum of
Immigration would be no different. Another problem was that of membership. If this project
required national attendance, it would entail people outside of the Preservation Society to work
along with their members. The Preservation Society members could not come to terms over how,
or if, these people should be granted membership.
72

To quickly quell any appearances of infighting, the committee voted to instate George
McAneny, a staunch preservationists who fought to preserve Castle Clinton, as chairman. The
damage, however, was done; Wirth heard of the tensions that had arisen in the Preservation

70
Mason, The Once and Future New York, 6.
71
Mason, The Once and Future New York, 10.
72
Alexander Hamilton To Conrad L. Wirth, December 18, 1952, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG
79, NACP; William Baldwin To Ronal Lee, October 23, 1953, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79,
NACP.
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Society and sent them a notice explaining that he preferred to distance himself and the Park
Service from any issues related to the project. Alexander Hamilton, the great-grandson of
America’s first Secretary of the Treasury and the president of the Preservation Society, quickly
assured him that people were debating issues of procedure and not the project itself.
73
He
explained that people were more than enthusiastic to join the project, and that with the Park
Service’s support they would help create one of the most important educational institutions of the
twentieth century.
74
Unfortunately McAneny unexpectedly passed away, leaving the committee
without a chair. The committee had begun to resolve many of the issues Major Grant III had
raised, and therefore by October 23, 1953, he became the chairman of the committee.
75

The first priority of the American Museum of Immigration committee was to raise funds.
The Preservation Society had a long history of working with New York’s financial elites to
secure funds for their projects. In 1924, they persuaded J.P. Morgan, Sr. and George F. Baker,
both Preservation Society members, to purchase and donate the Hamilton Grange for the
Preservation Society. Funding for the American Museum of Immigration, however, required
more than just the financial backing of New York’s financial elites.
76
In order for the project to
be successful, the Preservation Society needed to appeal to a broad base of Americans. With that
in mind, they formed the National Fundraising Committee with industrialist Pierre S. du Pont III
as its chair in 1954. The American Museum of Immigration committee reasoned that du Pont

73
Alexander Hamilton To Conrad L. Wirth, December 18, 1952, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG
79, NACP.
74
After sometime, Conrad L. Wirth began to use this language to explain the project to the general public. In
one letter, for instance, he writes that if the Park Service were to accept the proposed project, it “could be a vital
educational force.” Conrad L. Wirth To Rev. F. Howard Callahan, April 8, 1954, K-Interpretation and Information:
K1815 Interpretive Activities, Services, Statue of Liberty National Monument, 1954-66 (K1815), General Files of
the Philadelphia Planning and Service Center, 1954-1969, RG 79, NACP.
75
William Baldwin To Ronal Lee, October 23, 1953, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
76
Mason, The Once and Future New York, 17.
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could appeal to the business sectors for financial support.
77
Two years later, AMI appointed
David J. McDonald as du Pont’s co-chair. McDonald offered AMI a directly link to the
immigrant experience, as a son of Welsh immigrant parents. McDonald’s greatest asset,
however, was his status as President of the United Steel Workers. His labor background gave
AMI the ability to push an image of themselves as a united front—labor and management
working together for the democratic image of the United States. In so doing, AMI hoped to
bridge any class divide and quell misperceptions that the project only catered to elitist impulses.
Instead of explicitly stating class, AMI proclaimed the fundraising duo as, “an All-American
team, which is certain of All-American support.”
78

By January 1955, committee members realized that their main function was not going to
be in line with the Preservation Society’s focus of remaining exclusively in New York City and
the issue over what to do with non-Preservation Society members persisted.
79
Grant III, with
Alexander Hamilton, decided to break from the Preservation Society and incorporate as a non-
profit educational organization. The Board of Trustees included Horace M. Albright (the second
Park Service Director), Edward Corsi (Ellis Island Commissioner), Pierre S. du Pont III, Ulysses
S. Grant III, Alexander Hamilton, John A. Krout (immigration historian), and Mary Phillips Riis
(Jacob Riis’ second wife) to name a few.
80
As the American Museum of Immigration, Inc.

77
Francis S. Ronalds To Elbert Cox, January 1954, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
78
“Labor and Management Joins Hands in Campaign,” AMI News, June 7, 1956, D6215, Administrative Files,
1949-1971, RG 79, NACP. In 1962, during the proceedings of the United Steelworkers of America Constitutional
Convention, fellow unionists called McDonald “a militant and intelligent fighter for labor’s rights and for humanity.
He is determined to preserve our liberties, our way of life, our democratic institutions, and to keep our trade-union
movement free.” Though this statement was mostly likely uttered in defense of McDonald’s leadership style (as his
methods were being severely questioned and criticized after the Strike of 1959), it does attest to his allegiance to
ideals espoused by AMI.
79
Correspondence that discusses this issue. United Furniture Workers of America, Steelworkers Organizing
Committee, Proceedings of the Eleventh Constitutional Convention of the United Steelworkers of America, (The
Union, September 1962).
80
American Museum of Immigration, “The American Museum of Immigration: Charter and By-Laws,” D6216,
Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP; P. Henry Needham, Chief of Pensions and Exempt Organizations
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46
(AMI), the organizers could more reasonably lobby for funding outside of New York’s city
limits while also granting membership to non-Preservation Society affiliates.
81

AMI, then, set out to resolve the parameters of their relationship with the Park Service.
After several fruitful conversations with Conrad Wirth and Ronald Lee, AMI signed a joint
agreement with the Park Service on October 7, 1955. The agreement established that AMI’s
main function was to coordinate the national campaign and raise funds for the cost of the “design
and construction” of the museum and endowment. These parameters were in line with how AMI
had already begun to function.
82
The Park Service agreed to plan, design, and manage the
museum with AMI’s assistance. Lastly, they constructed two committees: a Joint Development
Committee that included the Secretary of the Interior, the Park Service Director, selected officers
of the AMI, and three public members; and, the Historians Committee, chaired by John A. Krout.
AMI was responsible for both committees, and the committees, in turn, would develop the
content for the museum.
83

Even before signing the joint agreement, AMI worked closely with the Park Service to
ensure congressional and executive officials’ approval. A delegation, headed by du Pont, visited
President Eisenhower on August 10, 1954, and “spread before him the project to construct an

Branch, To The American Museum of Immigration, April 1, 1955, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79,
NACP.
81
Ibid.
82
“[Draft] Cooperative Agreement Between the Secretary of the Interior and the American Museum of
Immigration Relating to the Establishment, Operation, and Maintenance of the American Museum of Immigration at
the Statue of Liberty National Monument,” July 12, 1955, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP;
“Cooperative Agreement Between the Secretary of the Interior and the AMI Relating to the Establishment of the
American Museum of the Immigration at the Statue of Liberty National Monument,” October 7, 1955, D6215,
Administrative Files, 1949-1971, NACP.
83
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 31. Blumberg also asserted that even before AMI signed the joint
agreement, they set up shop at 270 Park Ave. in New York City. Business executive William Zeckendorf donated
the site so that it could serve as AMI’s national headquarters.
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American Museum of Immigration at the base of the Statue of Liberty.”
84
The delegation also
made President Eisenhower aware that they had received Secretary McKay’s support.
Eisenhower was enthused at the idea of this museum and quickly gave his approval:
This is a nation of nations. Our forefathers came here from all the countries of the
world…United as one people we have created new freedom, and new opportunity for all.
There is no story like it in history, and the idea of telling it at the foot of the Statue of
Liberty is a splendid one.
85

President Eisenhower’s endorsement gave AMI enough publicity for them to create a broad
appeal for the project. The Park Service soon received countless letters from the general public
supporting the museum’s development. During the Park Service’s talks with AMI members,
Congress passed the New York City National Shrine Advisory Board Act of 1955, which gave
the Secretary of the Interior the opportunity to appoint a board of citizens “to render advice” on
the rehabilitation and preservation of historic sites including the Statue of Liberty. The act also
authorized the Park Service “to accept donations of funds” for the restoration of these sites.
86
In
other words, Congress legislated their approval of AMI and its desires to make an immigration
museum at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. Their approval was an endorsement of AMI’s liberal
ideology.
AMI gained momentum and by the summer of 1956, Congress decided to change the
name of statue’s island from Bedloe’s to Liberty Island. This joint resolution, introduced by
Senator John O. Pastore of Rhode Island and Representative Lawrence Brooks Hays of

84
Howard W. Elkinton To Ronald F. Lee, August 12, 1954, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79,
NACP.
85
“Nation of Nations,” New York Times, 15 August 1954, E8.
86
New York City National Shrine Advisory Board Act of 1955, Public Law 84-341, U.S. Statues at Large 69
(1955): 632.
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Arkansas, proclaimed that the Statue of Liberty “was to be made more brilliant by the
establishment, at its foot, of the American Museum of Immigration as the gift of individual
Americans to the American people for all future generations.” Congress cited the new museum
project as the opportunity to tell “the story of the making of this great Nation of nations” from
the perspective of the people “who have been coming here since the earliest times from all over
the world in search of liberty.”
87
These words, again, illustrated the link between AMI and the
United States’ cold war image. Immigrants, they maintained, established the country and
continue to fight for a democratic world. In terms of the island’s name change Brooks Hays
noted that Isaac Bedloe, the island’s namesake, was not an “outstanding character as a public
person,” whose name should be preserved “for succeeding generations.” He argued that at the
moment “no physical thing in the United States” carried the name liberty and that the United
States “should have that before all the world as a great idea,” linking the United States—and by
extension immigration history—to the idea of liberty and democracy.
88

Brooks Hays was not the only person to connect the renaming of Liberty Island to the
Cold War. His idea to seize the moment to proclaim the renaming—and the establishment of
AMI—as a Cold War project was even spelled out to Pastore—and Brooks Hays and Wirth—by
Grant in June. In a letter, he made it known that the name change was “most timely and
appropriate,” further denoting that:
In the continuing cold war, when the United States is striving to build among the
confused and doubting peoples of the world a real understanding of American liberty and
its unifying force under our Constitution, the official recognition of the island as Liberty
Island can have an important leverage on their own aspirations for freedom, opportunity,

87
S.J. Res. 114, 84
th
Cong., 2
nd
sess. (July 3, 1956), Cong. Rec. July 18, 1956.
88
House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, To Change the Name of the Bedloe’s Island in New York
Harbor to Liberty Island, 84
th
Cong., 2
nd
sess., July 16, 1956, 9-10.
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and personal dignity. It can be a gesture involving no material expense, yet possessing
real spiritual content.
89

Put another way, those involved in renaming this site Liberty Island—and by extension the AMI
project—believed that this symbolic gesture was a communication to the world of American
ideals, giving them an upper hand over their communist enemies. The resolution, also,
highlighted the project’s appeal to a broad spectrum of political affiliates and the broader public.
Though both politicians belonged to the Democratic Party, Pastore, the first Italian-American
Senator in U.S. Congressional history, held more progressive views, while Brooks Hays was a
staunch anti-communist and Christian evangelical.
90
During the committee hearings, Pastore and
Brooks Hays received praise from their colleagues for their actions, while noting that letters of
support had poured into their offices, and not one letter of dissent, not even from historical
societies who might want to preserve the island as is.
91
The project, therefore, became a unifying
point for Congress and the country during the Cold War.

89
Ulysses. S. Grant, III, To Hon. John O. Pastore, June 21, 1956, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG
79, NACP.
90
“Archbishop Seeks More Immigrants; O’Boyle Sets Goal of 250,000 More a Year,” New York Times, 6
December 1955, 21; “Pastore to Campaign Among Italo-Americans,” Christian Science Monitor, 27 July 1956, 15;
Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round: Schine’s Psycho Warfare,” The Washington Post, 20 June 1954,
B5.
91
House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, To Change the Name of the Bedloe’s Island in New York
Harbor to Liberty Island, 84
th
Cong., 2
nd
sess., July 16, 1956, 7-12.
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Opening the Floodgates

The rhetoric surrounding Liberty Island’s name change did not mean that legislators
necessarily agreed on immigration reform. During World War II, different Jewish American
organizations lobbied to have the immigration laws changed. Seeing the plight of Jewish people
abroad, they begged the United States to give refugee status to those who had managed to escape
Hitler’s grasp. Congress, however, felt weary about softening immigration legislation, fearing
that Nazi Germans could pose as refugees and enter the country with American-issued visas.
This fear led to the internment of hundreds of Germans and Italians within the United States, and
many of its territories. In some cases, however, German Jews were arrested and placed in camps
with other German nationals, as was the case of Dr. Erwin Frankel.
92
This fear of spies and
subversive activities led to the internment of thousands of Japanese/Japanese-Americans in the
West Coast. The human rights violations committed by the United States were nothing compared
to those of Nazi Germans and fascist Italians in Europe; however, its government was not willing
to become the immigrant haven that most of citizens expected.
While foreign policy concerns led to the violation of the rights of German, Italian, and
Japanese Americans, it also led the expansion Mexico immigration and the elimination of the
Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. With the incarceration of Japanese Americans and the
deployment of millions of Americans to the World War II stages in Europe and the Pacific,
agricultural business suffered. At first, women were asked to work the fields but American
businessmen pressured the United States government to import laborers from Mexico. The
Immigration Act of 1924 had restricted immigration from most of the world, with the exemption

92
House Subcommittee on Fascism, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Illegal Entry of
Aliens into the U.S., 80
th
Cong., 2
nd
sess., 1948, 453-512.
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51
of the Western Hemisphere. Mexico wanted to contribute in the wartime efforts, and the
American government capitalized on these desires. President Roosevelt came to an agreement
with Mexican President Manuel Avila Camacho to import Mexican farmworkers in order to
relieve American businesses and food shortages. The agreement—called the Bracero Program—
started in 1942 and lasted until 1965, far beyond the intended timeline. In so doing, this policy
allowed the United States to continue its good neighbor policy with Mexico. Similarly, entry into
World War II led to a shift in America consciousness when it came to people of Chinese descent.
The Chinese government’s fight against Japanese imperialism, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor,
forced Congress to rethink their continual exclusion of Chinese immigrants. The Chinese were
now their allies, and in a gesture of friendship, Congress passed legislation in 1943 repealing the
Chinese Exclusion Act. This repeal, however, was more symbolic than anything else, since the
annual quota for people of Chinese descent was limited to 105 visas. It would appear that
immigration policy was just an extension of foreign policy.
93

The foreign policy dimension continued to haunt immigration legislation beyond World
War II. As the United States entered the Cold War, Congress began to worry about the United
States image abroad. During the war, Japanese imperialist had portrayed the United States as a
hypocrite for promoting democratic appeals whilst restricting immigrants and discriminating
against African Americans. This anti-America propaganda continued into the Cold War and
American legislators wanted to find a permanent fix. At the same time, they were worried that
communists in the country would attempt to overthrow the government. By 1947, Congress
created a commission to study the possibility of immigration reform. The commission concluded

93
Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (New
York: Hill and Wang, 2004) 89-94; Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in
America, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002) 176-203; Otis L. Graham, Jr. Unguarded Gates: A History of
America’s Immigration Crisis, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004) 67-86.
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that the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon races were not superior to others, but that ethnic discrimination
should remain in an attempt “to best preserve the sociological and cultural balance in the
population of the United States.”
94

Senate Democrat Pat McCarran worked with Congressman Democrat Francis Walter in
order to pass legislation that would appeal to allies abroad, while continuing anti-Communist
policies. They introduced a bill that removed racist language from immigration policy but kept
the quota system in place. They emphasized labor as a major qualification for a U.S. visa with
family reunification as a close second. The bill also gave Immigration and Naturalization
Services the authority to enforce immigration and refugee laws. Lastly, the bill allowed the
immigration agency to deport any person they suspected of being communist sympathizers.
President Harry Truman vetoed the law calling it “un-American.” He believed that the bill was
too restrictive since it retained earlier national quotas, and that it violated immigrants’ rights
within the country as the onus was placed on them to prove that they were not communist,
instead of the government having to prove that they were. Congress overrode his veto and the
bill was enacted on June 27, 1952.
95

President Truman was furious, commissioning another committee to study and
recommend new immigration legislation. He claimed that the McCarran-Walter Act was a major
national security issue since it undermined American efforts abroad. On January 1, 1953, the
President’s Commission on Immigration and Naturalization released a report that pressured
Congress to pass legislation with non-discriminatory measures, citing natural security as the

94
Marion T. Bennett, "The Immigration and Nationality (McCarran-Walter) Act of 1952, as Amended to 1965,"
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 367 (Sept. 1966): 127-136, p. 129-30; Divine,
American Immigration Policy, p. 167 Also see Congressional Record, 1952, p. 5330.
95
Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, Public Law 82-414, 66 Stat. 163 (1952).
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underlying principle.
96
The State Department reiterated these claims as W. Averell Harriman,
Director of Mutual Security, argued that immigration policy factored into the struggle between
democracy and totalitarianism. Edward M. O’Connor, consultant to the Psychological Strategy
Board, declared that in order for the United States to retain its status as an economic and political
world leader, it needed to use non-discriminatory immigration policy as a foreign policy tool.
Despite President Eisenhower’s entrance into the White House, executive branch legislators
pushed for immigration reform.
97

Though some Congresspeople agreed with the White House Administration and the State
Department, Congress remained in gridlock. During 1953, White House administrators worked
with other agencies to see how they could buffer the blow that the McCarran-Walter Act might
bring. By early April, Charles Douglas Jackson, President Eisenhower’s Special Assistant of
issues related to psychological warfare, met with Conrad Wirth and William Baldwin to discuss
the American Museum of Immigration project. All the men agreed that the museum would help
rally Americans’ support for democracy and soften Americans’ attitudes towards immigrants.
For Baldwin, the museum served as a site where Americans could “give to our lagging
psychological warfare the type of thrust and impact which no governmental regimentation and
only free and voluntary citizen action can contribute.”
98
Baldwin believed that with the
government officials blessing, Americans could come together to financially support an
educational institution that acknowledged to other nations how successive waves of immigrants
built the United States of America.

96
John D. Skrentny. The Minority Rights Revolution. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2002) 45-46.
97
Ibid.
98
William H. Baldwin, “A Museum of American Immigration: A Proposal for Making Fort Clinton a ‘Living’
National Monument,” Jan. 1952, ASHPS Minutes, 1951-1952, American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society
Records, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library, New York City.
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Operation Unity

To kick-start their fundraising-drive in 1956, Pierre S. du Pont contributed $50,000
towards AMI, and loaned an additional $50,000 for administrative expenses.
99
The rest of AMI’s
trustees pledged smaller amounts. The organization, then, turned to ethnic, business, and labor
organizations for financial assistance. Many organizations, including the International Ladies
Garment Workers Union, pledged to donate between $5,000 and $7,500, while the Ladies
Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars voted to collect $50,000 from its members.
100
With
these donations in the pipeline, AMI established fundraising committees in twenty key cities,
including, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and San Francisco.
AMI secured chairs for these local committees, except for New York. The AMI Board of
Trustees was not alarmed about the New York office since the national headquarters was located
there.
101

To further their national campaign, AMI staged several media projects, which were both
intended for publicity and educational purposes. The most prominent project was a short film,
made by 20
th
Century Fox, entitled, “Lady of the Golden Door.” The film educated the general
public about the project and the historical significance of the Statue of Liberty. To promote the
film and the project, du Pont appeared on the Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person” show and
on October 21, 1956, he was interviewed on Ed Sullivan’s CBS program along with
McDonald.
102
The most extravagant ploys were the two National Unity Days that AMI staged—
one in June 1955 and the other in June 1956. During these events, AMI brought together

99
“$50,000 Du Pont Gift,” New York Times, 19 February 1955, 17.
100
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 32.
101
Ibid.
102
Ibid; “To Salute Miss Liberty On Her 70
th
Birthday,” Atlantic Daily World, 18 October 1956, B2.
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representatives of various ethnic organizations to celebrate the Statue of Liberty’s symbolism of
freedom and democracy. During the second celebration, AMI collected soil from various
countries across the globe to disperse onto a tree that was planted at the base of the Statue of
Liberty, a symbol of America’s diverse roots. David Sarnoff, executive of RCA, gave the
keynote speech, where he linked AMI’s efforts to the United States’ cold war efforts.
103
Sarnoff,
a vocal opponent of communism, aggressively advocated for a strategy that utilized
psychological warfare as method of winning the Cold War. In his speech, he emphasized the
importance of the Statue of Liberty to the image of the United States vis-à-vis the world, while
postulating that the “enemies [communist Soviets] who counted on divisive influences because
of our history of mass immigration have always been disappointed.”
104

Despite their aggressive campaign efforts, AMI did not collect enough funds. By
September 1956, the organization’s books showed a deficit of $117,000.
105
The campaign’s
failure gave many AMI members pause over whether they would have any success. They
realized that the campaign needed to appeal to middle-class Americans—business owners and
blue-collar laborers. Therefore, on April 16, 1956, the committee elected George Meany,
President of the AFL-CIO, and Mrs. Sherman L. Olson, President of the Ladies Auxiliary to the
Veterans of Foreign Wars, as Co-Vice Presidents of AMI. Meany joined the cause, pledging
$500,000 from the AFL-CIO, while Mrs. Olson announced that the Ladies Auxiliary was

103
Russell Porter, “New Tree Grows at Liberty’s Foot,” New York Times, 29 June 1956, 20; “David Sarnoff
Speaks at National Unity Day; Nationality Groups Plant Symbolic Tree; Edward Corsi Calls for Equality
Recognition,” AMI News, 28 June 1956, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
104
“Text, Address by Brig. General David Sarnoff, Chairman of the Board, Radio Corp. of America; and
Honorary Chairman, Greater New York Drive, American Museum of Immigration,” AMI News, June 1956, D6215,
Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
105
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 33.
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reaching its halfway point towards their $50,000 goal.
106
Meany voiced his approval of the “all-
American, non-controversial project,” stating that AMI gave Americans a platform “to tell the
generations to come the moving story of the opportunities in our country which brought our
forefathers or ourselves, as liberty-seeking immigrants, to build and advance a strong and free
United States,” through free institutions such as organized labor.
107
This statement was in line
with his 1967 endorsement of the Vietnam War efforts as he saw a direct link between the
museum project and the fight against communism abroad.
108
Together with du Pont and David J.
McDonald as co-chairs of the national fundraising campaign, this group concocted a national
fundraising drive to raise $5 million between October 28, 1956 and Thanksgiving Day. The
drive, titled Operation Unity, would end with a celebration on Liberty Island, commemorating
the seventieth anniversary of the State of Liberty.
To inaugurate the fundraising drive, AMI held a commemorative celebration of the
Statue of Liberty’s seventieth anniversary. They had a twenty-one-gun salute and a cardboard
cake with seventy candles. AMI received money from several labor organizations, but their
major donor-base was school children. In early November, du Pont sent many of these children a
congratulatory letter letting them know that their “sacrifices in terms of candy and bubble gum”
showed their love of country, and that they were an example to parents around the country who
faced a “troubled present in world affairs,” renewing his “faith and confidence in the future” of
the United States.
109
William Baldwin also noted that AMI promoted the participation of school
children, as they believed that these children should feel “they have a personal stake in this

106
“Meany Joins AMI Board,” AMI News, 16 April 1956, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79,
NACP.
107
Meany Letter, Apr 11 1957
108
“Meany Backs Viet, Slaps at Reuther,” The Pittsburg Press, 7 December 1967, 28.
109
“We, The Pupils,” AMI News, 23 November 1956, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
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historic shrine and in the tribute to the role of immigration in the building of America.”
110
None
of these tactics worked. By the end of November, AMI had barely $50,000 over its expenses.
William Baldwin won over the trustees and recommended they extend the campaign until the
end of March of 1957, but by in the end they had only managed to collect $882,823. Of that
money, seventy-three percent, or $643,689 was used for administrative overhead, leaving AMI
with only $239,137 for the actual museum project.
111
By May 28, 1957, the Executive
Committee decided to terminate Operation Unity, realizing that they fundraiser could not be
salvaged and that AMI’s success was an indicator of “America’s prestige in the cold war.”
112

Grant III contacted Ronald Lee demanding to know if the New York City National
Shrines Board Act of 1955 allowed for the government to partially cover the project’s financial
burden. Wirth wrote back, explaining that under that piece of legislation the Park Service could
only use federal matching funds for “rehabilitation” and “preservation” efforts. He made AMI
know that the Park Service was ready to solicit Congressional help. They wanted Congress to
amend the statue to include development, so as to cover the costs using tax monies and not just
private donations. Wirth also made known that Mission 66 funds would be used to construct the
pedestal.
113
Lee and Wirth met with the AMI Board of Trustees on May 9, 1957, and amended
their joint agreement. By September 1957, they signed a new planned that specifically stated that
the Park Service would assist AMI by using “other sources and funds made available by

110
William H. Baldwin, To Mrs. Michael M. Johnson, November 26, 1956, D2615, Administrative Files, 1949-
1971, RG 79, NACP.
111
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 34.
112
Ibid, 34-35.
113
House Subcommittee on Public Lands, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, New York City National
Shrines Board Act: Hearings on H.R. 11868, 85
th
Cong., 2
nd
sess., 1958, 1-13.
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Congress.”
114
By August 14, 1958, Congress passed Public Law 85-658, amending the statute to
include development.
115

Competition: Ellis Island

The large financial burden was now off AMI’s shoulders, but they had to repair their
image. With little progress, the general public had begun to question AMI’s mission and goals.
During the early part of 1956, du Pont began to travel across the country promoting the museum
project to various ethnic organizations, and the general public, writ large. At first the public
relations campaign worked as social organizations for Swedish Americans, Czech Americans,
Italian Americans, and even Japanese Americans trumpeted the cause.
116
This success, however,
was cut short when the General Services Administration put Ellis Island up for sale. During the
first years, Ellis Island’s halls were filled with anxious immigrants awaiting their destiny. This
changed during World War I. As immigration decreased, Ellis Island became a detention center
for enemy aliens. The immigration station’s purpose changed even further when Congress
enacted the Immigration Act of 1924. The law limited the number of immigrants through nation-
based quotas and stipulated that prospective immigrants would be inspected in American
consular offices abroad, making Ellis Island mainly a deportation center. During World War II,
the government used the island to house alien combatants, and after the war, they kept foreigners

114
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 36.
115
New York City National Shrines Board Act, Public Law 85-658, U.S. Statues at Large 72 (1958): 613
116
“Sons of Italy Join Drive to Build Museum,” Chicago Daily Tribune 20 June 1956, 14; “Czech Society
Seeks Funds to Aid N.Y. Museum,” Chicago Daily Tribune 29 June 1956, W4; “Japanese-Americans Aid
Immigration Museum,” Los Angeles Times 8 August 1956, 4; “Svithiod Joins Campaign for Immigration Museum,”
Chicago Daily Tribune 26 August 1956; 12.
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suspected of holding communist views.
117
By 1954, local officials saw the island as a nuisance,
and in November, they closed the facility.
118

Ellis Island was then transferred to the General Services Administration (GSA). As the
GSA decided what to do with the land, the American public began to speculate how to best use
the island for public good. Several projects were proposed including making it a shelter for the
homeless, a world trade center, a clinic for alcoholics, a shelter for delinquent boys, and a
retirement community for the elderly.
119
New Jersey Senator James F. Murray proposed the
government develop an immigration cultural museum on the site.
120
This idea scared AMI as it
came in complete conflict with their project. They lobbied the Park Service to end the situation.
A major boost for AMI was the public battle that began to ensue between the states of New York
and New Jersey. Each state argued that the island fell under its jurisdiction and that only it had
the ability to use the land after the federal government left.
121
By September 1956, the GSA
categorized Ellis Island as “surplus property” and put it for sale, asking individuals and
organizations across the country to bid on the immigration landmark. The advertisement touted
Ellis Island as “one of the most famous landmarks in the world,” exclaiming that the island is a
perfect location and facility for “oil storage …import and export processing …manufacturing

117
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 95.
118
“Ellis Island Closing; More Humane Entry into U.S.,” The Manchester Guardian, 12 November 1954, 1;
“Ellis Island Ends Alien Processing; Last Detained Person Leaves—20,000,000 Immigrants Cared For in 62 Years,”
New York Times, 13 November 1954, 20; “Ellis Island, 62-Year Entry Point, Closed,” The Washing Post and Times
Herald, 13 November 1954, 1.
119
Murray Illson, “Ellis Island’s Use for Aged is Asked,” New York Times, 17 December 1954, 28; “Plans for
Ellis Island; Its Use as World Trade Center Proposed to Mayor,” New York Times, 9 January 1955, 28; “Ellis Island
As Clinic,” New York Times, 5 May 1955, 68; “Ellis Isle Sought as Boys’ Shelter,” New York Times, 16 June 1955,
14; “Stark Suggests City Make Ellis Island A Derelicts’ Home,” New York Times, 2 February 1960, 37.
120
“Ellis Island Proposal; Cultural and Recreational Unit as Part of Jersey Urged,” New York Times, 6 June
1955, 10; James F. Donovan, “Ellis Island Proposed as ‘Hall of Fame,’” Washington Post and Times Herald, 12
June 1955, A9.
121
“Jersey is Bidding for Ellis Island; Proposes Ethnic Museum and Play Area to be Linked to Jersey City with
Bridge Claim to Land Hinted; New York Pushes Parleys to Get Site for Care of Aged and Alcoholic Men,” New
York Times, 21 July 1955, 25; “War for Ellis Island: Officials of Two States Press Claims for U.S. ‘Surplus’” New
York Times, 25 July 1955, 41.
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…etc.”
122
The public was outraged. As a famous landmark, many had begun to warm up to
Senator Murray’s idea. One American even stated that to “millions and millions of Americans,
Ellis Island was the 19
th
and 20
th
century counterpart of Plymouth Rock.”
123

AMI tried to temper the public outrage. They solicited Vice President Richard Nixon’s
help, asking him to become the Honorary Chairman of the Southern California Citizens
Committee for AMI. Nixon made them know that privately he thought they had “an extremely
worthy patriotic project.” He added that it was of particular interest to him as he saw the museum
as a major player “in the ideological struggle that is being waged throughout the world today
between the power of liberty and democracy and the forces of tyranny and enslavement.”
However, he could not accept the invitation without first having the Ellis Island issue resolved.
124

Vice President Nixon made clear that he could not publically support the AMI project if
President Eisenhower decided to halt the island’s sale. Just as Nixon predicted, President
Eisenhower stepped in and terminated the sale two weeks after the sale’s announcement,
placating any dissent for the GSA’s actions. Eisenhower made it known that he would ask
Congress to consider all possible alternatives for the island during its next session.
125

Eisenhower’s decision put AMI in a tough position. They had placed the idea of an
immigration museum in the minds of Americans, but they wanted it be their museum, at the base
of the Statue of Liberty, and not Ellis Island. AMI’s Board of Trustees had not calculated the

122
“Display Ad 51,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 18 September 1956, C9; “Display Ad 308,” New York Times, 18
September 1956, 53.
123
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 97.
124
Rogers W. Young, To Alfred H. Horowitz, February 19, 1957, D2615, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG
79, NACP; Richard Nixon, “Dear Willard,” 1957, D2615, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
125
“Ike Cancels Plan to Sell Ellis Island,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 25 September 1956, 17; “Eisenhower Bars
Ellis Island Sale,” New York Times, 25 September 1956; “Halts Ellis Island Sale,” The Hartford Courant, 25
September 1956, 1; “President Halts Sale of Ellis Island Because of ‘Sentiment Attachment,’” The Washington Post
and Times Herald, 25 September 1956, 1.
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nation’s infatuation with Ellis Island. They assumed that the general public’s distrust of
communists would be enough of an impetus for people to rally beside them. They, now, placed
heavy pressure on the Park Service to inform the GSA that they were putting their weight
exclusively behind the AMI project, and not Ellis Island. They informed them that the Ellis
Island issue was not only a cultural determent, but that it affected AMI monetarily. Without the
government’s clear agenda in terms of Ellis Island, AMI could not fundraise, and Vice President
Nixon could not be by their side.
126
The GSA attempted, twice more, to sell the property. First in
early 1958, and then again the next year, bids were too low for the government to accept. By
1960, the GSA handed Ellis Island to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, so as to
turn the island into a university or institution for public good.
In December of 1960, Edward Corsi, an AMI board member, Oscar Handlin, a historian
for AMI, Allan Nevis, and Sylvan Gotshal wrote an open letter to the New York Times placing
their weight behind Ellis Island, supplicating that the Park Service spend their resources on an
actual immigration site.
127
The New York Times letter publically exposed one of AMI’s
vulnerabilities. In the letter, the authors expressed Ellis Island’s historical value as a “gateway to
a new life of liberty and opportunity” for millions of American families. This statement implied
that Ellis Island was the rightful site for an immigration museum and not the Statue of Liberty.
They moved the rhetoric that had been used to elevate the AMI project and placed it on Ellis
Island. They called it a symbol of “the welding of many nationalities, races and religions into a
united nation.” They further proposed that the AMI project be moved to Ellis Island as a “more

126
Alexander Hamilton, To Conrad L. Wirth, April 15, 1957, D2615, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79,
NACP.
127
Edward Corsi, Sylvan Gotshal, Oscar Handlin, Allan Nevis, “Future of Ellis Island; Development Plan
Under Federal Maintenance Described,” New York Times, 20 December 1960.
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62
appropriate” site.
128
This letter clearly expressed what many had only hinted once before. Yet,
Corsi and Handlin’s move towards an Ellis Island museum was also a rejection of the AMI
project. In 1955, AMI’s Historians Committee created a timeline that placed American
immigration history between 1607 and 1920. They hired Dr. Thomas Pitkin, a Park Service
historian, to create a prospectus that emphasize immigrants Americanization and the “flowing
together of the various races, creeds and cultures into one main stream.”
129

By early 1956, Pitkin drafted a preliminary prospectus that echoed the cold war rhetoric
that Hamilton and du Pont desired, while emphasizing the melting pot theory. Pitkin proposed
that the exhibits mainly focus on European migration between 1815 and 1914 since it was during
that period that nearly 34 million immigrants entered the United States.
130
This historical
interpretation, however, did not sit well for many of the historians, including Oscar Handlin. By
1957, during the Ellis Island debates, the Joint Development Committee got together and decided
that AMI would only be established at the base of the Statue of Liberty or not at all.
131
This
decision infuriated many in the Historians’ Committee who had begun to hope for the transfer of
the project to Ellis Island. This decision also upset many historians since the prospectus clearly
neglected to tell the stories of Latin American and Asian immigrants, as well as the history of
African Americans and Native Americans.
132
When Corsi et. al., published their letter in the New
York Times, they exposed their dissent and distaste for preserving the AMI project, and not
accommodating to the new circumstances.

128
Ibid.
129
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 58.
130
Ibid.
131
Thomas M. Pitkin, “Notes on AMI Meeting In Washington,” November 25, 1957.
132
Holland, 158. By 1960, the civil rights movement was well on its way, exposing the historical exclusion of
racial minorities in the narratives they were constructing in AMI.
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People outside of AMI also began to question the project’s relevance. In 1959, AMI
contracted G.A. Brakeley & Co. Inc., professional fundraisers, to investigate why AMI’s
fundraising efforts had failed. Brakeley interviewed members of the board of trustees, staff, key
contributors, and public officials. Many claimed that bad leadership and poor money
management led to fundraising failures. Robert Moses—the same person who once tried to
destroy Castle Clinton—bluntly stated that AMI had “no appeal. Immigrants went through Castle
Clinton and Ellis Island, not Liberty Island.”
133
Brakeley suggested that AMI intensify its appeal
to ethnic groups.
134
The strategy worked and by 1961, AMI was able to secure $419,000 to begin
the first phase of the museum’s construction.
It was not until 1962 that AMI broke ground. Local papers began to report on the
museum project’s progress. On June 20, 1962, the New York Times reported that AMI was
expected to be complete in 1964, just in time for the World’s Fair. By the next year, however, it
was obvious that the museum would not be completed in time. The New York Times discovered
that AMI officials had not raised enough money to complete the project, and the carelessness of
the officials’ use of funds. They reported that over $800,000 went to paying the fundraising
expenses, leaving little money for the actual development of the museum. The Herald Tribune
exposed that most of the expenses were for “travel, lunches, professional fund-raisers and so on,”
giving the World Telegram the ammunition to exclaim that people deserved “more of an
explanation than they have received.”
135
AMI officials were, again, required to repair the public
relations fiasco. They issued a “White Paper” establishing that the New York Attorney General’s

133
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 37.
134
Ibid., 38.
135
“Immigration Museum To Be Erected Soon at Statue of Liberty,” New York Times, 20 June 1962, 37;
Wallace Turner, “Drive for Museum Far Short of Goal,” New York Times, 11 June 1963, 39; Blumberg, Celebration
the Immigrant, 40.
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office had given them a “clean bill of health,” and that most of the activities described in the
newspapers were actually “privately underwritten.” This stunt did little to curb the criticism and
by the end of that year, new gifts were reduced to a trickle.
136
By 1964, the project remained at a
standstill without any funds to continue, and it was not until 1967 that the government stepped in
to finish the project. From 1967 until 1972, the museum was finished using almost $5 million in
congressional appropriations.
137

Meanwhile, the issue of Ellis Island persisted. Congress created the Subcommittee on
Intergovernmental Relations on July 12, 1962 in order to establish what the government should
do with Ellis Island.
138
Many of those that had once petition for the island came out of the
woodwork to request that the island be handed over to them. AMI, however, feared that the
subcommittee would take Senator Murray’s museum proposal seriously. They, again, placed
pressure on the Park Service to publically resist the project. On September 4, 1963, the
subcommittee held a hearing where, the Park Service’s Associate Director, George B. Hartzog
placed his weight behind AMI:
The Statue of Liberty National Monument was established… as a symbol of freedom to
immigrants from all parts of the world…. [The American Museum of Immigration]
which is now about 75 percent complete, will present the achievements and contributions
of all nationality groups in the making of the United States. When completed it will be
administered by the National Park Service…. We believe there is represented in the
Statue of Liberty National Monument and the American Museum of Immigration
adequate commemoration of immigration by the United States.
139

Despite the Park Service’s best efforts, public pressure remained to transform Ellis Island into a
national landmark. At the same time, the battle between New Jersey and New York persisted as

136
Blumberg, Celebrating the Immigrant, 41.
137
Ibid, 44.
138
Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, Committee on Government Operations, Discussion on the
Disposal of Ellis Island Before the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations for the Committee of Government
Operations, 88
th
Cong., 1
st
sess., September 4, 1963, 4.
139
Ibid.
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they fought over their jurisdiction of the island. To put all these issues to rest, President Lyndon
B. Johnson signed a proclamation in 1965 making Ellis Island part of the Statue of Liberty
National Monument. Along with the proclamation, President Johnson pled that Congress work to
enact an immigration reform bill, aimed at abolishing the discriminatory national quotas adopted
in 1924 and replicated in 1952.

Conclusion

The American Museum of Immigration became a failure even before it opened its doors
to the public. Yet, the creation of this museum was part of a broader conversation over
immigration policy, public history, and the Cold War. Private citizens like William Baldwin and
Du Pont spread the idea of the United States as a nation of immigration in order to bolster
American liberalism. They wanted Americans to take pride in their immigrant roots and help in
the fight against communism. Their anti-communist sentiment, however, was not enough to win
the hearts and minds of all Americans. With the possibility of an immigration museum on Ellis
Island, white ethnics fled to support the project. The next chapter will show how race and
ethnicity became a hot button issue for the American Museum of Immigration—a situation that
would cause them to lose the trust of most Americans.
By the early 1960s, most Americans had turned their attention to the American South,
with the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. as the main protagonists.
Furthermore, even after Congress enacted the Refugee Relief Act of 1953—which covered Asian
refugees and refugees who fled communist countries—the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956
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left many “freedom fighters” stranded. President Eisenhower had to admit 35,000 Hungarians as
parolees and it took Congress several years before these refugees were given the ability to
become permanent citizens. Congress’ inability to act in domestic and international incidents
marked them as irresponsible and inefficient. AMI was tied to these criticisms as they neglected
to address these issues in their own work. By the time the civil rights movement reached its
zenith and immigration reform became an inevitable step, the museum’s staff had to rethink the
narratives they promoted, stumbling over how to present immigration history through liberal
ideals as overt acts of racism flooded the American landscape.

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Aligning Narrative and Reality: Civil Rights Movement in American Museum of
Immigration’s ‘The Uprooted’ and Angel Island, 1960-1979

At the same time that the Cold War opened the doors for the creation of the American
Museum of Immigration, it gave civil rights activists and immigration reformists the ammunition
to advocate for legislative change. Since 1924, the United States had closed its doors to eastern
and southern European and Asian immigration, while maintaining Jim Crow laws that divided
the nation along racial lines.
140
Activists on both fronts argued that requiring equality abroad
could not be accomplished without taking the first steps at home. As the McCarran-Walter Act
gravely impaired the entrance of refugees from communists’ countries, the United States feared
that their domestic issues could become a national security problem. Left with little choices, the
federal government began to institute and enforce racial equality as a measure of national
security.
141
These new reforms, however, were at odds with American Museum of Immigration’s
definitions of citizenship and national belonging. When defining the United States as ‘a nation of
immigrants,’ the American Museum of Immigration emphasized the melting pot theory, stressing
that even though people came from different cultures, in the end, all would become Americans
with full rights. African Americans challenged this cold war ethos, dismissing the museum’s
framework as anachronistic and misleading for not accommodating the African American
experiences.

140
John David Skrentny, The Minority Rights Revolution. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 2002); Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy,
(Princeton University Press, 2002).
141
Ibid.
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Visibly absent from the American Museum of Immigration’s historiography was the
nation-state’s legal exclusion of Asian immigrants. As AMI became stubbornly supported of the
melting pot theory, they also ignored the fact that during the largest European immigration wave,
millions of Asian immigrants were legally sanctioned as inassimilable and therefore ineligible
for citizenship. In other words, as they exalted the United States as a “nation of immigrants,”
they also disregarded America’s history as a gatekeeping nation. AMI’s neglect could be a result
of geography as their narrative mainly accounted for the history of European immigrants, who
entered the United States through various ports along the eastern seaboard and did not include
the West Coast immigration port, Angel Island. However, within the museum, AMI designed an
exhibit titled “Pacific People,” which chronicled the contributions made by Japanese and
Chinese immigrants in the American West. This exhibit, therefore, demonstrates that they were
aware of Asian immigration. Instead I argue that their ambivalence was part of larger national
amnesia—an amnesia, which Asian American activists in the 1970s fought hard to cure.

Uprooted: The African American Immigration Ordeal

Despite the fact that it took AMI twenty years to open its doors to the public, the museum
was a well-known institution in the federal government. Since its inception, the museum worked
with various politicians to fundraise and to vet their interpretation of immigration history.
Therefore, in August of 1965, Congressman Adam C. Powell (D-NY) requested the museum’s
script. Specifically, he asked the museum to describe America’s [racial] diversity. Several
months prior, Viola Thomas, the administrative assistant at AMI, requested that the Park
Service’s head historian, answer the same question. In an internal memo, he promptly explained
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that narrating the whole story of immigration in 39 permanent exhibits was a difficult task.
Because of AMI’s historical timeline—colonial period until 1920—he stated that Latin
American immigration was eliminated from many of the exhibits, while West Indian
immigration would be exemplified through Alexander Hamilton. The Park Service historian’s
response to Latin and Caribbean immigration was one that neglected the colonial realities within
these spaces or, at the very least, ignored the racial diversity of other American countries.
In terms of African immigration, he was in the midst of creating an exhibit called “The
Uprooted” which presented their involuntary migration into the United States. Chinese and
Japanese immigration, he explained, would be presented together in an exhibit called "Pacific
People,” and it would emphasize the immigrants’ contributions to the transcontinental railroad
system and innovations in agriculture, respectively. In addition, temporary exhibits devoted to
individual groups would be installed, showing groups’ particular way of life and above all their
contributions to the "melting pot." The memo was forwarded to Congressman Powell. Powell
was enraged that the contributions of immigrants would be emphasized for most populations
except for that of African Americans.
142
He went on a national campaign to get the head
historian fired for characterizing African Americans as slaves.
Powell’s reaction to the memo, at first glance, appears odd. AMI, in some sense,
accommodated the recent changes in political climate. They made sure to represent different
ethnicities and races within their exhibit. However, Congressman Powell had come to understand
the connections between the cold war ethos and race. His stance against the AMI script was,

142
George J. Svejda, To Mrs. Viola S. Thomas (Administrative Assistant The American Museum of
Immigration, Inc.), July 14, 1965, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP; George B. Hartzog, Jr.,
To Adam C. Powell, August 24, 1965, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP; Adam C. Powell,
To A.C. Stratton, October 29, 1965, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP; A.C. Stratton, To
Adam C. Powell, November 12, 1965, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
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therefore, not one of pettiness, but rather frustration. Powell understood that under the melting
pot theory immigrants who entered the United States would, over time, become American while
contributing to American culture and life. Under this scenario, immigrants, and their descendants
would become full Americans once they married people outside of their race or ethnicity.
143
Yet,
this theory did not accurately describe the experience of African Americans, as laws explicitly
placed them on different tiers of citizenship. African Americans were denied access to
establishments, both government and commercial. Moreover, they were strictly prohibited from
marrying whites.
144
Therefore, even if African Americans had the right to marry whites, Powell
contended, under the definition set forth by the museum, and the melting pot theory, immigrants
could only become full Americans after shedding their own ethnic identity and contributing to
the American experience. By emphasizing the contributions made by others and not that of
African Americans, Powell argued that the museum was questioning African Americans’ ability
to ever fully belong to the nation or receive full citizenship rights, undermining his work and that
of the Civil Rights Movement.
Powell’s claims alarmed many AMI supporters, including the Secretary of the Interior
Steward L. Udall. His campaign also sparked a debate within the African American community.

143
Robert E. Park was the first to articulate an assimilation theory in the twentieth century. His model, however,
maintained that the assimilation of immigrants was irreversible and one-sided. Robert Ezra Park, Race and Culture
(Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1950); Warner and Srole tried to account for racial variations but maintain Park’s
model. Their contribution was to stress that “light” immigrants entered American society at a faster pace than
“darker” immigrants. W. Lloyd Warner and Leo Srole, The Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1945); It was Gordon who came in the 1950s and 1960s to assert that immigrants go through
several forms of acculturation before entering the mainstream and being totally assimilated. It was he who asserted
structural assimilation—immigrants entered societal institutions at a large scale, incorporating themselves to social
structures—and intermarriage. Milton Gordon. Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and
National Origins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963). AMI’s melting pot theory is mostly like modeled from
that of Gordon’s work on assimilation theory.
144
On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled under Loving v. Virginia that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation
laws were unconstitutional. This ruling legally ended race-based restrictions on marriage. Since Powell made his
arguments in 1965 it is reasonable to say that anti-miscegenation laws were still commonplace throughout the
country.
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Some African Americans openly debated how they fit into a narrative that emphasized one
prominent aspect of their lives. Others noted that Powell’s reaction was “uncalled for,” pointing
to the fact that “The Negro…came to America first as a slave. It is really quite a wonder to be a
slave in one century and a student, doctor, lawyer, etc. the next.”
145
Powell received letters of
support and dissent, while AMI scrambled to figure out what to do. On October 15, 1965,
President Lyndon B. Johnson inadvertently gave AMI a way to respond to the scandal when he
signed an executive proclamation that made Ellis Island part of the Statue of Liberty National
Monument. On November 12, 1965, a Park Service staff member sent Powell a letter assuring
him that “the recent addition of Ellis Island to the Statue of Liberty National Monument required
that we re-evaluate our presentation of the immigration story. This should enable us to give
added emphasis to the contributions made by all national and ethnic groups.”
146

The Park Service also made similar claims to Americans; yet, they took this declaration a
step further by emphasizing their administration of the George Washington Carver and Booker
T. Washington national monuments.
147
In Domesticating History, public historian Patricia West
asserts that the Park Service’s administration of both museums was the government’s way of
pandering to civil rights activists without disrupting national narratives of white superiority. For
instance, Washington’s stance on segregation made him an appealing figure compared to
Fredrick Douglass. When the Park Service first considered if it should place Douglass’ home
under its care, it debated whether his radical abolitionist’s views were “not of such outstanding

145
Ella M. Wray, To Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, September 27, 1965, D6215, Administrative Files,
1949-1971, RG 79, NACP.
146
A.C. Stratton, to Adam Clayton Powell, November 12, 1965, D612, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG
79, NACP.
147
Edwin C. Kenner, To Ella M. Wray, October 25, 1965, D6215, Administrative Files, 1949-1971, RG 79,
NACP.
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national significance as to warrant commemoration.”
148
Ultimately, the Park Service decided that
Washington’s memorial would be sufficient and his commemoration came at the expense of
Douglass’s. Concurrently, Washington and Carver’s moderate political views made them more
palatable to the Park Service’s notions of American democracy. In commemorating these two
African Americans, the government provided the country, and nations abroad, concrete examples
of American democracy, easing the racial tensions within the Cold War, and distorting
America’s racialized history.
For AMI, Powell’s questioning was too difficult to understand. They had honestly
believed that they justly and accurately exhibited the history of immigration within the melting
pot ethos. Many within the organization discredited Powell’s critique as a simple political stunt.
Yet, as they encountered soon after, Powell’s distrust of their script was just the beginning of the
end. For the AMI, Powell’s comments paved the way for other racial and ethnic communities to
critique the museum’s content and objectives.

Civil Rights for White Ethnics

AMI’s fight with Congressman Powell led the museum to have to defend itself against
other ethnic minorities who felt disenfranchised. Unlike Powell’s national, and highly publicized,
campaign, these groups worked within established ethnic organizations to make a concerted
effort to change the climate in AMI. However, they also learned from the strategies employed by

148
Patricia West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums (Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian, 1999): 129-157. Douglass’ home did eventually become a national historic landmark in 1962.
The Park Service took over the preservation responsibilities after the National Association of Colored Women’s
Clubs cared for the home for nearly fifty years. Therefore, it is even more interesting to note that the Park Service
employee pointed towards figures like Washington and Carver, and not Douglas.
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civil rights activists. These communities knew that the project had federal ties. More specifically,
the Polish and Italian communities petitioned their congressmen to have the museum revamp its
script to include the contributions of their respective communities. They pushed to have the
museum include historians that study their ethnic groups within the Historians’ Advisory
Committee. They mobilized across the country, but within their own communities, ensuring that
the script and exhibit be revised. However, even with the new additions and changes, AMI
remained a staunch supporter of cold war politics, without fully understanding the ramifications
of the Civil Rights Movement. This stance, ultimately, caused them to fail in the eyes of the
federal government and the American public. Without their support, AMI curbed their ability to
truly demonstrate that the United States’ position as an immigrant and democratic nation was
what made it a great nation.
Shortly after Congressman Powell’s national condemnation of the AMI hit the
newsstands, congressmen, historians, and other civic officials began to request copies of the
museum’s exhibition script. At this point, the museum staff was scrambling to find notable
African Americans, understanding that a new firestorm of complaints could erupt at any
moment. After the Park Service had pointed to historical actors like George Washington Carter
and Booker T. Washington, some museum staff knew that they needed to demonstrate that they,
too, could see the contributions of African Americans within American culture. Yet, AMI
continued to maintain the cold war ethos of American democracy. Since Carter and Washington
already had monuments dedicated in their honor, the museum decided to focus on finding people
from the arts, sports and cultural worlds. By the end of 1966, the museum wrote letters to various
sports teams including the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco Giants hoping to get any
possible images of players “in action…performing the particular service for which they are
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famous
149
.” They realized that they not only had to say that they believed that African Americans
contributed towards shaping American culture, but they had to visually prove it. For these staff
members, the most American of pastimes were football and baseball and they rationalized that
these pictures could demonstrate the American public’s acceptance of African Americans as
Americans and these men’s contribution to Americans’ satisfaction of American democracy.
Their efforts were soon halted when six months later, the Polish National Alliances
requested a copy of the museum script. In less than a month, Congressman Gerald Ford (R-MI)
forwarded them a letter he received from a constituent begging that he look into the museum’s
representation of Polish Americans. Soon after, Polish Americans from around the country sent
letters to same effect. In all of these letters, Dr. Eugene Kusielewicz, a Polish American
historian, was mentioned as having written a scathing op-ed regarding the museum’s script in a
Los Angeles-based Polish newspaper.
150
Apparently, the article was forwarded to all the Polish
newspapers around the country with a final paragraph begging its readers to contact their
respective congresspeople and complain about the AMI’s preliminary plan. The museum’s
response was to explain that the script was written by a consulting firm, which only suggested
these ideas. This response infuriated many Polish Americans. They retaliated by contacting
Secretary Stewart L. Udall directly.
To add insult to injury, many Italian Americans, upset that they might be
underrepresented, began to bombard their congressmen. Congressman Frank Annunzio (D-RI)
and Congressman Peter W. Rodino (D-NJ) took it upon themselves to aggressively campaign for

149
Wandrus, Marilyn B. “Clevaland Browns,” December 6, 1966. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service,
1785-2006. NARA, College Park; “San Francisco Giants,” December 6, 1966. RG 79: Records of the National Park
Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
150
“Oversights Noted in U.S. Immigration Museum Plans.” Polish American, June 17, 1967. AMI Papers. Ellis
Island Museum, Library; Symans, Edward A. “Hon. Gerald Ford,” July 29, 1967. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum,
Library.
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their communities’ representation within the museum.
151
These men took issue with the kinds of
contributions that the AMI script highlighted. Annunzio, specifically, claimed that as the largest
ethnic group in the United States, Italian Americans should receive more credit for the
development of the United States than just Italian American cuisine. He argued that the museum
should work towards displaying Italian Americans in a way that would “touch people’s hearts
and not their stomachs.”
152
The museum scrambled to contact Italian American, Polish
American, and other white ethnic historians to review their script and find a solution. Their
efforts, however, were not fast enough for Congress and the men began bombarding the Park
Service, impatiently demanding an explanation. By the beginning of 1968, the museum project
was halted with over 24 members of Congress expressing a personal interest in participating in
the final approval of the plan.
153
The museum’s staff decided that this problem could only be
fixed if they met with and explained their script to the congressmen directly. By the end of
spring, they organized a meeting with all of the Italian American congressmen where they would
outline…the content of the plan, discuss ideas…and leave copies of the written materials…to
review in more detail.”
154

This debacle mirrored the situation the museum had with Congressman Powell. The core
issue lay in the fact that the museum was trying to describe a situation that was based on
American ideals and not the lived experiences of most Americans. Under the melting pot theory,

151
Kent, Alan E. “Report on American Museum of Immigration Design Scheme Complaints.” American
Museum of Immigration, August 1, 1967. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum, Library; Everhart, William C. “Hon.
Frank Annunzio,” February 23, 1968. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College
Park; Everhart, William C. “Hon. Frank Annunzio,” May 3, 1968. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service,
1785-2006. NARA, College Park; Everhart, William C. “Hon. Frank Annunzio,” November 7, 1968. RG 79:
Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
152
Annunzio, Frank. “To C.P. Montgomery,” July 11, 1967. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service,
1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
153
Everhart, William C. “Hon. Peter W. Rodino, Jr.,” Feb. 29, 1968. RG 79: Records of the National Park
Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
154
Everhart, William C. “Hon. Frank Annunzio,” May 3, 1968. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service,
1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
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each individual ethnic group could and would drop their ethnic affiliations after they fully
assimilated into the American mainstream. However, this was not the reality of most individuals
who still affiliated with a specific ethnic organization or who faced everyday discrimination
because of the color of their skin. An influential study by sociologists Nathan Glazer and Daniel
Patrick Moynihan was published in 1963, completely disrupting the melting pot theory as fact. In
Beyond the Melting Pot, these sociologists examined various ethno-racial communities in New
York City. They concluded that ethnicity played a major role in the creation of communities and
the redistribution of power.
155
The complaints the museum staff received all pointed to these
realities and yet they were unwilling, or able to acknowledge this fact.
For many of those affiliated with the project, their main focus was not the individual
groups in the United States but the reputation of the nation-state itself. They were still fervently
within a cold war mindset and saw the museum as a solution against the communist threat. Yet,
the nation and the people, who this museum claimed to represent, were living in a world that
attempted to balance international threats of tyranny with the renewed fight for the equality of all
American residents. For African Americans, the Civil Rights Movement served as national
platform that helped them discuss the institutionalized racism they faced and the avenues that
government could take to dismantle these injustices. Some white ethnics supported these efforts,
especially a broad number of Jewish Americans. However, other communities pushed against
this fight for equality, claiming that they faced similar adversity and were able to pick
themselves up to the mainstream. The country as a whole was struggling with this issue and even
as the AMI staff believed they were working towards demonstrating this social context, they
lacked the true understanding of the ramifications of what this balancing act really meant.

155
Glazer, Nathan, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negros, Puerto Ricans, Jews,
Italians and Irish of New York City. M. I. T. Press, n.d.
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By 1968, it was evident that Park Service’s patience was growing thin. The whole
debacle became a nightmare for the Park Service who had previously assured the same frustrated
congressmen that the project would be finished and ready to open for the general public by 1968.
As the AMI prolonged its ability to forge ahead, the Park Service began to look for new avenues
towards finishing the project and moving on. The museum’s sluggish opening was even more
embarrassing to the incoming Nixon Administration. Nixon had staked his reputation on the
project when he was Vice President and as he entered the White House almost a decade later,
little progress had been made. As the new administration instated a new Secretary of the Interior,
George B. Hartzog, the Park Service Director, had to demonstrate that his administration had
progressed and moved all of their projects forward. Hartzog wrote the AMI requesting for an
update. Alexander Hamilton characterized their problems with various ethnic groups as “recent
interest in the AMI plan suggest[ing] that there is genuine support of the project
156
.” The
administration could not tolerate anymore soft peddling and they decided to take action. They
requested that the historians’ subcommittee meet and discuss whether the pressures from various
groups were accurate. They asked these historians to suggest a proper response to claims made
about the script.
By this point, the Park Service reinstated Thomas Pitkin as the principal historian of the
project. He wrote to the AMI and the Park Service, letting them know that the subcommittee
believed that the museum was “an immigrant museum, not an ethnic museum.” Therefore, they
believed that the museum could not do justice to all the various ethnic groups that contributed to
the American experience throughout American history, nor was it their responsibilities. With that
said, the subcommittee questioned the integrity of the sixth exhibit space, “The Reluctant

156
Hartzog, Jr., George B. “Mr. Alexader Hamilton,” February 12, 1968. RG 79: Records of the National Park
Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
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Immigrant.” They believed that the museum should reach out to African American scholars for
their input. Specifically, they felt that the museum should send the script to John Hope Franklin
and David L. Lewis for comments.
157
With the prospect of introducing the most notable African
American scholar of the time period into the mix, Viola Thomas sent a letter to the Trustees
demanding that the AMI fill a recent trustee vacancy with a black scholar. She urged them to
consider three major reasons: “(1) Good Public Relations. (2) Proximity to the possible
completion of the AMI, and therefore, public scrutiny of its board as never before. (3) The time
is right!” Her reasoning, however, fell on deaf ears.
158

In the following years, AMI revamped its script to include the contributions of African
Americans, without directly celebrating the accomplishments of any given figure. The same
could not be said for other groups who had a hall dedicated to particular individuals who helped
transform the country.
159
The cold war ethos and melting pot theory remained. The superficiality
of the museum’s response to African American and white ethnics’ demands was even more
transparent when the museum finally opened its doors to the general public in 1972.

157
Pitkin, Thomas M. “Mr. William C. Everhart,” November 2, 1969. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum,
Library.
158
Thomas, Viola S. Memo. “Mr. Alexander Hamilton, The Executive Committee.” Memo, November 6, 1969.
AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum, Library.
159
Tilden, Freeman. Memo. “Immigration Museum Script.” Memo, August 8, 1968. RG 79: Records of the
National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park;
Lenard, Casimir I. “The Honorable Rogers C.B. Morton,” October 27, 1971. RG 79: Records of the National
Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park; “American Museum of Immigration: Chronology of Exhibit Plan
Review.” American Museum of Immigration, 1972. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum, Library; Alan, Kent. “To
Walter D. Binger,” July 11, 1968. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
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Lackluster Showing: The AMI’s Fight with a New Generation of Immigration
Historians

By 1970, President Richard Nixon pushed to have the museum open to the general public
as soon as possible. On September of that year, he signed a $1.1 million appropriations bill to
have the museum project fully funded and finished.
160
After receiving the money, the staff
hurriedly finished putting the last touches on the museum and working to have it open before the
country’s bicentennial. The museum remained open until 1991, when the Ellis Island Museum
opened to the general public.
161
During these twenty years, it served to perpetuate an ideal
narrative, even as most historians, preservationists, Park Service staff, and the general public
emigrated from this ideology. It was this refusal to see the change in cultural politics that
prevented the museum from gaining the full success it had once guaranteed. However, the
terminology it circulated within the public sphere, and the goals, it had once professed remained
wedded to American society. During these twenty years, other projects embraced these goals as
their own.
President Nixon inaugurated the museum on September 26, 1972. In his speech, he
emphasized his belief that the United States was a nation of nations, stating that even as he
traveled to over eighty countries, he did not “have to cross the Atlantic or the Pacific to see the
world.” He spoke of the various contributions immigrants made to the United States in the arts,
architecture, and music, exalting that they “believed in hard work. They didn’t come here for a
handout.” In other words, Nixon pivoted these mythological immigrants as responsible citizens

160
DuPont, 3rd, Pierre S. “Mr. Horace Albright,” September 30, 1970. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum,
Library.
161
Ridenour, James M. “Mr. Alfred H. Horowitz,” January 24, 1991. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum,
Library; “Ellis Island Opening Expected to Increase Visits to Immigration Museum at Statue of Liberty.” American
Museum of Immigration. August 28, 1990. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum, Library.
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who did not need welfare programs to elevate them into middle class. This amnesia played into
his troupe of the silent majority—hard working white Americans having to pay for the inactivity
of people of color. His understanding of the museum and its role in politics, however, also held
international implications. While emphasizing the United States’ diversity as a hallmark of
freedom, he spoke of his trip to Warsaw. According to Nixon, he remembered, “thousands of
Poles in the heart of Warsaw welcoming the President of the United States and his wife with
these words, "Niech zyje Ameryka," which means, ‘Long live America.’ For Nixon, the opening
of this museum was a symbol of his work abroad. Like the museum’s trustees, he clung to the
notion that the museum was a tool for psychological warfare against communism. Moreover, like
these men, Nixon made the mistake of tokenizing the complexity of American diversity, pointing
to various national groups like Poles and Italians, and then clumping everyone from Asia as
people of the Orient.
162

Despite the fact that President Nixon inaugurated and dedicated the museum to the
general public on September 26, 1972, the museum did not receive good reviews. To try and
understand why it was failing to gather steam, AMI asked several prominent Americans to come
and evaluate the site.
163
The harshest critique came from Charles Guggenheim who repeated the
same criticisms Powell had given in 1965:
First of all...no museum, no presentation of this sort can be all encompassing. But this
museum tried and out of that decision came the exhibit's biggest problem…I specifically
was disappointed in the sections that treated Blacks, the Japanese and the Jews. I am not
saying this because they represent minorities but because the work done on these groups
is not well conceived and executed. The Jewish section becomes almost a religious
statement and therefore out of place…The massive contribution of America-Japanese to

162
Nixon, Richard. “Remarks at the Dedication of the American Museum of Immigration on Liberty Island in
New York Harbor. September 26, 1972.” Washington: United States Goverment Printing Office, 1974.
163
Bowditch, George. “Mr. Jerry D. Wagers,” January 2, 1973. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service,
1785-2006. NARA, College Park; Heacock, Walter J. “Mr. Jerry D. Wagers,” January 4, 1973. RG 79: Records of
the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
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architecture and the arts, to the contemporary American landscape is minimized…A
mistake, in my opinion. Too, I think if I were a Black man I would also be rather
unhappy…I think there is a disproportionate emphasis on slavery and not enough
emphasis on how Black culture and creativity has influenced American life. A great
opportunity lost.
164

Therefore, it was essentially AMI’s failure to acknowledge new understandings of immigration,
ethnicity, and race that became the museum’s ultimate demise. Guggenheim’s comments also
hinted that the major failing on the museum’s part was to successfully recruit minority voices to
its interpretive team. The AMI only used white ethnic and African American historians in a
superficial manner, and these exhibitions demonstrated this fact. In other words, even as the AMI
tried to save themselves from criticism while still remaining fervently entrenched in a melting
pot, cold war ethos, they did everything and nothing all at once proving Powell and Guggenheim
right.
The museum remained in the Statue of Liberty until 1991. During this period, the
museum hosted several exhibits on the lives of immigrants. As an attempt to remedy its image,
staff members coordinated with the local Chinese historical society, sponsoring events and
workshops that dealt with this population’s unique experiences.
165
The museum staff, also,
designed an exhibit that attempted to address Guggenheim’s critiques.
166
During the country’s
bicentennial celebrations, Mrs. Thomas served in several New York City history committees,

164
Guggenheim, Charles. “Mr. Jerry D. Wagers,” January 30, 1973. RG 79: Records of the National Park
Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
165
Memo. “American Museum of Immigration Monthly Report, April & May 1974.” Memo, May 1974. RG 79:
Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, Boston; Crane, Howard E. “Museum Curator’s Monthly
Report - February 1974,” Memo, February 1974. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA,
Boston.
166
Horowitz, Alfred H. Memo. “The American Museum of Immigration, Inc.” Memo, May 19, 1976. RG 79:
Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, Boston.
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ensuring the inclusion of African Americans in the retelling of the nation’s founding.
167
The
museum also helped the Smithsonian’s National American History Museum design a portion of
its exhibit, “A Nation of Nations.” This exhibit is the subject of my third chapter. Yet, as the
museum forged on, it lost its influence and power. By the 1980s, the museum staff openly
chastised the Park Service for pulling its support and letting the museum fall into disarray.
168

While the museum blamed the Park Service, outsiders could see that the Board of
Trustees was the largest liability. These men had not foreseen the civil rights’ transformation of
American nationalism. The civil rights movement forged a new nationalism that Matthew Frye
Jacobson calls “hyphenated nationalism.”
169
Under this new definition of national belonging,
white Americans began to reflect on their own roots and adopted much of the same language that
was used by African Americans to describe themselves and their heritage. AMI came about as a
means of celebrating the United States as a nation of immigrants; a message that represented the
United States as a united front against the communist threat, and a universal body beyond the
racial discourse of the civil rights movement. However, it did not give white ethnics the space to
talk about their own victimization during the first part of the twentieth century as the museum
ended its script in 1920. For many who participated in this ethnic revivalism, Ellis Island became
their landmark.
170
The space allowed white ethnics the opportunity to assert and reject their
white privilege--something AMI could not offer. As white ethnics rallied in support of Ellis
Island, they clamored the victimization of their forefathers. By the time that Ellis Island opened

167
Rivera, Leo, Louise Baggot, and Carol Banks. “Ebony Patriots: Patricipation of Blacks in the Battles of the
American Revolution Int He New York City Area, 1776-1779.” Draft. New York, NY, 1976. AMI Papers. Statue of
Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island.
168
Courter, Joseph A. “Board of Trustees--Minutes of Meeting.” American Museum of Immigration, May 12,
1987. AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum, Library. Ridenour, James M. “Mr. Alfred H. Horowitz,” January 24, 1991.
AMI Papers. Ellis Island Museum, Library.
169
Matthew Frye Jacobson, Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2008): 7-19.
170
I will cover this at great length in Chapter 3.
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in 1990, AMI’s cursory portrayal of minorities was no longer acceptable, and they could no
longer influence who was be a part of the nation and what defined an American citizen.

Revealing Chinese Exclusion as a Civil Rights Struggle
Angel Island’s first immigrant arrived on its shores on January 22, 1910. Aboard the
steamship China, Wong Chung Hong entered the facility as a Chinese merchant. He presented
his paperwork to the inspector proving that he was not of the laborer class. The United States’
Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 specified that Chinese laborers could not enter the country.
Chinese merchants and their wives were exempt from said law; therefore, Wong presented
certificates signed by the Chinese viceroy and American counsel general verifying his status as a
merchant.
171
Making a good impression on the inspectors, he was allowed to enter the United
States three days later.
172
Immigrants who could not prove their status were deported.
Unlike Ellis Island, the process to get through Angel Island was long and arduous.
Immigrants spent several days or weeks awaiting their fate. As noted by Judy Yung and Erika
Lee, “Chinese immigrants were judged solely through the terms of the Chinese exclusion laws.
Japanese, Koreans, and South Asians eventually became excluded by race-based laws, but they
were also subjected to class based and general immigration laws.”
173
Between 1910 and 1940,
over one million immigrants entered the United States through Angel Island. Those that entered
came in as merchants, the family of merchants, or paper sons.
174
While in Ellis Island, people

171
Lee and Yung, 10.
172
Lee and Yung, 1.
173
Lee and Yung, 21.
174
Another major factor was the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906. These natural disasters shred the
city to pieces including City Hall and the Hall of Records. This tragedy became a great opportunity for Chinese
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came in as immigrants; in Angel Island, immigrants became detainees. During World War II,
Angel Island also housed enemy combatants, and was closed shortly after the end of the war.
175

With the onset of the Cold War in 1946, the U.S. military no longer needed Angel Island
as a detention center for enemy combatants.
176
The federal government advertised the island as
surplus land and people near Angel Island began to wonder if it should be saved. Their
objections were not predicated on Angel Island’s immigration history. Instead, they believed that
the island made a great park. Californians had a long history of conservationism
177
. Caroline
Livermore was the most passionate about this issue within Marin County. In 1934, she formed
the Marin Planning Survey Committee and obtained funds for the county’s first Planning
Director. She, then, formed the Marin Conservation League, which worked to secure land for
parks. By the time the U.S. government advertised Angel Island in 1946, Livermore had
established several parks including the Marin Art and Garden Center. When she heard that the
federal government had placed the island on the auction block, she rallied to save it as public
recreational space.
178

immigrants. Without birth certificates, Chinese immigrants could exclaim that they were U.S.-born and there was
nothing to prove to the contrary. Inspectors, weary of the claims, asked that these men describe in detail their homes,
their families, their villages, and their journey back to their supposed home country. Many of these men stated that
they had brothers, cousins, and sons who also needed to come back. With the detailed biography in hand, many of
the Chinese men sold their information to others who were also awaiting to reach the shores of California. These
new methods of entering became known as the “paper son” system, and it created a backlog in Angel Island.
175
Elizabeth P. William, “Need an Island?” The Christian Science Monitor, July 30, 1946, 9.
176
“Army Quits Angel Island,” New York Times, 15 July 1946, 4; “War Dept. to Sell San Francisco Island as
Surplus,” The Washington Post, 5 November 1946, 2.
177
For information about the various conservation movements in California, please see David Beesley, “The
Opening of the Sierra Nevada and the Beginnings of Conservation in California 1827-1900,” California History. 75
(Winter 1996): 322-337; Alexandra Minna Stern, “California’s Eugenic Landscapes,” Eugenic Nation: Faults and
Fronters of Better Breeding in Modern America. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Benjamin Heber
Johnson, “Reconsidering Conservation,” A Companion to California History, eds. William Deverall and David
Igler. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwel, 2008).
178
Richard Walker, The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (University of
Washington Press, 2007): 88-89.
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Under Livermore’s leadership, the Marin Conservation League worked on various fronts
to ensure their success. Members, along with Livermore, convinced the local, state, and federal
governments that the island should become a protected site—free from any redevelopment
projects. To boost her success, she enlisted the help of the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and
the Nature Conservancy. Livermore had actually begun a local chapter of the Audubon Society
in order to get these bird enthusiasts on her side.
179
She also procured and received the
endorsement of Fredrick Law Olmsted, Jr., who wrote a glowing letter and possible consulting
report on her behalf to the State Park Commission in 1947.
180
Her efforts worked as she gained
support from all branches of government and the island’s auction was officially postponed so
that people at all levels could study and document the historical and cultural importance of the
island. At Livermore’s insistences, the Marin County bid to buy and preserve the island in 1949.
The National Park Service reported that the island did not truly have any national importance
since the number of immigrants entering through the Angel Island immigration port was a
“negligible proportion of the total influx of foreign peoples,” because the Chinese Exclusion Act
of 1882 and the Gentlemen’s Agreement, “erected barriers against such alien peoples.”
181
The
Park Service, therefore, concluded that Marin County should keep the island and that federal
government should remove any restrictions that would impede them from purchasing the
island.
182

179
Ibid, 89.
180
Orme Lewis, To Governor Earl Warren, 11 September 1953, National Resources Park Commission, 1953,
Administrative Files, Earl Warren Papers, California State Archives, Sacramento, CA; Fredrick Law Olmsted, Jr.,
“Angel Island Consulting Report,” (April 1947), California Marine Parks and Harbors Association Records, 1946-
1974, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley (hereto referred to as Bancroft Library).
181
Harold Epstein, “Rogers Young Supplemental comments on Fort McDowell, Angel Island” 4 Mar. 1949,
Central Classified Files, 1933-49, RG 79, NACP; Herbert Maier, To Newton B. Drury, 1 Mar. 1949, Central
Classified Files, 1933-49, RG 79, NACP.
182
Herbert Maier, “Reference Angel Island Historical Investigation,” 10 Mar. 1949, Central Classified Files,
1933-49, RG 79, NACP.
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Despite gaining the support from the federal government, and the NPS’ Director Newton
B. Drury more specifically, Marin County was unable to secure funds to ensure the regular
maintenance of the island. By the early spring of 1950, Ronald F. Lee presented Marin County a
special offer—the county could secure the island if they agreed to make ten annual installments
for the land.
183
While County Board of Supervisors mulled over the issue, Livermore lent her
money to place a hold on the island. The board was unsure if they could accept the offer, as it
would be illegal to make this purchase without voter approval under local laws. To demonstrate
her resolve, Livermore organized the Angel Island Foundation and promised that the foundation
would prevent Marin County’s taxpayers from paying for the island’s maintenance.
184
According
to the new foundation’s by-laws:
Angel Island Foundation, a non-profit corporation, seeks to preserve Angel Island for
public use as a recreational and historical area. To that end it is interested in seeing that
the island remains in the hands of the Federal Government until arrangements can be
made for its permanent administration by a public agency…. Therefore, during the
interim period or until funds are granted, the Angel Island Foundation desires to donate
funds to the National Park Service for the immediate protection and maintenance of the
island. A larger fund would provide for a program of development and use of certain
projects…[including] reforestation projects, play fields, youth centers, yachting facilities,
and a historical museum, among other possibilities…. Through the support of the public,
Angel Island Foundation will best serve the purpose for which it was founded--namely,
the highest recreational development and use of Angel Island.
185

As this statement showcases, the Angel Island Foundation was primarily concerned with
ensuring the island’s protection as a site for public use.
186

183
Lee, Ronald F. Memo. “Status of Transfer of Angel Island by GSA to Marin County (To The Director).”
Memo, March 1, 1950. RG 79: Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. NARA, College Park.
184
“Angel Island Foundation Organized,” San Francisco Chronicle, 28 June 1950, 21.
185
Angel Island Foundation, Angel Island Foundation, (San Francisco, CA: 1951), Angel Island Foundation
Committee Records, 1950-1966, Bancroft Library.
186
The Angel Island Foundation will hereto be referred to as the Foundation.
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While the Foundation fought to protect the island from developers, they also aspired to
keep the island as an exclusively elite oasis for Marin County residents. After the opening of the
Golden Gate Bridge in 1937, people in Marin County felt that they were being inundated with
tourists and new residents. The bridge had opened their secluded paradise to too many people
and within fifteen years, the population in Marin doubled.
187
By the 1950s, another bridge was
proposed. This time, the bridge would move people from San Francisco to Marin Country via
Angel Island. The Foundation, and its powerful allies, worked to table the proposal. They argued
that the island was a natural site that should be preserved from the “flood of urban street-traffic
which bridges or causeways would invite.”
188
They proposed that the island should only be
visited by boat, and not by car. This standpoint revealed the project leaders’ fervent belief in the
power of conservation as a tool of exclusivity. They knew that while most Californians could
own a car, few had access to boats. They also understood that the island could become the elite’s
new site for the consumption of nature. As environmental historian Richard Walker noted, these
residents were “keenly aware of the relation between a comely environment and land
values…[and they created] great swaths of desirable space near to where they live, in the name
of conservation.”
189
In other words, they understood that this large number of green space, so
close to home, elevated the land values in Marin County, and as altruistic as they claimed to be,
they wanted to ensure that the island retained its environmental, social, and economic values.
In order to move their conservation efforts, the Foundation focused on the island’s
historical and environmental values. Since they saw that Marin County was unable or unwilling
to secure the money to maintain the island they focused their efforts on the state and government

187
Walker, The Country in the City, 83.
188
Fredrick Law Olmsted, Jr. To J.F. Landis, 30 January 1951, Angel Island Foundation Committee Records,
1950-66, Bancroft Library.
189
Walker, 11.
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agencies that could help them.
190
They, firstly, promoted the island’s military history, primarily
focusing on its role in the Civil War and the Spanish American War. Then, they applied to the
California Division of Beaches and Park (also known as the California State Park and Recreation
Commission) for a landmark status. They exalted the island’s Ft. McDowell, a military camp that
had served as a detention center during the Spanish American War, arguing that it was the ideal
place for people to learn about the war. Though NPS Director, Newton B. Drury was now the
Director of the California agency (a position he held from 1951 until 1959), he could not grant
the Foundation their request.
191
Complicating matters for the Foundation, the Army wanted to
reconstitute the island for military purposes. They wanted to retain a portion of the island for use
as a guided missile site. Despite the California government’s rejection and the disapproval of
Livermore, the Army was able to establish a Nike missile site in 1954.
192
With the military still
actively using the island, the Foundation could not claim the whole island for recreational use.

190
Early in 1950, Marin County agreed to the offer set up by federal government; however, a month later they
rescinded. To ensure that the island remain in public hands, Caroline Livermore and Bruce Johnson, a fellow
conservationists, agreed to use their money as a placeholder. They new that the federal government had several
commercial offers and the idea of making the island the home of the United Nations was also floated about. A
month later, Marin County passed Resolution 2232, which relieved the county of any financial responsibility for the
island and notified the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of the Interior that they planed to terminate
their liability as of midnight, December 31, 1950. Ronald F. Lee, To Newton B. Drury, March 1, 1950, Records of
Director Newton B. Drury, 1940-1971, RG 79, NACP; “Supervisors Agree to Park Service Taking Angel Isle,”
Independent Journal, 26 Apr. 1950, Angel Island, Clippings, 1930-1979, Clipping and Pamphlet File Collection
(hereto referred to as Angel Island Clippings), Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library; T.F.
Bagshaw, “Resolution No. 2232: Resolution Terminating Maintenance of Angel island,” Board of Supervisors of the
County of Marin, December 28, 1950, Angel Island, 1948-1951, Orinal Document Collection, Anne T. Kent
California Room, Marin County Free Library.
191
In 1950, Newton B. Drury kept himself abreast of the Angel Island situation. As early as the summer of that
year, he predicted that the Marin County Board of Supervisors was in over its head with the project and they could
not take up the responsibility. He was then informed later that year that the Foundation was created to try and solve
the issue, but that they also lacked funds to provide fire, police, or road care. By the time, the Foundation applied,
Drury understood the fiscal hurdles that the Foundation had to endure to maintain and open the island as a public use
facilities. Newton B. Drury, To O.A. Tomlinson, 8 June 1950, Records of the Director Newton B. Drury, 1940-
1951, RG 79, NACP; Sheridan Downey, To Newton B. Drury, 5 Oct. 1950, Records of Director Newton B. Drury,
1940-1951, RG 79, NACP.
192
Clauss, Francis J. Angel Island: Jewel of San Francisco Bay. (Menlo Park, CA: Briarcliff Press, Inc., 1982),
75-76.
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The Foundation, the State of California, and the federal government all worked together
to come to a compromise. They decided that the island would be transferred over to the State
Park Commission with the condition that certain sites remain under military supervision. When
the military felt it no longer needed the island, the rest of Angel Island would be handed over to
the State Commission so that it could be used for recreational activities.
193
Under this new plan,
the Foundation downplayed the island’s historical value and instead focused on its recreational
potential. Livermore organized an Angel Island Day, which was free and open to the general
public.
194
Though the Angel Island Foundation was successful in preventing the expansion of the
Army’s jurisdiction, part of the island remained under federal rule. Once the missiles were
dismantled, the federal government handed over the rest of Angel Island to California.
Meanwhile, Livermore met with the California State Park system and developed blueprints for
the island that included several hiking paths, picnic areas, a museum, a visitor center, and a
boating dock. California declared the entire island a state park in 1963. According to her son, his
mother had a vision for the island, “Someday boats will go there and thousands of people,
too.”
195

Under the new plans, California proposed to demolish Angel Island’s immigration
buildings.
196
Race and class played a major role in these circumstances. In 1965, the Inter-Club
Yacht Association wrote a letter to the California Marine Parks and Harbors Association

193
Caroline Livermore, To Governor Earl Warren, September 18, 1953, Department of Natural Resources,
Goodwin J. Knight Papers, California State Archives; Earl Warren, To Douglas McKay, September 21, 1953,
Department of Natural Resources, Goodwin J. Knight Papers, California State Archives; Orme Lewis, To Goodwin
J. Knight, February 5, 1955, Department of Natural Resources, Goodwin J. Knight Papers, California State
Archives.
194
Angel Island Day Committee, “Official Souvenir Program: Angel Island Day,” (CA: Angel Island
Foundation, Pacific Maritime Academy and Allied Organizations, September 21, 1952); Angel Island Foundation,
“A Report on an Orderly and Reasonable Program of Development and Recreation Activities for Angel Island, San
Francisco Bay, California,” February 18, 1953, Angel Island Foundation Committee Records, 1950-1966, Bancroft
Library.
195
Walker, 88-89.
196
After the World War II, the federal government sold the island to California as surplus land.
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demanding that the barracks be reconfigured for California’s yachtsmen. They proposed that the
association modify the space “into a modern yacht mooring and give the yachtsmen a safe haven
to go for a day or weekend cruise on shore picnic.”
197
Furthermore, local residents viewed Ellis
Island as the immigration historic landmark and Angel Island as a smaller replica. Harold
Epstein, a Park Service staff member, most aptly synthesized this attitude, stating that the
number of “Chinese [immigrants] entering the United States since the last decade of the 19th
century has been negligible. To compare Angel Island to Ellis Island, he claimed, “is merely a
gesture to local pride.”
198
In order words, Angel Island’s immigration barracks was dispensable.
By 1969, the CA Parks Service set a plan that required the removal of all the buildings for the
development of a campsite and camp store.
199
Without the proper funding, the plan was tabled
until further notice from the California legislature.
Park Ranger Alexander Weiss changed the course of this history. A year after Angel
Island’s plans were submitted, Weiss, a park ranger for the California State Parks, entered and
inspected the immigration barracks. By 1970, Angel Island was opened but the barracks were
closed to the public. Inside, Weiss found Chinese calligraphy throughout the walls.
200
He quickly
informed his supervisors about his discovery. He understood the cultural and historical
significance of the calligraphy but his supervisors told him that it was just “graffiti” on the walls.
Park employees were not as enthusiastic as Weiss to save the barracks. Enraged, Weiss contacted
Asian Americans activists in the San Francisco area. By 1970, the civil rights movement had

197
Letter Mrs. Harter G. Hudson
198
Letter Rogers Young Supplemental comments on Fort McDowell, Angel Island.
199
Angel Island State Park The Plan for Angel Island 1969-OCR S (231-359.1), 3-4.
200
“Angel Island Chinese Left Record of Ordeal on Walls.” Independent Journal. August 5, 1980. Clipping and
Pamphlet File Collection. Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library; Wong, Ken. “Anguished
Voices from Angel Island’s Dark Past.” San Francisco Chronicle. September 3, 1980, sec. E. Clipping and
Pamphlet File Collection. Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library; D’Emilio, Frances. “The
Secret Hell of Angel Island: The Golden Gate Lost Its Lustre When Sweet Hopes Turned Bitter.” American West,
June 1984. Clipping and Pamphlet File Collection. Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library.
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inspired Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans to organize against the
injustices they faced. In the Bay Area, Asian Americans were one of the most vocal groups in
favor of civil rights and opposed to the Vietnam War. Therefore Weiss’s first reaction was to
contact local activists. He informed them that the immigration buildings were in disrepair: “I told
them they’re going to burn it. So if you want to save it, write letters to the State Park
Commission.”
201

Revealing the Gatekeeping Nation

Weiss first contacted his biology professor, George Araki, at the San Francisco State
College. He explained the situation to his professor and asked that he come to visit and see the
calligraphy for himself. Weiss was unsure about the language written on the wall but he
understood that it was historically significant. Araki remembered that his mother had gone
through Angel Island as a picture bride and told his wife, Nancy, about his student’s concern.
She contacted her friend, Mak Takahashi. Together, they travelled to the island to photograph
and document the barrack walls.
202
To make sense of what they saw, these men contacted local
Asian American activists, journalists, and historians to make sense of what they had found.
Within a few years, a coalition of scholars and activists was born. They fought to save the Angel
Island immigration station barracks from demolition, ensuring that the nation’s history, include
evidence of its role as a gatekeeping nation.

201
Lee and Yung, 303.
202
Connie Young Yu. Interview by Monica Pelayo. Transcript, June 1, 2012.
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After making three full trips, Mak Takahashi was able to document all of the calligraphy
on the barrack walls. He, then, approached various Asian American organizations so that he
could show what Weiss had discovered. Around the same time, the Chinese American
community in San Francisco was in a heated debate with the city. The lot that once held the Hall
of Justice had lain vacant for several years. The Chinese American Chamber of Commerce
proposed to have the city sell the land to the Holiday Inn so that it could be used to generate
money for the adjacent Chinatown.
203
The Asian People’s Coalition opposed the plan as they felt
the land would be better used as a community center or for affordable housing. This organization
worked with the Chinese Culture Foundation and by 1973, the two groups reached a
compromise. The city would lease the land to the Holiday Inn with the condition that a space be
made for the Chinese American community.
204
From this compromise, the Chinese Culture
Center was born. The center’s mission was to disseminate information about Chinese American
history to the general public. With their mission in mind, they approached Mak Takahashi and
asked him to exhibit his photographs within their facility.
Takahashi’s exhibit, “Three Generations of Chinese: East and West” (1974), created a
large buzz among the various Asian American organizations in the Bay Area.
205
This renewed
awareness prompted scholars like Ronald Takaki to travel the academic circuit hoping to build
more awareness about the barracks and the peril they faced. Members from the Concerned Asian
Scholars, like local scholar Connie Yu Young, community members like Paul Chow, and
member from the East Bay Asians for Community Action, like journalist Chris Chow, heard that

203
Yeh, Chiou-Ling. Making an American Festival: Chinese New Year in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 138-141; and, Choy, Philip P. San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide
to Its History and Architecture. (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2012), 66-67.
204
Ibid.
205
Him Mark Lai. “Chinese American Studies: A Historical Survey,” Chinese America: History and
Perspectives. (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society, 1988), 21; McLean, Kathleen. “Museum Exhibitions and
the Dynamics of Dialogue.” Daedalus 128, no. 3 (July 1, 1999): 91.
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the CA State Parks had plans of demolishing the buildings. They began to work to save the
barracks and within a year they founded the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical
Advisory Committee (AIISHAC).
206
This committee made it its mission to ensure that
momentum around the barracks would not fade. They worked, within their respective
professions, to document the importance of the immigration station, tying it to the larger
narratives of American history, Chinese American history, and immigration policies. They also
began to hold field trips to the island, initiating a dialog about the past between earlier and new
generations of Chinese Americans within the Bay Area.
Within the scramble to save the barracks from demolition, AIISHAC lobbied for support
from the state government. For instance, Paul Chow used his influence as a civil engineer in the
California Department of Transportation, CalTrans, to advocate for governmental intervention.
There were many instances in which he used his mild temper and bureaucratic connections to
navigate the system.
207
Chris Chow recalls how Paul Chow explained to his colleagues that he
could be the middle man, and translate the animus of his community or that they could directly
try and solve the issue themselves. His friends at the state level chose to work with Paul rather
than confront his rowdy activist friends.
208
Community activists also initiated a successful letter
campaign, targeting the Director of Department of Parks and Recreation, Herbert Rhodes. Asian
immigrants wrote many of these letters, stressing the importance of the immigration barracks to
their history as immigrants.
209
Paul Chow also used his personal history to demonstrate the need

206
Pelayo, Monica. Chris Chow. Transcript, June 9, 2012.
207
Pelayo, Monica. Chris Chow. Transcript, June 9, 2012; Connie Young Yu. Interview by Monica Pelayo.
Transcript, June 1, 2012.
208
Ibid.
209
Chan, Sally. “Mr. Herbert Rhodes,” January 26, 1976. Angel Island, General Correspondence. California
State Parks, Central Records; Lui, Theresa. “Mr. Herbert Rhodes,” January 26, 1976. Angel Island, General
Correspondence. California State Parks, Central Records; Shyn, Arlen. “Mr. Herbert Rhodes,” January 27, 1976.
Angel Island, General Correspondence. California State Parks, Central Records; Szu, Monica. “Mr. Herbert
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for the barracks’ preservation. This strategy differed extensively from African Americans, who
were really only represented by one Congressman.
The committee also sought the moral support of the general public under a three-prong
strategy. The first strategy was specifically targeted towards the Chinese American community.
Here, community activists worked to translate the calligraphy on the walls. Most of the poems
were written in Chinese, giving the elder community members the opportunity to participate in
this preservation project. Young Chinese American historians Judy Yung and Him Mark Lai,
with poet Genny Lim, dedicated their time to translating the poems in Building 317 of the Angel
Island barracks. To ensure success, they sought the help of the Bay Area’s native Chinese. In this
way, these young men and women were able to gain the support of their community.
210
The
second strand focused on spreading the word to all Bay Area residents. Chris Chow used his
journalism skills to document the activists’ efforts. He also used his connections to the larger
public media in order to disseminate specific efforts, like those of Paul Chow, and his
willingness to lead public tours around the barracks.
211
According to Chris Chow, this history
“needs to be told from our perspective, you know, because it’s been totally whitewashed and we
need to get people’s stories now while they’re still around and our stories need to be told from…
by us because it’s not just one-sided.”
212
Their grassroots efforts helped fortify the extended
Asians American network within the Bay Area. Under this strategy, activists were able to gain
the support of architects, engineers, local historians, and California politicians.

Rhodes,” January 27, 1976. Angel Island, General Correspondence. California State Parks, Central Records; and,
Hsu, Agnes. “Mr. Herbert Rhodes,” January 29, 1976. Angel Island, General Correspondence. California State
Parks, Central Records.
210
This academic and community activism culminated with the publication of these poems. Please see,
211
Newspapers in California, which reach a broader audience, began to publish stories about Angel Island,
constantly referring to Chow’s walking tours. Charles Hillinger. “History Etched on Barrack Walls.” Los Angeles
Times, October 10, 1976; and, Pat. Angle. “In Pursuit of the Truth.” Independent Journal. April 26, 1979. Clipping
and Pamphlet File Collection. Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library.
212
Yung and Lee, 91.
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The third prong of the strategy was about bringing public awareness to a wider academic
audience. This strategy involved people like Connie Young Yu, Him Mark Lai, and Judy Yung.
They worked to have this history inserted into larger, and national, historical narratives about
immigration, Asian American history, and ethnic studies. Similar to other strategies, these men
and women tapped into their networks, gaining the moral and financial support of Chinese
Americans and American historians, alike. Two of the most prominent figures on this front were
Him Mark Lai and Judy Yung. Lai was a trained mechanic engineer who took history courses
and taught himself how to conduct historical research. By the mid-1960s, he joined the Chinese
Historical Society of America and volunteered for the organization, Chinese for Affirmative
Action (CAA). These activities led him to for the Chinese Culture Foundation, which founded
the Chinese Cultural Center.
213
By the 1970s, he was renowned for his achievements and
research in Chinese American history. This opened the for to the academic world, leading him to
co-teach courses on the subject at the San Francisco State University, University of California,
Berkeley, and the City College of San Francisco. He also published several pieces on the
subject.
214
Yung came to this work from a different career. She was a librarian in Oakland and
San Francisco. She saw the potential of the library system as a tool for her community and
pioneered the development of collections of Asian language materials for the Asian American

213
Yung, Judy, and Him Mark Lai. “Him Mark Lai: Reclaiming Chinese American History.” The Public
Historian 25, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 51–69.
214
As editor of the East/West: Chinese American Journal, Him Mark Lai regularly contributed scholarship of
his own. During the first five years as editor, he wrote over twenty articles on history related the Chinese American
experience. In addition to this he published a syllabus for historians thinking of teaching Chinese American history.
He also wrote articles for other Chinese American publications. A History of the Chinese in California: A Syllabus.
With Thomas W. Chinn and Philip P. Choy. San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1969. Lai, Him
Mark. “A Historical Survey of Organizations of the Left Among the Chinese in America.” Bulletin of Concerned
Asian Scholars 4, no. 3 (Fall 1972): 10–20;Lai, Him Mark. “A Historical Survey of the Chinese Left in America.” In
Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America, 63–80. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Asian American Studies Center,
1976.
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community.
215
Her work led her to work for the East West newspaper as an editor, while she
received her PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. After receiving her doctoral degree, she
moved to UC Santa Cruz where she founded the university’s Asian American Studies program.
Both Yung and Lai were legitimate scholars in the academic world, and this elevated the status
of the community activism and that of their Chinese American peers.
The most evident aspect of this strategy is the civil right movement’s influence and
legacy. Many of the people working to save Angel Island were involved with the Chinese
Historical Society, the Chinese for Affirmative Action, and the Chinese Cultural Center. There
were also people from East Bay Asians for Community Action and other ethnic-based
organizations that were directly involved with improving the well-being of Asian American
residents. Many of these activists also linked their struggles to the larger third world movements,
which saw themselves as being part of the third-world movement, aligning the injustices they
faced to those occurring abroad.
216
In other words, within this web, Asian American activists
were working to ensure that all of the rights of Chinese Americans were met—from their lived
experiences to their legacies.
By 1974, their efforts culminated in the creation of the China Cove Historical Advisory
Committee, later reinstating the original name, the Angel Island Immigrant Station Advisory
Committee (AIISHAC). Assemblyman John Foran, a state legislator from the Bay Area, teamed
up with the Chinese American community and demanded that the state legislature create this
committee and freeze the current plans for Angel Island.
217
His blockade, however, was

215
“Chinese American Heroines: Judy Yung.” Asian Week. April 11, 2009.
216
Pelayo, Monica. Chris Chow. Transcript, June 9, 2012; Connie Young Yu. Interview by Monica Pelayo.
Transcript, June 1, 2012.
217
Foran, John F. Assembly Resolution Relative to China Cove, HR 205. 1974.
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inconsequential as the official plan had remained stalled by the lack of state funding. To ensure
that the China Cove Committee would not suffer from the same fate, he used his status as the
Chair of the Ways and Means Committee to appropriate funding for the committee. The
committee included Paul Chow, Him Mark Lai, Connie Yu Young, Chris Chow, Philip Choy
(architect), Ling-Chi Wang (scholar), Lawrence Jue (naval architect), Henry Der (CAA activist),
George Leong Suey (Chinese American Citizens Alliance President), and Po Wong (Chinese
Newcomers Service Center Director).
218

With the committee established, AIISHAC worked to create a report that argued for the
preservation and stabilization of the Angel Island immigration barracks. In order to create this
report, AIISHAC contacted the CA State Parks to ensure that the buildings were stable and safe
from demolition. While the CA State Parks had always had preservation as part of its mission, its
budgets were regulated by California politicians. Like the National Park Service, California’s
park system was at the mercy of the latest political trend. In order to survive, they created an in-
house laissez-faire policy.
219
They ensured that protected buildings and monuments were not
demolished, but they did little to ensure their safety. The questions from AIISHAC were,
therefore, daunting. They informed the committee that their request could only be feasible if they
had the State Legislature committee monies that could specifically go towards the restoration and
stabillization of these buildings. And even then, the task would be daunting since the 1969 Plan
required the CA State Parks to demolish those buildings and replace them with picnic grounds.
220

Therefore, along with monies, AIISHAC needed to create a new plan that would require the
protection of the retention barracks and their surroundings.

218
Attached to the House Resolution is a list committee members. Connie Young Yu provided their affiliation.
219
Ben Fenkell. Phone Interview by author. June 7, 2012.
220
Heinze, Herbert L. Angel Island Master Plan:1969. (Sacramento, Calif.: Department of Parks and
Recreation/Division of Beaches and Parks, June 1962.) Parks & Recreation. California State Archives.
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In the same fashion as before, AIISHAC mobilized its members to use their connections
and find the information needed to make the strongest case for the preservation of Angel Island’s
immigration barracks. The committee turned to Japanese American activists who were busy
working on preserving the internment camps at Manzanar and Tule Lake. They appointed Isami
Waugh, an activist who was working to preserve Manzanar as a California Historic Landmark,
and an ad hoc committee member. Along with Waugh, Ron Takaki, and other Japanese
American activists joined to listen to the conversations taking place.
221
Having a committee that
was ethnically diverse allowed the members to make the case that site was important to all
Americans, beyond just the Chinese American community.
222
By 1976, the report was ready.
In the report, AIISHAC made the case for restoring the barracks and designating them a
national landmark. They pointed to the barracks as a key site for the millions of Asian
immigrants who entered the United States from 1910 to 1940. They also compared the
significance of the Angel Island to that of Ellis Island, pointing to its historical value as a site
that can detail the experiences of pioneering immigrants, mostly Chinese and Japanese. These
immigrants and their children, they observed out, were entering the country for the same reasons
that others did before them: “to settle in a land that had been call Gum Sahn, the Golden
Mountain, ‘the land of the free, the home of the brave.’”
223
As they made their case they
contrasted the experiences of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island and Angel Island.

221
“Ad-Hoc Committee for the Preservation of the Detention Barracks at Angel Island,” Minutes for July 8,
1974. Personal Papers, Judy Yung.
222
While the committee’s practices remained inline with their progressive agenda, in many aspects, the
members still continued to hold a patriarchial hierachy. This observation is not to say that there were consciously
trying to isolate the female voice. In fact, Chris Chow notes that he requested help from Connie Yu Young because
he realized that the preservation work was mostly done by men. Rather, I note this because I want to point to the fact
that these men and women understood that diversity needed to be achieved at all levels, from race and ethnicity to
gender.
223
Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee. “Report and Recommendations on Angel
Island Immigration Station.” January 1976. Personal Papers, Judy Yung.
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They noted that the barracks were prisons where people were detained for weeks, months, and
even years at a time. It is this experience that drove many immigrants to feel shame and despair,
with some committing suicide as a form of freedom. Others wrote poems.
224

These poems, located in Building 317 and written in Japanese and Chinese, were the
most compelling aspect of the barracks, according to the report. They could help historians
understand the social effects of the exclusionary immigration policies that engulfed the
immigration system for close to a hundred years. In these poems, historians can have a window
into the lives a people, whose history was mostly ignored or buried in the past. Yet, as the report
noted, the destruction of the site would mean the removal of major historical resource that could
be used by Asian American scholars, some of whom served on the committee.
The report also chronicled the grassroots work of the committee within the Bay Area.
They showed how the work helped begin a public conversation, where none had existed. They
pointed to the hundreds of tours they led, helping “Asian peoples…rediscover their heritage
here.”
225
They also note that many of these tours were diverse, both in ethnicity and in age. The
most poignant example is that of Howard Tom. Tom had served as a member of commission
surveying Angel Island for the State Parks System in 1967. As an immigrant from China, he
asked his fellow commissioners to take him to the immigration barracks where he has stayed
when he entered the country in 1931. People told him that this immigration station did not exist;
yet by 1975, there he was in front of the barracks, taking a tour. Tom was overcome with joy and
he exclaimed, “This is it! I was here!”
226
He was excited to see that this site could become a

224
Ibid.
225
Ibid.
226
Ibid.
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national treasure as he believed that his experience in the barracks molded him and his
understanding of his new adopted country.
As the committee reviewed several courses of action, it concluded that the barracks
should be made available, “for study and visitation by scholars and the general public.”
227
They
argued that the Department of Parks and Rec should take direct actions to make the building
accessible, and prevent further structural deterioration caused by nature or human intervention.
The committee recommended the full restoration of the barracks and the display of the
inscriptions. They calculated that this kind of retrofit would cost the state $250,000, which
$230,000 of which would be used to fit the building for public occupancy
228
. The rest of the
monies would be used to properly conserve and display the wall inscriptions. Once this
immediate phase was successfully accomplished, then the Park System should look into
constructing a visitor center that would have exhibits contextualizing the historical importance of
the site. In addition to this construction, the committee believed that the surrounding debris
needed to be cleaned and a safe, gravel path should be paved to improve public access. Lastly,
they asked that the system think of staffing the site with a park ranger, specifically to help secure
the site and to serve as an interpreter of the site to the general public. AIISHAC concluded that
all of this work should go towards their ultimate goal of making the Angel Island barracks into a
national historic landmark. To ensure that visitors understand the national and local importance,
they requested that the park system create a memorial to those who passed away from disease or
suicide at the immigration station. This work would allow present and future generations
understand the historical significance of the site.

227
Ibid.
228
Ibid.
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In July 1976, Governor Jerry Brown designated the island a state landmark.
229
This
designation piqued the interests of non-Asians locally and nationally. A swarm of articles
profiling Chinese Americans’ families and their experiences at Angel Island began to appear in
publications across the country. In one article, Charles Jung, an attorney who had served as an
interpreter in Angel Island from 1926 to 1930, argued that the immigration station was filled
with suffering and misery but this reason was what made, “remembering and reconstructing our
past immigration history…all the more necessary.”
230
This renewed publicity also inspired local
whites to interrogate this history in different ways. In one instance, a local artist named Suzanne
Lacy paired up with a local Chinese American actress named Kathleen Chang. The woman
created a live performance that dealt with the racial tensions that arose between Chinese women
interned at the immigration station and the missionary women who worked there.
231
In 1977,
they performed among the hundreds of visitors at the island expecting to picnic and spend a
relaxing day.
Another major projected was realized in 1979, with the cooperation of AIISHAC. After
hearing about Angel Island in the newspapers, Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron approached the
organization to donate a monument to the island.
232
As a sculptor, he wanted to create a
monument that commemorated the lived experiences of those went through Angel Island. As a
restaurateur, he wanted to show his appreciation for the thousands of Asian Americans who

229
Phillip King Brown. “San Francisco Bay’s Angel Isle.” New York Times (1923-Current File), August 27,
1967.
230
Yu, Connie Young. “Rediscovered Voices: Chinese Immigrants and Angel Island.” Amerasia Journal 4, no.
2 (1977): 123–139.
231
Lacy, Suzanne, and Kathy Chang. The Life and Times of Donaldina Cameron. Live Performance, October
29, 1977. Lynn Hershman-Leeson Papers. Special Collections, Stanford University.
232
“The Day the Angels Returned.” San Francisco Business. June 1979. AIISF Press Clippings, 1990-1999.
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation Papers.
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worked in his company, and who felt he owed as great employees.
233
AIISHAC was skeptical
about the project but he won them over. They decided to have a poetry content and they posted
the contest rules in all the local Chinese newspapers. The grand prize would be a thousand
dollars and the engraving of the poem on the monument. By 1978, the committee had a winner.
Ngoot P. Chin was a veteran who wrote a poem that succinctly characterized the experience of
many—“Leaving their homes and villages, they crossed the ocean/Only to endure confinement
in these barracks/Conquering frontiers and barriers/they pioneered/A new life by the Golden
Gate.”
234
By early 1979, the monument was complete and Bergeron worked with AIISHAC to
ensure that everybody was invited to the opening ceremony. Po Wong found past detainees and
invited them, with their families.
235
Bergeron had one of his employees advertise on an airline
magazine. On April 28
th
, 1979, Ngoot P. Chin was awarded his grand prize, though he reinvested
the money back into Angel Island. The opening ceremony also honored Alexander Weiss, who
discovered the calligraphy on the walls, and the countless detainees who attended the unveiling
of the monument.
236

After the 1979 ceremony, AIISHAC worked with the Park Systems to open an
interpretive center. At the forefront of these efforts was Paul Chow. He held Chinese banquets
throughout in Chinatown to entice community members to donate money towards the efforts. He
also held public walking tours, working with the park system staff to create the most accurate
and awe-inspiring experiences for visitors. By February 1983, the immigration barracks were
officially opened to the public as an interpretive center. To ensure the upkeep and continued

233
Connie Young Yu. Interview by Monica Pelayo. Transcript, June 1, 2012.
234
Yung and Lee, 91.
235
Connie Young Yu. Interview by Monica Pelayo. Transcript, June 1, 2012.
236
“The Day the Angels Returned.” San Francisco Business. June 1979. AIISF Press Clippings, 1990-1999.
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation Papers.
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investment of community members, Paul Chow formed the Angel Island Immigration Station
Foundation (AIISF).
237
On the top of his list was to ensure the proper preservation of the
barracks and to rally national support for Angel Island. To make this point clear to most
spectators, Paul Chow worked to have a citizenship ceremony at the immigration station. On
1986, 107 U.S. residents swore allegiance to the United States and became citizens in front of the
barracks. Among the people, whose ages ranged from 11 to 82 and who came from Asian,
Europe, Canada, the Pacific Islands, and Latin America, was Kum In Lew. He had been detained
at Angel Island in 1931 and he expressed his desire to be a part of this country despite the
cruelties of his past.
238

Conclusion

Both the backlash that AMI faced and the preservation efforts at Angel Island
demonstrated that the narrative of “a nation of immigrants” was invested in a particular type of
assimilation narrative. This narrative did not take into account the myriad of experiences that
confronted first- and second-generation immigrants, the institutional discrimination encountered
by racial minorities, nor their continued struggles for equality. Furthermore, even as the AMI
attempted to address these histories, it fell short. Their ineptitude derived from the organization’s
lack of diversity and strong allegiance to a cold war ethos that required them to describe the
United States as a united front. These factors rendered them unable to show the varied and

237
Angel Island Association. “Association Nominates Paul Chow for ‘Take Pride in America Award’.” Herald.
1992, Winter edition, sec. 6-8. Bancroft Library.
238
Leary, Kevin. “107 New Citizens on Angel Island.” San Francisco Chronicle. May 17, 1986. Clipping and
Pamphlet File Collection. Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library.
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multifaceted realities of people outside of the melting pot narrative. Yet, even as the AMI fell
short, white ethnics, African Americans, and Asian Americans challenged the status quo. Asian
Americans in San Francisco expressed their displeasure with their history’s treatment and fought
to have their communities’ experiences acknowledged and preserved. They showed that even
when institutions like the AMI attempted to whitewash their histories, they were still able to push
forward and have their histories acknowledged as important and relevant.

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The Rise of Symbolic Ethnicity and White Ethnics’ Plymouth Rock: Bicentennial
Celebrations at Ellis Island and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History and
Technology

Between 1976 and 1992, the United States government celebrated several anniversaries;
among them was the country’s bicentennial. To prepare, private citizens and government
officials began to work together in 1971 in order to ensure that festivities properly
commemorated the country’s two hundredth anniversary. Capitalizing on these celebrations,
bicentennial commissions throughout the country, and within the federal government, made
concerted efforts to emphasize American diversity, and more specifically, immigration. They
argued that immigrants were major contributors to American democratic ideals and the United
States at large. Ellis Island became a focal site for celebrants who sought to fold the immigrant
narrative with the history of the American Revolution and the Early Republic. President Richard
Nixon contributed to these festivities and narratives. When President Nixon traveled to Liberty
Island to inaugurate the American Museum of Immigration, he emphasized the importance of the
museum’s narrative as the United States completed its second century as a nation. When he left
the museum’s grand opening in his helicopter, he expressed his interest in rehabilitating Ellis
Island in time for the nation’s bicentennial celebration in July 1976.
As we saw in chapter two, civil and ethnic organizations objected to rhetorical claims that
asserted the melting pot narrative. These groups pointed to their current-day collective struggles
for civil rights as evidence that not everyone was assimilated or accepted into the American
mainstream. They further contended that many ethnic contributions were not always valued nor
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respected. The publication and acceptance of Beyond the Melting Pot further affirmed the fact
that even if all immigrants, and their children, became part of the mainstream, these Americans
felt strong ties to their ethnic identities. By 1979, sociologist Herbert Gans came to see that the
ways in which white ethnics identified with their collective histories were different from that of
African Americans. Unlike most African Americans, white ethnics were third-generation
immigrants who were upwardly mobile and who used their ethnic symbols as a direct way of
being ethnic—“ethnicity takes on an expressive rather than instrumental function in people's
lives, becoming more of a leisure-time activity and losing its relevance, say, to earning a living
or regulating family life.” As such, he classified this form of ethnic identification as symbolic
ethnicity. Gans found that museums, memorials, and other public history institutions became
important depositories of white ethnic’s ancestral memories, fusing ethnic nostalgia with the
Americanization of immigrants’ past.
This chapter examines how museums and memorials became the instruments of symbolic
ethnicity for white ethnics. Focusing on the country’s bicentennial celebrations, this chapter
extrapolates that Ellis Island served as the symbolic genesis for white ethnics, and that its
preservation, and subsequent integration into the American landscape, became a means for white
ethnics to express their ethnic roots at a national level. Furthermore, I demonstrate that
government officials capitalized on white ethnics’ sentiments to win over their support, using the
country’s bicentennial anniversary, and subsequent milestones, to fold their preservation efforts
of the immigration station into larger narratives about American exceptionalism. These efforts,
therefore, were not transferred into a focus on Ellis Island and the eventual demise of the
American Museum of Immigration.

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The New Plymouth Rock

President Nixon was not the first American president to attempt to salvage Ellis Island. In
1965, President Johnson added Ellis Island to the Statue of Liberty Historical Monument,
baffling the Park Service staff. They had dedicated so much time and resources into the creation
of the American Museum of Immigration (AMI) at the base of the Statue of Liberty, and yet the
descendants of those who went through the east coast immigration station demanded that a
museum be created on Ellis Island to commemorate their experiences. Many Park Service
officials felt uncomfortable operating two sites, which depicted the same story. The AMI
reminded the Park Service that it was the museum’s job to interpret American immigration
history. Yet, both the Park Service and the AMI had promised white ethnics that their issues with
the museum would be addressed with the addition of Ellis Island. With few options available,
the Park Service decided to turn the island into a memorial park.
The Park Service contacted architect Philip Johnson to redesign Ellis Island as a
memorial park for the American public. By the end of 1965, Johnson had a plan. On the steps of
the Federal Hall in New York City, he revealed that he would leave the Ellis Island immigration
station as it was, ensuring that it remained as “historic ruins” of New York’s immigration past.
Around the station, he would install a wall with the names of the 16 million people who
immigrated through the station. To insure that the memorial’s sentiments tied to those in the
AMI, Park Service officials asked that one building be retrofitted to show a documentary about
the immigration depot. Another building would underscore the processing of the new immigrants
passing through Ellis Island.
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While the Park Service adored the idea, the American public did not. The press
editorialized, calling it “ugly,” “romanticism run riot,” and a “monstrous gas tank.” The New
York Times made a point to critique the “Wall of Sixteen Million,” reminding its readers that
walls “are built to exclude, as Berlin’s Wall of Shame…[while] Ellis Island was America’s
gateway.” For the American mainstream, and specifically white ethnics, the Johnson Plan did
not ascribe to their notions of Ellis Island’s past. Ellis Island, as they understood it, was not a
mere repository of the past, but rather a “golden door” for European immigrants. They saw Ellis
Island as a monument that embodied their social history, and countered AMI’s “great man”
history. Therefore, Americans expected the memorial park to encapsulate the trials and
tribulations of European immigrants, whilst acknowledging their resilience. These imaginings
went against Johnson’s attempt to somberly depict the island’s immigrant past.
Popular culture also influenced the overwhelming rejection of the Johnson Plan.
Historians have recently pointed to the 1970s television program, Roots, and the consequential
interest in genealogy as evidence of these sentiments. Yet, the interest in the Roots phenomena
arose after the announcement of the Johnson Plan. Therefore, the public’s investment in Ellis
Island can be more closely tied to NBC’s Project XX, which ran between 1950 and 1967. This
television-theme-documentary series consisted of thirteen one-hour-long episodes, with each
episode chronicling the life of an historical person or narrating the various aspects of an
historical event. Project XX served as NBC’s anti-communist programming, using American
historical themes to reinforce national mythologies of American democracy and prowess. Each
year, NBC debuted a new episode, while rerunning the older episodes throughout the year.
According to film historian Daniel Marcus, this series was one of the first televised presentations
of American history that worked “within the dominant historiographic school of the time in
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creating a past that did little ideologically to challenge the present.” Alexander Scourby, a Greek
American voice actor, served as the series narrator. With the exception of the last episode, his
voiced echoed American sentimentalism and pride.
In 1967, Jose Ferrer starred in Project XX’s last episode, “The Island Called Ellis.” This
program examined Ellis Island’s significance as an immigrant port. During his retelling of this
history, Ferrer described the port as the American genesis for millions of American families. As
Donald B. Hyatt, the program’s producer and director, put it, the immigrant port “echoes of a
vibrant past. As Jose Ferrer wanders through Ellis Island, the story of immigration unfolds…we
will see how and why the immigrants came, the building and spreading out into America, the
contributions they brought, the prejudice they experienced.” This narrative highlighted white
ethnics’ interpretation of Ellis Island as a dynamic space, which needed to be glorified and
celebrated. Johnson’s Plan, however, strayed away from this depiction, asking its guests to
immerse themselves in a lost relic. Therefore, Americans shunned the project for not placing
enough reverence on the social history of the space. People, visiting Ellis Island under the
Johnson Plan, would not have the opportunity to experience the trials and tribulations faced by
the immigrants during Ellis Island’s peak in operation. If Ellis Island was to remain in shambles,
then the site would not have the right kind of sentimentalism and authenticity. For these
opponents, the popular media appeared to have understood this fact better than the federal
government.
The plan was further stymied by Congress’s inaction. Despite the fact that President
Johnson had required Congress to authorize $6 million for the development of Ellis Island, the
Vietnam War consumed most of the federal budget. Without any popular strategy, Congress
tabled the Johnson Plan. Unable to continue, the Park Service ended their relationship with
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Johnson and returned to the drawing board. They understood that when wrestling with the
question of Ellis Island and immigration history, officials needed to find an approach that
enfolded white ethnics’ point of view into the American landscape. By the 1970s, white ethnics
had become part of an American mainstream, which in turn helped them garner the political
power they needed to dictate the narratives of Ellis Island.
While this movement towards a more inclusive historical account of the United States
meant challenging part of the status quo, it did not mean disrupting the racial hierarchies that
dominated American society. During 1970, two different groups occupied Ellis Island, protesting
the narratives of nationhood that exploited and excluded them. The first occupation occurred in
March, when a group of Native Americans from fourteen different tribes attempted to occupy
Ellis Island in a similar fashion to the Occupation of Alcatraz Island, just a year earlier. Eight
men from the group embarked on a launch towards Ellis Island, but a faulty gas line on the boat
thwarted their plans. After the Coast Guard picked them up, the federal agency posted two patrol
boats near the island. Shoshone Indian John White Fox, a participant of the Occupation of
Alcatraz, stated that the plan to occupy Ellis Island centered on the fact that there “is no place for
Indians to assemble and carry on tribal life in this white man’s city.” He believed that instead of
an immigration museum, Ellis Island should become a heritage center for Native Americans,
exhibiting white Americans contributions to Native American life—“disease, alcohol, poverty
and cultural desecration.”
A group called the National Economic Growth and Reconstruction Organization
(NEGRO) executed the second occupation. Led by Dr. Thomas W. Matthew, this group squatted
on Ellis Island for thirteen days. They demanded that the Park Service lease the island to them
so that it could become a rehabilitation center for drug addicts, alcoholics, ex-convicts and their
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families. Unlike the Native American group, NEGRO was willing to compromise. They stated
that they would allow the Park Service to host ethnic festivals and celebrations on the island.
Matthews willingness to work with the Park Service helped him win favor with them and they
came to an agreement that permitted the NEGRO group to stay on the island for five years if they
improved it to comply with state and federal health codes. Though Matthews was able to secure
the government’s blessing, NEGRO turn out onto Ellis Island was small. In the end, only a few
members stayed on the island. While there, they cleaned some of the buildings and the grounds.
They only lasted six months, and by 1971, all of the plans to institute a rehabilitation center were
abandoned.
Both the attempted Native American occupation and the NEGRO occupation garnered
minimal public support. As historian Vincent Cannato noted, “part of the problem was the
disconnect inherent in the idea that blacks [and Native Americans] were new immigrants.”
African Americans and Native Americans had long been subject to racist laws and prejudices
that systematically prevented them from becoming upwardly mobile in significant numbers.
Their histories were tied to a colonial system that privileged the rights of whites over their own,
and to an American racial system that tied access of federal programs to racial differences. White
ethnics distanced themselves from these central historic moments, and as sociologist Nathan
Glazer characterized it, they challenged the very notion that Ellis Island’s immigrant descendants
were somehow responsible for the plights of Native Americans and African Americans
"These groups were not particularly involved in the enslavement of the Negro in the
enslavement of the Negro or the creation of the Jim Crow pattern in the South, the
conquest of part of Mexico, or the near extermination of the American Indian ... They
came to a country which provided them with less benefits than it now provides the
protected groups. There is little reason for them to feel they should bear the burden of
redressing a past in which they had no or little part, or assisting those who presently
receive more assistance than they did."
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Therefore, when Native Americans and African Americans tried to occupy Ellis Island, white
ethnics found this form of protest to fly in opposition to their own belief systems. For these white
ethnics, Ellis Island served as a symbol of diversity even as it reinforced their standing within a
white nation of immigrants. Ellis Island, therefore, became the new Plymouth Rock.

Ellis Island Restoration Committee

Even as white ethnics remained skeptical of the federal government, some federal
employees voiced their belief that the site should honor its immigrant past in a fashion that
would be acceptable to white ethnics. Edward Kallop, curator of the AMI, wrote a memorandum
arguing that the Americans, “newly conscious of their ethnic heritage,” needed to see that the
federal government was committed to Ellis Island by rehabilitating and rescuing it from its
current decay. For Kallop and his staff, wrestling over how they should pay homage to Ellis
Island’s immigrant past was intimately linked to how white ethnics could fold themselves into
larger American narratives. They understood that these white Americans needed to see their
history as a triumph of the American Dream and the interpretation of this site as the beginning of
this process was crucial. Kallop recognized the power of Ellis Island as potentially invoking a
sense of unity and patriotism for millions of Americans, and strategized that the best way of
eliciting these sentiments required the approval of the white ethnics within the vicinity of the
site. His letter would carry more weight if followed by a strong push for a better, more inclusive,
monument by the white ethnics in the area. Luckily, Dr. Peter Sammartino decided that he
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wanted to have a tour of this immigration port in 1974, and see what his parents witnessed when
they first entered the United States. Kallop took Sammartino on a tour and showed him the
remains of what was once the most active immigration port in the eastern seaboard.
Dr. Peter Sammartino, a child of Italian immigrants and founder of the Fairleigh
Dickinson University in New Jersey, had become a successful and world-renowned educator by
the 1970s. During a helicopter ride over the New York harbor in 1974, he looked over and saw a
weathered Ellis Island. His parents had entered the country through this immigration station at
the turn of the twentieth century and he credited his success to his Italian immigrant roots. Like
much of the country, Sammartino had become captivated with rediscovering his roots. When the
Civil Rights Act and the Immigration Act of 1965 passed in Congress, the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act also passed. This law provided funds for students to learn about their
ethnic heritages and those around them. This funding created a large incentive for teachers, and
parents alike, to explore their own heritage and genealogy surged as a family pastime. By 1972,
the AMI had opened to the general public and Congress attached Title IX funding for the
creation of ethnic studies programs “in recognition of the heterogeneous composition of the
Nation and…that in a multiethnic society a greater understanding of the contribution of one’s
own heritage…can contribute to a more harmonious, patriotic and committed populace.” As a
result, courses in Italian American history, Native American history, African American history,
etc., could now be fully funded, with high schools and universities across the nation capitalizing
on this educational trend. Sammartino, himself, espoused an educational theory that required
students to study abroad and become familiar with diversity issues. He believed that in order for
students to comprehend their own heritage and vernacular culture, they needed to be able to go
and experience it for themselves. Therefore, as he looked over Ellis Island, he made the decision
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to use his connections and attempted to open the national site to the millions of students whose
families had once crossed paths with Ellis Island.
Sammartino contacted the Park Service to find out how he could revitalize the
monument. He found that much of the issues surrounding Ellis Island were centered on
Congress’ inaction. He learned of President Nixon’s efforts to restore the island for public
consumption and the various studies that were commissioned to find the most viable solution. He
also discovered that of the six million dollars that had been earmarked for Ellis Island, Congress
had only spent $752,130. Sammartino was outraged during his inspection of the island with
Kallop, and announced his intention of starting the Ellis Island Restoration Committee (EIRC).
He envisioned this committee as a part of the larger New Jersey Bicentennial Celebration
Commission, who would use their influence to pressure Congress into “prying loose” the six
million dollars authorized for the project. For Sammartino, the country’s two hundredth birthday
had to include a celebration of its immigrant past.
For Sammartino, Ellis Island was the genesis of the American immigrant. Similar to the
story of the Pilgrims, who first landed on Plymouth Rock, only to find a brave new world,
Sammartino saw Ellis Island as the site where millions of European immigrants entered the
American consciousness. Yet he understood that his family did not have to colonize and conquer
the American West. Their path into the American mainstream did not follow the same path. As
African Americans in the South and Chicanos in the West fought for access to a better education
and a revision of American history textbooks, many white ethnics worked to have their histories
become part of the normative curriculum. Throughout the 1970s, history textbooks were revised
to include European ethnic groups and the hardships they suffered during the nineteenth-century
industrialization as working-class citizens up to their present-day middle-class status in
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American suburbia. This new push to establish the country as a multicultural space meant that
other traditions and narratives were reworked to fit this new discourse. By the end of the decade
history books came to metamorphose the narratives of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown. As
Matthew Frye Jacobson notes, American colonists began to be referred to “in the thematic
context of Ellis Island—‘America’s First Immigrants,’ and American history in general was
divorced from its “settler” historiography.
Historian Gary Gerstle has noted that during this time period, American nationalism
changed. The Civil Rights Movement muddled the form of nationalism that had dominated
American culture for most of the twentieth century. Rooseveltian nationalism, as Gerstle called
it, married the American ideals of equality, which emerged from the Declaration of
Independence, with the racist traditions of the Constitution and Immigration Act of 1790. Yet,
by the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans led the struggle to expose the hypocrisies embedded
in Rooseveltian nationalism. Gerstle asserted that at this moment, segmented nationalisms
emerged. Some African Americans activists created their own nationalism arguing that their
progress would not come from integration in American society, but through separation. They
developed a nationalist sentiment that attracted the support of other racial and ethnic groups,
including whites. Rooseveltian nationalism fell apart as a crisis ensued primarily in the realm of
ideology, culture, and institutions. “Many people,” Gerstle stated, “who resided in America no
longer imagined that they belonged to the same national community or that they shared a
common set of ideals.” He stated that the “bonds of nationhood had weakened, and the
Rooseveltian program of nation-building that had created those bonds in the first place had been
repudiated. A nationalistic era that had begun in the early decades of the twentieth century had
come to a stunning end.”
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The demise of Rooseveltian nationalism did not necessarily mean that American civic
nationalism died out. Instead, different forms of nationalism arose in the public arena, including
multiculturalism. This distinct form of nationalism rejected the “melting pot” theory and policies
of assimilation, while celebrating America’s ethnic and racial diversity. For Sammartino,
multiculturalism allowed him to memorialize Ellis Island as a space that initiated immigrants’
journey to the American Dream, and that marked them as different from mainstream Americans.
He understood that his desire to open Ellis Island had awakened thanks to the Civil Rights
Movement, yet he also acknowledged his family’s ability to partake in the American Dream. He
saw his familial history as a verification of that dream, and believed that Ellis Island could
showcase this trajectory for Americans of all colors and creed. Yet at the same time, he found
himself tied to a multicultural nationalism that rejected the “melting pot” theory and policies of
assimilation. Just as the rest of the white ethnic public combed through genealogy books to
discover their origins, Sammartino looked to Ellis Island to demonstrate the tensions between the
old Europe of his ancestors and the new American life that had become the reality for the
millions of their descendants. In other words, he wanted to ground immigration history for the
masses and frame Ellis Island as a sacred space for all Americans.
While Sammartino worked to ground Ellis Island in multiculturalism, he also knew that
he needed to enshrine his struggle as one that was focused on the preservation of American
identity. Like the AMI before him, Sammartino tapped the wealthiest and most influential men
around him. His group included the white ethnics who had felt wronged by the AMI, including
Myron B. Kuropas, from the Ukrainian Congress and Edward J. Piazek, a Polish American civic
leader. His strongest asset was immigration historian Rudolph Vecoli, a major opponent of the
AMI. Vecoli was part of a new wave of immigration historians who had arisen in the post-Civil-
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Rights-Act world. He and other historians were critical of the AMI’s linear characterization of
American immigration. As part of the social history movement, these historians critiqued the
museum’s endorsement of “great man” history. Vecoli and his colleagues considered that the
AMI did a major disservice to immigration history because it glossed over the institutional
discrimination that many immigrants faced once they entered the country.
While Vecoli discredited the AMI’s accounting of the discrimination faced by Asian and
Latin American immigrants, his focus was more directly related to European immigration.
Vecoli’s own research detailed the experiences of Italian immigrants in Chicago. He countered
Oscar Handlin’s major thesis, stating that rather than assimilating into the mainstream most
immigrants resisted American economic and social systems and held tightly to their cultural
traditions. Yet like Handlin, his work focused on the economic and cultural barriers that
immigrants faced, while glossing over the reality that these immigrants were racially white and
afforded the opportunity to become citizens under American immigration laws. By 1967, Vecoli
joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota as a history professor and started the
Immigration History Research Center.
Vecoli’s support legitimized Sammartino’s efforts as ones based in new theories in
education and in history. Both men understood that the evolution of civic nationalism now
included the diverse experience of immigrants who struggled to a make a world of their own. For
them, the AMI was grounded in the idealism of democracy and civic unity, which emphasized
the assimilation of immigrants into a larger American mainstream. Sammartino saw Ellis Island
in different terms; he envisioned this site as a capsule of history that was tied to the hardships of
his own family. Therefore, he understood that Americans needed to experience first-hand an
immigrant past that included both the hardships and triumphs of the immigrant experience.
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Sammartino’s goal was to demonstrate that the history of immigration to the United States was
not limited to abstract terminology of patriotism and heroism; rather, he wanted to show the
process of immigration itself, from the point of view of these immigrants.
The Ellis Island Restoration Committee used the sentiments of the country’s two-
hundredth anniversary to garner support for Sammartino’s multiculturalist project. He
encapsulated the American ideals of civic duty and patriotism as part of a larger American
landscape that required the inclusion of all Americans. While the Ellis Island Restoration
Committee saw the importance of the AMI, they acknowledged that the museum itself was a
creation of the WASP elite. The AMI board included men like Alexander Hamilton, Pierre S.
DuPont, and Major Ulysses S. Grant, III. These men were not a part of the history that the white
ethnic communities were claiming. Furthermore, even as the AMI claimed to discuss the history
of those that entered the United States through Ellis Island, the museum did little to address their
concern that any historical monument to their past should include the trials and tribulations faced
by their ancestors. Restoring and opening Ellis Island to the public seemed like the most obvious
solution. Many agreed that with the restoration of this landmark, interpretation of its significance
would follow.
To ensure that Ellis Island received adequate care, Sammartino inquired over the Park
Service’s plans for the site. He thought that if he could lobby Congress for the money, then the
Park Service could cooperate and actually work towards re-opening Ellis Island to the public
before 1976. He discovered that after the Nixon administration requested an assessment of the
property, the Park Service had commissioned a study that posited several scenarios. Each plan
required that any monies used be funneled towards the preservation and stabilization of the main
reception hall and hospital. Basically the building most closely related to immigration history
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would remain while the rest would be demolished. Under the same rubric, Sammartino suggested
that Congress appropriate $1.5 million for the project in order to restore the landing pier, the
main reception hall, and public toilets. As a member of the New Jersey Bicentennial Celebrations
Commission, he also contacted several Congress members to join him in his fight for funds, and
kept President Nixon in the loop. By the end of 1975, Sammartino and the Park Service settled
on a plan that would open Ellis Island to the general public. Sammartino, then, lobbied
Congressman Edward Patten of New Jersey to present an appropriation’s bill that would begin
the rehabilitation efforts. Finally, on January 1, 1976, President Gerald Ford enacted a bill that
set aside “$1,000,000 for the restoration of Ellis Island and $500,000 annually from the NPS
budget for operations.”
By May of 1976, the Park Service had cleaned up most of the island, begun rehabilitation
of the main reception hall, and posted 24-hour guards. The island opened in a ceremony that
included most of the federal representatives from New York and New Jersey. The Park Service
Regional Director, Jerry Wagers, gave a speech noting that it was “particularly fitting” that the
island opened during the country's bicentennial celebrations as Americans could “personally
identify with their heritage through vistas of this landmark.” For Sammartino and other white
ethnics, the opening of Ellis Island had allowed them to temper the idealism of the AMI even as
the site’s rehabilitation became a rallying point for the national unity that had been expected
from the American Museum of Immigration.
Even as 500,000 tourists visited Ellis Island during its first year, the Park Service was
unable to receive the continued support that they needed from Congress to maintain and stabilize
the island for more public consumption. The Park Service was forced to close the island during
the winter. During the interim, they created a task force to reevaluate the agency’s ability to
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execute its interpretive plan. They had originally hoped to create an experience that allowed for
visitors to experience first-hand “how it might have felt to be an immigrant arriving at Ellis in
the first two decades of this century.” This plan was difficult to implement as the main reception
hall had deteriorated to the extent that tours could only show the public a portion of the main
immigration building, with some tours limited to the great registry room. The Park Service
commissioned Gerald Karr, a Park Service architect in Denver, to come to Ellis Island and
evaluate the historical and architectural merits of the monument. They needed him to outline the
structural issues that the needed to be addressed immediately and the cost for the complete
rehabilitation of the main immigration building. He estimated that in order for visitors to
experience the facilities fully, the Park Service needed to fundraise a total of $5 million to begin
the first phase in the stabilization of the building.
As the Park Service worked to form and implement a new master plan, they needed
Sammartino to continue placing his outside pressure on Congress to give more monies.
Sammartino was able coaxed Congressmen Jonathan Bingham (D-NY) and Edward Koch (D-
NY) to sponsor a House Joint Resolution that would increase the ceiling authorization for this
project to $50 million. Congress was unable to accept handing over this kind of money to project
but Sammartino convinced New York City councilmembers to contribute to the project. With
their cooperation, Congress finally passed the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 that
contained $24 million for the island.

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A Nation of Nations: The Smithsonian Exhibit

As the Ellis Island Restoration Committee worked to include Ellis Island in the
bicentennial celebrations, the Smithsonian’s Museum of History and Technology worked to
exhibit America’s past through the eyes of its immigrant. Specifically, they constructed an
exhibit that celebrated American’s bicentennial by commemorating the two hundred years of
immigration history since the American Revolution rather than focusing on the country’s
independence from British colonial rule. Similar to the AMI, this exhibition equated the moniker
of “a nation of immigrants” with the ideas of diversity and democracy, centering their narrative
on the experiences of white ethnics.
“A Nation of Nations” was meant to be the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History
and Technology’s (NMHT) bicentennial exhibition. Daniel Boorstin first proposed this
exhibition as “an antidote to the angry protests of student radicals and Black Power advocates.”
As a public intellectual, NMHT Director, and member of the American Revolution Bicentennial
Commission (ARBC), Boorstin used his networks to voice his concerns about the New Left and
Black Power movements. Boorstin characterized these movements as fundamental threats to
Americans’ sense of cohesion and community, and he theorized that a large-scale exhibition was
needed to counter narratives of American divisiveness. His comments, however, did not negate
American diversity. He had, in fact, written extensively on the American experience and its ties
to cultural difference. His book, The Americans: The Colonial Experience, became the first work
of a trilogy that examined how individuals at all levels of colonial society developed the
American frameworks of democracy, property, and individual rights. Therefore, his opposition
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to the radical leftist movements derived from their assertions that inequalities persisted within
American society, and his desire to use the bicentennial celebrations as a space to bolster
American exceptionalism.
During the ARBC meeting, Boorstin expressed his frustration over the commission’s
desire to illustrate all aspects of American life, good and bad. He was specifically upset over the
fact that the Washington D.C. Bicentennial Commission chose to theme its celebrations around
urban issues such as "ghetto problems" and "urban renewal." Therefore when he reported the
progress of these meetings to the Smithsonian’s Board in 1969, he suggested that the museum
break from this theme, and instead highlight the nation’s accomplishments. Boorstin proposed
that the Smithsonian develop two exhibition pavilion additions, with one centering on the theme
of "A Nation from Nations,” while the other focused on the theme of “Nations to the Nations.”
The Smithsonian’s Board approved of his plans and Boorstin hired Chermayeff, Geismar, &
Associates—a private design firm—who in turn hired sociologist Nathan Glazer to author the
firm’s exhibition proposal.
While Glazer remained loyal to Boorstin’s desire to showcase the United States as a safe
haven for all immigrants, he also inserted his own understandings of American social, cultural,
and political life. Embedded in his script was the idea that American culture allowed for
immigrants to retain their cultural difference, while simultaneously contributing to the overall
American mainstream. In his exhibition proposal, Glazer stated that the United States’ prowess
derived from its ability to take from many and unify them into one body—e pluribus unum. Like
his 1975 book, Affirmative Discrimination, Glazer argued that all Americans were equal,
whether their association with the United States derived from conquest, enslavement, or
immigration. Therefore, even as Glazer shied away from a melting pot theory, he maintained
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that the American experience was tied to a balance between national unity and cultural
difference. His exhibition script, therefore, placed American immigrants at the center of
American life.
Since Glazer used the immigrant experience as his central theme, he structured “A Nation
of Nations,” using the straight-line assimilation model. Under this model, each section of the
exhibition displayed a specific step that immigrants, and their children, took to move closer to
the American mainstream and farther away from ethnic “ground-zero.” The exhibition,
therefore, was partitioned into the following four sections: “The Gathering of the Peoples,” “The
Passage,” “The Arrival,” and “The Composition of the Nation.” While the exhibition proposal
shied away from Boorstin original pavilions model, it nonetheless kept the ideals that he wished
to espouse. As the chief designer, Ivan Chermayeff wanted to recreate the notion of the huddled
masses for visitors, having them imagine themselves as part the immigration process and
eventual assimilation process.
With these design elements in mind, Chermayeff began the exhibition outside of the
museum, where visitors saw “photographs of settlers and immigrants of every time and place,
and on the remaining parts of the mirror-surfaced walls…the reflections of the people waiting to
see the exhibit.” Once in the building, visitors passed through four separate recreated modes of
transportation—a colonial ship, a slave ship, a transatlantic steerage ship from the turn of the
twentieth century, and a jet airplane. These various vessels were supposed to simultaneously
represented the different types of immigration and American technologic advancement, moving
from a colonial ship into a twentieth century jet airplane. From this point, visitors were supposed
to step foot on American soil; and to represent this process, Glazer and Chermayeff wished to
replicate the Ellis Island entry hall, naturalizing Ellis Island’s space within the American
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immigrant saga. From this point, visitors entered “The Composition of the Nation,” section
where they watched a film that illustrated the various immigrants sources, ending with a montage
of “the American people by ethnic backgrounds and race, with appropriately hazy borders to
suggest that groups have merged and that ethnic background has become distant and unknown to
many Americans.” From this section, visitors were expected to enter the exhibition’s last section
where seven display cases demonstrated the various ways in which immigrants became one
nation of nations.
Harold Skramstad, who now headed the Smithsonian’s curatorial team, circulated the
draft. Intellectual historian Merle Curti served as the exhibition’s history consultant, and when he
received a copy of the script in 1962, he quickly reported to Skramstad that he found it appalling
and historically inaccurate. Curti questioned the exhibition’s purpose. He thought that the
exhibition script did a poor job of connecting the immigrant experience to the American
bicentennial celebrations. Curti recommended that the curatorial team re-orient the exhibition
from one of celebration to one of reflection. He proposed that exhibition’s theme center on the
unfinished Revolution, highlighting the civil rights movement and the passing of the
Immigration Act of 1965. Curti’s feedback, however, countered Boorstin’s original intent.
Skramstad, therefore, had to find a way to balance the NMHT director’s objectives with the
concerns of history academics.
Skramstad also asked NMHT curators to comment on the exhibition’s design and
content. The curatorial response to the script was overwhelmingly negative. The consensus
critiqued the script’s overly simplistic narration of the immigrant process. However, unlike
Curti, few curators rejected the exhibition’s original premise. Instead these curators found the
script to be impractical and gimmicky. As Carl Scheele, the NMHT philatelic curator, expressed
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it, “The gimmicks and stereotype should be removed. We should explore the sweatshop, the
tenement, [and] the factory.” He continued, “the Italian fruit store, the Irish bar, the Chinese herb
shop, the Jewish delicatessen are stereotypes and images which were best developed by
Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s. We must do better than this.” Scheele’s comments
represented the staff’s belief that this exhibition script did little to address the messiness of
American diversity, yet even as they attempted to complicate the narratives put forth by Glazer
and Chermayeff, they also fell into the trap of narrating the immigrant experience from a white
ethnic perspective, one of which was primarily located in the country’s eastern seaboard. “The
Arrival,” section, however, became the one space that curators suggested could be the place
where NMHT could push against the European immigration model. Malcolm Watkins, NMHT’s
Cultural History Chair, sent Skramstad a memo in 1973, expressing his frustration with the
exhibition’s suggestion that Ellis Island was the only site where immigrants experienced
immigration. While never directly mentioning Angel Island, or any other ports, Watkins noted
that it was NHMT’s responsibility to discuss other points of entry.
After collecting everyone’s responses, Skramstad aggregate the comments into one
document, outlining the pressing concerns. In this document, he stipulated that there were several
impractical design elements, including starting the exhibition outside since Washington’s DC
weather would surely hamper the visitors’ experience. He also broke down the script’s content,
outlining several points of improvement, including the question about how to include other forms
of entry beside Ellis Island. In his assessment, Skramstad made sure to not only note the
problems, but to also suggest solutions. For instance, when expressing the staff’s desire to
remove stereotypical settings, he suggested that Glazer and Chermayeff replace these spaces
with “more living experiences [like] churches [and] schools.” He also noted that the montage,
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while interesting, did little to convey immigrants’ material culture, therefore suggesting that the
exhibition display “original graphics,” “original things from Ellis Island,” and “objects of what
[immigrants] brought.”
With less than three years to go until the exhibition’s grand opening, Skramstad and his
staff decided to take the reins and produce the exhibition’s content themselves, with the
consultants and installation partners. By the end of 1973, however, Skramstad had accepted a
position as the Director of the Chicago Historical Society and Boorstin stepped down as the
NMHT Director in October 1973. Silvio Bendini temporarily replaced Boorstin, while the
Smithsonian Institution looked for a permanent replacement. By February 1974, Brooke Hindle,
a historian of science and technology from New York University, took the position. Hindle
appointed a committee of curators with Carl Scheele as he committee chair. Other committee
members included Malcolm Watkins, Richard E. Ahlborn, curator of ethnic and Western cultural
history, and Peter C. Marzio, curator of graphic arts. Together, these men broke down the
exhibition responsibilities, which included the exhibition’s content, design, final script, material
acquisitions, and objects’ preparation and management.
By the beginning of 1974, the NMHT curatorial committee had complete their first edits
to the original exhibition proposal. The committee added several sub-sections to each of the four
sections, giving the curators the opportunity to discuss social history themes and to display the
material cultures of immigrants and there families. Central to the new draft was the question of
ethnicity, and how this identifier manifested itself within various immigrant communities. For
instance, in the sub-section titled, “Shared Experiences,” curators developed the idea of
recreating an Italian American home in the middle of the exhibition. This home was to display
materials that demonstrated the ways in which Italian immigrants, both adapted to their new
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country, while preserving their native traditions. Italian material culture, therefore, was
represented through Catholic material culture, Italian American food, and women’s needlework.
The curatorial committee circulated the new draft among the Smithsonian administration
and exhibition’s academic consultants. While staff members felt that the committee had
progressed, they also wanted to encourage the committee to remain realistic in their goals. Staff
members recommended that the committee contact Wilbur Zelinsky, author of the 1973 book,
The Cultural Geography of the United States. As part of his book, Zelinsky produced several
maps that listed the American ethnic make-up from 1780 to the present. These maps served as
the basis from which curators could then collect materials and objects that illustrated
immigrants’ ethnicity and sense of belonging to their adopted country. Charles Blitzer, the
Assistant Secretary for History and Art at the Smithsonian, cautioned committee members to use
their collection funds wisely, since the Smithsonian had sizable collections of German, English,
Dutch, Jewish, and Hispanic objects, but not of the other major groups that the staff wanted to
display. By the end of the review, the committee chose to work with Zelinsky on creating two
maps that demonstrated changes in American demography and they collected over five thousand
objects for the exhibition. According to historian William S. Walker, the sheer number of objects
required the committee to create a color-coding system for visitors to understand the correlation
between specific objects and particular ethnic groups. The religion display box, for example, had
the following items:
“…a painting of St. Anthony of Padua, several objects from a Roman Catholic church in
Connecticut, Eastern Orthodox icons, Protestant revival objects including a roadside
cross from Kentucky, an 1870 Bible, a Decalogue Plaque from a Philadelphia synagogue,
a Jewish wedding certificate from 1890, a prayer rug from Saudi Arabia, the Qu’ran, and
phrenology and palmistry charts ‘said to have traveled from Kansas to Washington in
Gold Rush days with a family of Romanian Gypsies.’ The section also included lion
masks from a Chinese New Year celebration in Philadelphia about 1890, as well as
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several American Indian religious objects, including an Apache headdress used in the
Ghost Dance, a Kiowa painted deer hide that showed an aspect of the Sun Dance, and a
Tlingit dance mask.”

Yet, while the staff did as much as possible to represent nearly every ethnic cultural
through its collection and its Zelinsky maps, not all ethnic communities felt included. The Polish
American Press Council complained that famous Poles were not adequately represented. These
complaints echoed similar accusations made by the Polish American Historical Association
during the AMI’s initial formation. To address this issue, Richard Albourn inquired whether the
Smithsonian should sponsor a young Ph.D. studying cultural retentions of Polish Americans
within urban settings. Therefore even as the museum attempted to address the sheer breath of
their commitment, they also wanted to maintain the exhibition’s academic integrity.
Another major issue for the museum staff’s quest of inclusivity was the question of
national origins, especially as it pertained to African Americans and Native American groups.
When Zelinsky produced his maps, he explained that it was difficult to pinpoint the origins of
most African Americans since a disproportionate number traced their ancestry to American
slavery. He noted that identifying these origins became even more of “a hopeless task” when
coupled with the fact that many of the present day African nations were themselves twentieth-
century creations. In the case of Native Americans, Zelinsky noted that when he originally
produced his maps, he used Census data, surmising ethnicity based on surnames. For Native
Americans in the American Southwest, quantifying their national origin and/or ethnic
background became muddled as their surnames were similar to the Spanish surnames of people
of Mexican descent. These issues, therefore, exposed an important factor of the newer exhibition
proposal. Even as the staff attempted to push beyond Glazer’s framework of immigration and
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ethnicity, they heavily relied on the historical and sociological models that helped Glazer
produce his framework in the first place. This framework resulted in the pairing down of the
American experience to one of immigration and the explicit erasure of Native Americans’ and
African Americans’ colonial subjectivity.
Furthermore by centering the American experience on the European immigrant narrative,
the curatorial committee narrowed the definition of ethnicity. Ethnicity became synonymous
with symbolic ethnicity as the staff used objects to represent ethnic activities, food, and
celebrations. Ethnicity, therefore, was grounded in the active participation of community-based
activities. In the case of the Italian American home, the residents could live conventional lives
until they prayed (to express their Catholic traditions), cooked (to recreate familial recipes), or
practiced their needlework (to reenact nostalgic memories of house and home). The equation of
symbolic ethnicity with ethnicity became even more apparent when Carl H. Scheele suggested
that the exhibition open on St. Patrick’s Day. According to Scheele, this date made a strong
statement about the country’s willingness to embrace ethnic differences since it had “become
larger than an Irish holiday in America, a day which has become American-Irish as well as Irish-
American. It symbolizes the presence of the immigrants as not other day on the American
calendar does.” Even though the Smithsonian’s administration had to comply with the rules of
the Bicentennial Commission and open at the same time as the other celebrations, the sentiment
was not lost on the Smithsonian’s administrators. In other words, by equating the immigrant
experience with ethnicity, the curatorial committee projected the idea that these immigrant
experiences were universal.
By 1975, Charles Blitzer presented the exhibition’s final script, objects list, and floor plan
to the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, Smithsonian Institution's Research Institute on
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Immigration and Ethnic Studies, and the Balch Institute of Ethnic Studies of Pennsylvania.
While enthusiastic about the project, this group voiced a few concerns. The first concern
centered on the minimizing of Ellis Island. As Matthew Frye Jacobson noted in Roots Too, “Ellis
Island was the point of entry for migrants who were overwhelmingly admitted as the ‘free white
persons’ of U.S. naturalization law; and so the iconic figure of the white immigrant has
dominated all others.” For these academics and administrators, however, the history of Ellis
Island needed to be included so that it could also be probed and dissected. Similar to Glazer’s
original proposal, Africanist Roy Bryce-Laporte suggested the idea of having a section devoted
to Ellis Island, with auxiliary components, “devoted to the experiences of other immigrants
arriving here at different times and places through our history--from slaves arriving in chains at
southern ports to today's immigrants arriving on a 748 at Kennedy Airport.” The curatorial staff
agreed to devote a larger space to the Ellis Island immigrant experience, placing a model of a
nineteenth-century ship from Hamburg, Germany at the beginning of the exhibition’s second
section. This ship represented the modes of transportations for millions of European immigrants
who entered the United States via the Hudson Bay. Adjacent to this model was a case with an
image of a slave ship and metal shackles. Across from these objects were a Mexican ox cart and
an array of saddles and snowshoes to represent the migratory processes of Mexicans and
Canadians during the nineteenth century. Furthermore in the exhibition’s third section, the
NMHT staff recreated a schoolroom from Cleveland, Ohio as a symbol of the Americanization
process. Next to the classroom was a bench from Ellis Island, where visitors were encouraged to
sit and ponder the various steps immigrants took to become Americans.
The group’s second concern was the exhibition’s interconnection of the immigrant and
ethnic experiences. These administrators and academics discussed whether the NMHT staff
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should amend the exhibition and only discuss immigration from a first-generation experience. At
the center of this conversation was a subsection within the exhibition’s second section.
Sandwiched between a display of artistic traditions and a display of religious objects was a case
that housed objects associated with racism and discrimination. From “white only” to “Japs Keep
Out” signs, this case stipulated that racism and discrimination were the artifacts and
consequences of a multi-ethnic society, without really probing this issue any further or offering
visitors the regional and temporal variants. Group members thought that instead of eliminating
the case altogether, the exhibition should make a disclaimer at the exhibition’s entrance. Scheele
rejected the notion that the exhibition needed such a statement. He defended the exhibition’s
integrity, noting that intelligent visitors understood the limitations of any exhibition and could
not realistically expect an exhibition of such breadth to actually go into detail. Instead of the
disclaimer, Scheele posted a quote from Walt Whitman—“Here is not merely a nation but a
nation of nations.”
“A Nation of Nations” opened to the general public on June 9, 1976. The 35,000-sqaure
foot exhibit cost $2.7 million to construct and occupied an entire floor of the museum. During
the grand opening, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Sydney Dillon Ripley encouraged visitors to
walk through the exhibition and see “the Smithsonian’s most important Bicentennial show—a
climax to what the Smithsonian is all about.” When entering the exhibition, visitors had to walk
though a defined path. The first section, “People from a New Nation,” opened with a display of
pre-Columbian objects, defining Native Americans as the first immigrants. Colonial objects soon
surrounded visitors, showcasing the material cultures of enslaved Africans and European settlers.
Within this section, the curatorial committee made sure to note that English settlers were just one
of the many European groups to enter the Americas during this time period. They also had a
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display, which showcased the various objects that colonists and Native Americans traded
amongst each other. The last display showcased the various materials associated with the
American Revolution, from Thomas Jefferson’s desk to George Washington’s uniform.
The second section, “Old Ways in a New Nation,” used Glazer’s original idea of
displaying various modes of transportation. However, the curatorial committee added several
thematic displays that illustrated the various experiences that new immigrants first
encountered—from an array of cultural practices to a multi-class society. Within this section
lived the discrimination display case. The third section was devoted to the Americanization
process and new immigrants’ lived experiences. It was here that the curatorial staff displayed the
Cleveland classroom, the Ellis Island bench, and the Italian American home. Accompanying
these artifacts were World War II army barracks, a Santa Fe railroad car, and sporting
memorabilia, including Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves. The final section, “A Nation Among
Nations,” highlighted the contributions of immigrants to America’s global economy. Mass
production, mass consumption, and mass communication were the key components. Illustrating
all of these points was a wall of neon sings. Put together, these images reminded visitors that the
United States was both a nation of immigrants and united economic force.
Most visitors responded positively to “A Nation of Nations.” This exhibition was the first
of its kind. Its scale and breath made it one of the Smithsonian’s largest exhibitions and its
thematic design forever altered the staff’s conceptual approach to exhibition production. Visitors
quick note these facts in the comments. However, for many white ethnics, this exhibition was
one the first to capture their own experiences. Visitors like Emily Talen Anselin sent letters of
gratitude, thanking the staff for encapsulating their experiences as children and/or grandchildren
of immigrants. In particular these visitors gravitated towards the Italian American home, asking
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the staff to expand on how they could go about recreating a home so accurately. Scheele wrote
back to answer these visitors’ inquiries, explaining that he got most of the items from an Italian
American home in Akron, Ohio. Within these letters, he also described using his recollections of
his German American family in Cleveland, Ohio, when planning out the home’s layout and
design:
“Having a fine assemblage of the Italian materials from one source, I supplied the general
scheme from memory, having clear recollections of the period from my childhood...My
personal experience taught me that furnishings survived at uneven rates; a rocking chair
was kept for years; a piano may have been acquired in flush times...”

Therefore, in designing this section, Scheele capitalized on his white ethnic depictions of home
to construct an Italian American space. In so doing, he fortified the section’s major objective—
most immigrants, and their children, shared in common experiences of home and community
life.
The feedback, however, was not always positive. Historian Roger Daniels visited the
exhibition and was appalled to find a lack of historical context for the few Asian American
objects that were on display. Richard Ahlborn wrote back to Daniels, explaining that the
Smithsonian did not have enough items to give a richer image of the Asian American experience,
and that part of this problem was the exhibition 1925 cut-off date. This explanation, however, did
not sufficiently address Daniel’s issues, especially since the exhibition did in fact have more
contemporary objects like the neon signs, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, Archie Bunker’s
chair, and the Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz. The NMHT staff also got a mixed response
when it came to their discrimination display. Some visitors felt that display was out of place.
Visitor Julia K. Estrella wrote to Scheele expressing her frustration that the discrimination case
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was the only place where Japanese Americans were mentioned. She goes on to explain that even
within this discrimination case, the Smithsonian failed to mention, “Japanese Americans were
put in concentrations camps.” Scheele quickly responded noting that his team had begun efforts
to collect Japanese American materials after the opening. However, he attempted to correct
Estrella’s terminology, telling her that these concentration camps were in fact relocation centers
for Americans of Japanese ancestry. This exhibition, however, received the strongest opposition
from Native American groups. According to historian William Walker, Native Americans
criticized the exhibition’s claim that they were in fact not native to the Americas. As Walker
noted, “Questioning Native claims to indigeneity…undermined claims of illegal dispossession of
the[ir] land.”
While Asian American, African American, and Native American academics aired their
frustrations over the exhibition staff’s inability to get past Glazer’s straight-line assimilation
model, white ethnic visitors expressed their delight to see the Smithsonian showcase their
experiences at such a grand scale. These viewers were more likely to find that the “A Nation of
Nations,” balanced the positive and negative aspects of American society. During the
exhibition’s ten-year run, they sent letters to the museum directors, noting their appreciation.
Many of these letters focused on the museum’s ability to capture these visitors sense of
belonging and trajectory into the American mainstream. They measured the exhibition’s success
based on its ability to showcase their ethnic pride; a pride that did not have actual consequences
on their ability to succeed in American society.

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Opening the Ellis Island Museum

After Sammartino secured the $1 million in Congressional funds and Ellis Island opened
for limited public tours, he handed over the project to Philip Lax in 1977. Lax was a New Jersey
developer and active member of several Jewish organizations, including the Rutgers University
Hillel and B'nai B'rith International Council. As the new head of the Ellis Island Restoration
Committee, Lax petitioned President Carter to allocate more funds in Ellis Island’s rehabilitation
and retrofitting. He wanted to ensure the building was safe in order to expand Ellis Island’s
public tours. Simultaneously, Park Service staff members became increasingly frustrated with
the AMI’s interpretive activities and wanted to find a way to push beyond the AMI’s narratives.
These two schools of thought coalesced and by 1990, the Ellis Island Museum opened to the
general public, marking the one hundredth anniversary of the island’s immigration station.
In 1980, two men attempted to climb the outside of the Statue of Liberty. Part way up
their climb, park rangers found them and reported them to the police. After the incident, staff
members began to assess if the climbers had caused any damages. Instead, they found a
dilapidated structure. David L. Moffitt, the park’s superintendent, began to search for a structure
report to see if the damages to Ellis Island were a result of the climbers or years of wear and tear.
He was astonished to find that no report had ever been created. Moffitt, therefore, asked
engineers from the Park Service’s Denver Center to examine the statue and report their findings.
At the same time, Robert Grace, an ex-stockbroker, began to pester President Ronald Reagan
over the statue’s restoration needs. The White House put Grace in contact with Moffitt, who
informed Grace that the Park Service had the intention of celebrating the statue’s hundredth year
anniversary. Moffitt informed Grace that a French-American committee had been formed to
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commemorate the statue’s centennial and that there were many moving pieces. By 1981, Park
Service officials met with the White House to find a way to interconnect the various peoples and
organizations interested in both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. These meetings resulted in
the creation of a public-private partnership between the Park Service and the various private
entities interesting in rehabilitation efforts. On May 17, 1982, President Reagan announced from
the White House’s East Room that the Park Service would have a private fundraising partner in
order to restore both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. This partner was incorporated as the
Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, and President Reagan appointed Lee Iacocca as its
chairman. Unlike the AMI public-private partnership, however, Reagan swore that this new
project would be a privately funded venture, and that the President would not appropriate any
federal funds for the completion of project.
Reagan chose Lee Iacocca for several reasons. As the child of Italian immigrants, Iacocca
understood first-hand the importance of these sites to white ethnic populations and to the larger
immigrant landscape. Second, Iacocca’s successful career in the Chrysler Corporation exposed
him to prominent leaders and business people who could donate millions of dollars to the
preservation efforts. Last, as Reagan supporter, Iacocca held on to a similar political philosophy
to that of the Reagan administration. Both men believed that society’s problems were a result of
“big government,” and that it was the government’s job to get out of the way. Both came from
white ethnic families that used the opportunities afforded to them to become upwardly mobile.
These men interpreted their families’ successes as the result of individual integrity and ingenuity.
Therefore, in appointing Iacocca, Reagan was assured that the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island
Foundation (SOLEIF) would keep to its promise of finding all its funds from private sources.
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While Iacocca remained ardent in his resolve to collect only private donations, he did not
shy away from involving himself with the Park Service’s interpretive process. Before the
announcement and formation of SOLEIF, the Park Service had commissioned a history and
structural report. Similarly in 1980, Congress revised the Historic Preservation of 1966 and
included federal funds for the creation of an Ellis Island master plan. The Park Service used
these funds to assemble a committee of historical preservationists, architects, economists, and
planers to evaluate separate master plan proposals. By the late summer of 1982, the committee
settled on a plan from the Center for Housing Partnerships. The Center for Housing Partnerships
proposed to use all Ellis Island’s buildings, transforming them in to a health spa, a hotel, and a
conference center. The only building that was to be rehabilitated to its original condition was the
main building, which would be transformed into a museum that narrated the immigrant story.
Therefore by the time the Iacocca joined the preservation efforts, he was frustrated to see that
public monies were already being used to rehabilitate the site. What angered him the most,
however, was the fact that Congress had allowed the Center for Housing Partnerships to use their
non-profit status for tax write-offs that would then be used to create a for-profit venture. Iacocca
interceded; asking that the Secretary of the Interior, James G. Watt, freeze plans and allow him
to review the development proposal.
By 1983, the Park Service’s Denver Center published its final historical and structural
report, outlining Ellis Island’s structural damage, various preservation efforts, and interpretive
prospectus. Park Service historian Harlan D. Unrau noted in this report that even though people
had cited 16 million as the number of immigrants that passed through Ellis Island, his review of
the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s “Annual Reports of the Commissioner General of
Immigration” found that the federal government only processed 14,277,144 incoming
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immigrants during its use of the immigration station between 1892 to 1924. Unrau’s finding
proved that the entire narrative of Ellis Island needed to be scrutinized and revisited. The Park
Service, therefore, assembled a panel of immigrant scholars to serve as an advisory committee.
Headed by Rudolph Vecoli, the Historians’ Committee included Virginia Yans-McLaughlin,
Louise Año-Nuevo Kerr, Victor Greene, Roger Daniels, Alan Kraut, Kathleen Conzen and
Moses Rischin.
Unlike the AMI’s Historians’ Committee, or the Smithsonian’s consultants, this
committee included historians that studied Asian immigration and the Mexican American
experience. From the onset, this committee worked in collaborative form with SOLEIF and the
Park Service to create exhibitions for Ellis Island that were both historically accurate and
intellectually stimulating. The committee moved to portray the immigrant history from the point
of the masses, a stark difference from the AMI’s great man history. Between 1983 and 1990, the
Historians’ Committee met several times with the Park Service staff to help produce a sound
exhibition script. However, during one of the first meetings, the historians were asked to express
their opinions about the AMI and how the Park Service should handle two different kinds of
immigration museums. Members of the committee quickly noted their opposition to the AMI and
suggested that the museum be closed, or at least moved out the Statue of Liberty.
The AMI’s executive director Alfred Horowitz began to hear rumors about the new Ellis
Island Museum and the Park Service’s desire to removed the AMI from the Statue of Liberty.
Horowitz set up a meeting with Park Service staff and the SOLEIF to clear the air. The meetings,
however, quickly fell apart when Horowitz heard about a possible proposal to move the AMI
into Ellis Island and have the AMI staff work with SOLEIF to solidify the new museum’s
exhibitions. Horowitz stood his ground and made clear that the AMI would not cooperate. He
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argued that the only portion of the immigrant story that should actually exist in the Ellis Island
Museum was the experiences of immigrants while in Ellis Island. To try and sway Horowitz, the
Park Service coordinated several meetings between the Historians’ Committee and Horowitz.
Though Horowitz never attended, he sent a proxy who argued with the committee should the
AMI since “immigrants came to this country seeking freedom, liberty, and the other things the
statue symbolized.” The historians were not swayed, and Kathleen Conzen pointed out that most
European immigrants had actually come to the United States for economic opportunities.
With the issue of AMI at a standstill, the Park Service Director arranged to meet with
Horowitz and Pierre S. DuPont, III, the AMI’s Executive Committee Chair to resolve the
problem. However, matters only worsened when Horowitz and DuPont pointed out that the
museum could not be removed from the Statue of Liberty, per federal legislation that awarded
the museum the use of the Statue’s base in recognition of their work. The AMI threatened to
pursue a lawsuit if the Park Service attempted to remove the museum from the Statue of
Liberty’s base. By the spring of 1985, negotiations ended and the respective parties came to an
agreement. The AMI would be folded into a new museum at the base of the Statue of Liberty,
focusing their efforts on the monument’s symbolism. The museum would also be part of a three-
person panel, whose main objective was to resolve any differences. The panel decisions would
be rendered after unanimous consent. Last, the AMI received an additional $3.5 million to help
them build a new exhibition.
While the AMI worked to remain at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Lee Iacocca
worked tirelessly to fundraise over $350 million to renovate it. By 1986, he had approached
several private individuals and corporations, soliciting donations. Iacocca convinced Coca-Cola,
USA Today, Stroh’s Brewery, Chrysler, Kodak, Nestle, and Oscar Mayer to become corporate
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sponsors, granting them exclusive rights to advertisements during the Liberty Weekend
celebrations. American Express also promised to donate money to the preservation efforts.
Iacocca’s connections to mass media and consumer business, therefore, allowed him to reach his
fundraising goals. On July 3, 1986, the Park Service unveiled the newly restored Statue of
Liberty. The unveiling garnered national and international attention, and the advertisements
became a contentious point for many left-leaning individuals. These critics felt that the
advertisements cheapened the centennial and further cemented American corporate greed.
With Liberty Weekend behind them, the Park Service was able to kick their preservation
efforts into high gear. The Park Service contracted the design firm MetaForm, Inc. and was led
by project manager Jack Masey. MetaForm was the newest incarnation of Chermayeff &
Geismar, Inc. Capitalizing on their previous partnership, the design firm tapped Nathan Glazer to
work on the project as the firm’s history consultant. Glazer’s participation on the project,
however, was minimal and Phyllis Montgomery conducted much of the firm’s historical
research. By the end of 1989, the museum script was finished and the Park Service worked with
SOLEIF to finish the last bits of Ellis Island’s main building restorations in order to move in the
museum and open to the public. In the meantime, the Park Service began to advertise its grand
opening of the Ellis Island Museum and the museum’s efforts to capture the immigrant
experience. When Horowitz read an article about these efforts in the New York magazine, he
wrote a heated letter the AMI Trustees, threatening a public fight with the Park Service.
Horowitz then wrote a letter to the magazine’s editor, stating that the article was slanderous in its
portrayal of the AMI. He explained that many of the AMI’s problems were actually the fault of
the Park Service and their carelessness. He cited a specific incident to serve as an example:
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If the reporter had spoken with us, she would have learned that the 'scandal' of placing a
Torah upside down in the Seed of Abraham exhibit was a result of carelessness by the
same National Park Service, which also is ultimately responsible for the exhibits at Ellis
Island. Our Trustees discovered the gaff and had it corrected when AMI opened almost
20 years ago. It is correct that AMI needs updating. Updated exhibits were promised in
an agreement with the Trustees of the American Museum of Immigration signed by the
National Park Service and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. In it, the Park
Service and the Foundation pledged $3.5 million for AMI. The agreement also called for
a linkage between AMI--the story of the building and development of America--and the
Ellis Island experience. We await the funds promised in order to begin a comprehensive
refurbishing and updating of the AMI exhibits.

Horowitz’s tantrum, however, did little for his case. The Ellis Island Museum opened on
September 9, 1990 marking the one-hundredth anniversary of the island’s immigration station.
Even though SOLEIF expected a massive fanfare for the grand re-opening of the Statue
of Liberty in 1986, the organization never anticipated that the American public would react
strongly to the new Ellis Island Museum. The most successful portion of the new Ellis Island
Museum was Lee Iacocca’s resurrection of Philip Johnson’s Wall of Sixteen Million. Iacocca’s
version, however, had a twist. For $100 a visitor could put their names, or the names of their
ancestors, on the wall, regardless of whether they had actually passed through Ellis Island. This
capitalist venture continued to raise funds for SOLEIF even after the Ellis Island Museum
opened. Unlike most other national ventures to showcase immigration and the immigrant
experience, Ellis Island tried to address immigration and ethnic history through the narrow focus
of the actual site. From Through America’s Gate—in the Registry Room—to the exhibition titled
Peak Immigration Years, the museum attempted to restrain itself to the experiences of actual
Ellis Island immigrants. This focus meant that the Historians’ Committee, MetaForm, and the
Park Service interpretive staff worked extensively on unearthing Ellis Island’s immigration
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records if they wanted to discuss the immigrant experiences of non-Europeans through Ellis
Island.
The exhibitions struck a balance between discussing the immigrants’ opportunities and
hardships. Therefore in addressing Ellis Island as a federal institution, the museum moved
beyond the site’s use as an immigration station, discussing the federal government’s
redevelopment of the site as a deportation center, post-1924. This exhibition, in particular,
moved away from the idea that the United States was a beacon of hope and that it in fact
accepted all of the huddled masses. This exhibition also chronicled the history of the island itself,
before it became Ellis Island. For the museum staff, it was important to discuss Native
Americans, not as crossers of the Bering Strait but as part of the American polyglot society. The
museum also created a temporary exhibition space, allowing most immigration and ethnic
museums throughout the country to host their exhibitions and discuss immigration through their
community’s perspective.

Conclusion
The bicentennial celebrations in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. cemented
Ellis Island’s place as the foundation of the American immigrant experience. White ethnics
capitalized on the country’s bicentennial celebration to insert their own origin stories. They
secured their place in the national imaginary and, in so doing, became full members of the
American mainstream’s national narratives about democracy and perseverance. As Herbart Gans
predicted, second- and third-generation white ethnics used museums and memorials to showcase
their ethnic identity, formulating an identity process that relied more so on symbols and shared
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nostalgia than a shared experience of struggle. In the case of Ellis Island, symbolic ethnicity
served as a driving force for many of the historians, developers, and preservationists whose
families had, at one point or another, encountered Ellis Island. Similarly, the Smithsonian’s staff,
most of whom were second- and third-generation, used the latest sociological theories to
construct, develop, and lay out their bicentennial exhibition, “A Nation of Nations.” By the time
that the Ellis Island Museum opened in the 1990s, the American Museum of Immigration’s use
of the melting pot theory had been replaced. No longer was it acceptable to discuss the American
immigration history as one where multiple groups became one country with one identity. The
new norm was one where white ethnics could treat ethnicity as something to be celebrated and
appreciated as a symbol. The American mainstream, they argued, was made up of many groups
who are one, but who can still appreciate their familial roots during family celebrations and
holidays. Memorials and museums served as the keepers of this new form of identity. Yet, these
newly embraced ideas continued to neglect the struggles of African Americans, Native
Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans.

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Locating America's Gates in the West: The Border Patrol Museum in El Paso and
the Nationalizing ditto of the Angel Island Immigration Station.

By the 1970s, the country was in a recession with a high rate of unemployment. Like
many episodes of economic downtown, Americans began to look for a scapegoat and found it in
the visible number of unauthorized immigrants who began to appear throughout the Southwest,
especially in California and Texas. The high visibility of this seemingly new category of
immigrants disrupted the narratives put forth by the American Museum of Immigration and the
Smithsonian. Academics and activists began to study the history and circumstances of these new
groups of American denizens in order to understand how they fit into the larger American
landscape. They wanted to understand whether this kind of immigration had ever existed before
World War II and the kinds of state mechanisms that allowed for these immigrants to exist in the
first place. For some, the issue at hand was whether this kind of immigrant had ever existed in
the past. For others, the focus was not on the immigrants, but on the state mechanisms that
allowed for these immigrants to exist in the first place. Yet both frameworks were approaching
the same question: is the U.S. a gatekeeping nation, and if so, how did this happen?
Within the immigration debates of the 1970s and 1980s, two public history projects
surfaced to answer the question of America's gatekeeping past. This chapter details both projects
as they attempted to showcase the different viewpoints that surrounded the immigration debates
of the 1980s. On the one hand was the Border Patrol Museum in El Paso, Texas, which emerged
as a project that depicted the immigrant narrative from the point-of-view of law enforcement. On
the other hand was the re-genesis of Angel Island, as a case study for scholars and activists, who
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were attempting to address the contemporary issues surrounding immigration from an immigrant
standpoint. In both cases, the nation-state became the focal point. Both projects tried to resolve
the questions surrounding immigrants' entry into the country outside of the Ellis Island narrative.
I argue that both projects attempted to complicate the ideas put forth during the American
bicentennial, disrupting narratives of the United States as a safe haven for all immigrants. In so
doing, they became part of a bifurcated immigrant narrative.
According to political scientist Aristide Zolberg, the "front door" narrative celebrates the
history of the immigrants who identified with Ellis Island as a place of hope and dreams. The
policies surrounding this narrative were created to show the American ideals of democracy. Yet,
he cautioned, these policies do not address the needs of the capitalist market. Therefore,
embedded in immigration policies are multiple “back doors.” These "back door" narratives,
Zolberg argued, address the market and political realities of the American nation-state. It is under
this category where American imperialism materializes and as Mae Ngai has suggested, “these
features put European and non-European immigration groups on different trajectories of racial
formation.”
239
In other words, the Border Patrol Museum and the Angel Island Immigration
Station Foundation were created to showcases the histories of those immigrants affected by
back-door policies.
These projects’ locations, furthermore demonstrated that the nation-state’s enforcement
of these back-door policies not only racialized particular immigrant groups, but also reinforced a
narrative of the American West as a wild and lawless geographic space. Both the Border Patrol
Museum and the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation revealed how the enforcement of

239
Aristide R. Zolberg, A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America. (Cambridge:
Hardvard University Park, 2009) 10. Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern
America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) 13.
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specific immigration policies marked the America West as a space that needed to be tamed and
controlled. On the one hand, Border Patrol Museum reinforced a narrative that placed the
country’s gatekeeping policies to Euro-American traditions of sovereignty. On the other hand,
the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation showcased how these policies naturalized
American prejudices against non-European immigrants. Together, they critiqued the idolization
of Ellis Island as the space in where questions of immigrations and nationhood were contested
and reinforced.

Debating Illegal Immigration
During the 1970s and 1980s, a national debate arose over the millions of unauthorized
immigrants resident in the country. Discourse centered on Mexican immigration, and more
specifically, the immigrants who entered the country across the U.S.-Mexico Border. Scholars
have argued that these immigrants were by-products of the immigration policies from the 1960s.
They have pointed to two main statues—the enactment of the Hart-Cellar Act and the
termination of the Bracero Program. The Hart-Cellar Act leveled the number of immigrants who
could enter the country legally, limiting legal immigration from the Western Hemisphere for the
first time in history.
240
The Bracero Program was a bi-national agreement between Mexico and
the United States, which allowed for the importation of Mexican laborers starting in 1942.
Farmers quickly took advantage of this program, and even though it was against the rules, many

240
Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Politics and Society
in Twentieth Century America). (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Daniel Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The
Politics of Immigration Control in America. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002): 218; Roger Daniels,
Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (New York: Hill and Wang,
2004), 219; Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican
Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003).
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used these men as strikebreakers. Farmer workers attempting to unionize lobbied to have
Congress end the program, citing these abuses and the poor living conditions that many braceros
faced in the fields and housing camps.
241
By 1964, organizers won and Congress terminated the
Bracero Program.
242
Yet even as both policies were aimed at curbing Mexican immigration
flows, they actually moved the immigrants’ border crossing process underground.
However, not all unauthorized immigrants originated from Mexico. A portion of
unauthorized immigration was also a by-product of American intervention in Third World
countries. To address this issue Congress enacted the Refugee Act of 1980. This new policy was
supposed to give Central American, Caribbean, African, and South Asian immigrants the
opportunity to apply for American residency under special refugee status. These immigrants
were tasked with providing documentation that proved that the increased political instability in
their native countries pushed tem to apply for political asylum. In some cases, this policy
worked, helping millions of immigrants to settle and rebuild their lives in the United States.
243

High numbers of Vietnamese immigrants, for instance, struggled to reach the United States. Yet,
once they entered American soil, these immigrants were ushered into military bases in
California, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Florida.
244
Many of them settled in California, Texas,

241
Ernesto Galarza, Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story; An Account of the Managed Migration of
Mexican Farm Workers in California 1942–1960. 3d ed. (Santa Barbara, CA: McNally & Loftin, 1978); Kitty
Calavita, Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. (New Orleans: Quid Pro, 2010);
Deborah Cohen. Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico.
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).
242
Technically, Congress did not officially terminate the Bracero Program. Rather, Congress caved in and
agrees to not renew the program after 1964. See…
243
The most powerful piece of legislation during this time period is the Refugee Act of 1980. This act was the
first refugee law in the nation’s history.
244
Carl J. Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate: The United States and Refugees during the Cold War (Politics
and Society in Twentieth-Century America). (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Nghia M. Vo,
Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975-1992. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2005): 78-82.
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and the Gulf Coast where they were reunited with family members and used government
subsidies to attempt to move forward.
245

In other cases, however, immigrants from war torn counties did not have the same
opportunities. Between the 1960 and 1996, over 400,000 Guatemalans fled to Mexico, the U.S.,
and Canada. These immigrants sought relief from military conflicts in their home county. The
immigrants that applied for asylum in the U.S. faced an uphill battle. During the 1980’s asylum
seekers routinely had their application rejected by the Reagan administration, which granted
refugee status only to people fleeing Communist countries like Nicaragua and Cuba. Routinely,
the Reagan administration rejected refugee applications of people from allied countries. Many of
these immigrants; therefore, felt compelled to enter the county without proper documentation
and settled in cities with large existing Latino communities like Los Angeles, New York City,
Houston, Washington, D.C., and Miami.
246

The rise in immigration, legal or otherwise, alarmed academics and government officials
alike. By the beginning of the 1980s, political think tanks arose to propose solutions based on
immigration history, American culture, and the contemporary political climate. John Tanton, an
environmental activist, established many of the conservative think tanks that arose to tackle this
issue. He co-founded the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1979, the
American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF) in 1983, U.S. English in 1983, and the Center
for Immigration Studies (CIS) in 1985. Collectively, these think tanks advocated for policies that
restricted immigration into the United States, and codified English as the official language for all

245
The largest Vietnamese American enclaves in the country are located in Orange County, California;
Houston, Texas; and, around the Mexican Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Min Zhou and
Carl L. Bankston III, Growing Up America: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States. (New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999).
246
Ana Patricia Rodriguez, “Refugees of the South: Central Americans in the U.S. Latino Imaginary,”
American Literature 73.2 (2001): 387-412.
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149
American states.
247
Many of their arguments centered on environmental concerns, though their
analysis was coated in nativist language. Tanton, for instance, stated that that it was hard to see a
conservation ethic within the various populations of new immigrants. “We certainly don’t see
this in many of the southeastern Asian cultures,” he insisted, “or in Latin America.”
248
Overtime,
popular conservative political commentators like Patrick Buchanan and Peter Brimelow came to
agree with these “findings,” lamenting that many of these new immigrants were “browning”
America, because they were “incompatible” with American cultural traditions. They believed
that these new immigrants could ultimately transform—and destroy—the American nation.
249
In
other words, they used anti-immigration rhetoric similar to that of the eugenic movement of the
early twentieth century, both in its appeal to pseudo-science and nationalist sentiments.
250

Advocates for immigrants’ rights, most of whom included lawyers, academics, and civil
rights activists, also established research institutions and think tanks of their own. Organizations
like the National Immigration Law Center (1979), the National Immigration Forum (1982), the
Mexican Migration Project (1982), and the American Immigration Law Foundation (1987), for
instance, established themselves as the main immigration supporters.
251
These organizations
pointed to American immigration history as they recommended policies that would balance the
interests of the state with the humanity of incoming immigrants. Major labor organizations like
the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and Latino organizations the National Council

247
Sara Diamond, “Right-Wing Politics and the Anti-Immigration Cause,” Social Justice 23.3 (Fall 1996) 154-
168.
248
Quote found in Tichenor’s book. Dividing Lines, 237.
249
Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: Common Sense about America’s Immigration Disaster (New York: Random
House, 1994), p. 13.
250
Alex Sterm, Eugenic Nation
251
National Immigration Law Center, “Who We Are,” http://www.nilc.org/whoweare.html (Retrieved
December 14, 2013); National Immigration Forum, “About the Forum,” http://immigrationforum.org/about
(Retrieved December 14, 2013); Mexican Migration Project, “Mexican Migration Project.”
http://mmp.opr.princeton.edu/home-en.aspx (Retrieved December 14, 2013); Guide Star, “American Immigration
Council AKA AILF” http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/52-1549711/american-immigration-council.aspx
(Retrieved December 14, 2013).
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of La Raza also worked to influence immigration policy taking a pro-immigrant stance for the
first time. While all of these various groups advocated for different, and sometimes opposing,
legislation, all of them recognized that these restrictive laws were part of the United States’
gatekeeping history.
At the core of the immigration debates were two kinds of political ideologies that were
grounded in socio-political audiences about the Third World origins of most immigrants. To curb
the emotional interests from actually entering into immigration reform policy, the Carter
Administration formed the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy (SCRIP).
SCRIP was composed primarily of various government officials from all three government
branches. Members included 4 public members, 4 cabinet secretaries, and 8 congressional
members. Unlike the Dillingham Commission of the early 20
th
century, SCRIP was supposed to
purge itself of the public’s anxieties, providing “definitive information” and “enlightened”
reform proposals. The Commission members themselves furthered this goal. Many of them
belonged to ethnic and rural groups that had been deemed inferior by the Dillingham
Commission. Members included Patricia Roberts Harris, the U.S. Secretary of Health and
Human Services and the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Cabinet, Rose Ochi,
a Japanese American assistant to Los Angeles Major Tom Bradley, Joaquin Francisco Otero, a
Cuban American labor unionist who created the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
under the AFL-CIO, and Cruz Reynoso, a Mexican American federal judge form the Third
Appellate District in Sacramento. Over the commission’s two years, members held public
hearings, analyzed immigration specialists’ findings, and sponsored new research. Their findings
and recommendations were published in 1981 and became the basic framework for future
immigration reform and policy. According to immigration scholar Daniel Tichenor, the report
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advanced four key ideas. First, the commission affirmed the notion that legal immigrants served
American national interests as they contributed to economic growth and productivity and helped
the country retain steady population growth as families reunited. Second, the commission warned
that illegal immigration needed to be stemmed before legal immigration could be expanded.
Third, SCRIP reiterated the American 3-track system of legal admission: family reunification,
employee recruitment, and refugee admissions. Last, the commission stressed the need for
immigration policies that were nondiscriminatory in terms of race, ethnicity, and religion.
By 1982, Alan Simpson, a Senator who participated in SCRIP, and Romano Mazzoli a
moderate Democrat from Kentucky with ties to SCRIP members, worked to craft immigration
legislation based on the ideals espoused by SCRIP, while proposing an annual cap on legal
immigration and rejecting any semblance of a guest-worker program. The bill was quickly
rejected by House Democratic leadership, and the Reagan Administration Immigration reform
efforts remained in limbo even as broad public concern over illegal immigration increased. When
the Supreme Court ruled in “Plyer v. Doe” that states could not deny undocumented children
public services like public education. Simpson and Mazzoli reintroduced their bill without any
real changes to the original legislative language. Again, the bill faced an uphill battle in the
House of Representatives. Without much support, the bill was abandoned. Simpson and Mazzoli
decided to divide their efforts. By 1985, Congress convened with a new legislative body.
Simpson introduced a new reform bill that dropped all legal immigration reforms and focused
solely on unauthorized immigration. Simpson drafted a bill that dulled the effects of employer
sanctions and admitted 350,000 new farming guest workers. In the House, Mazzoli partnered
with Rodino to work on a separate reform package. The Rodino-Mazzoli Bill included a sunset
provision on employer sanctions and created pathways to legalization for immigrants who were
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already within the U.S. without proper documentation. Behind closed doors, House
Representatives met with lobbyists in order to craft a bill that satisfied most interest groups. By
May 1986, a newer adaptation of the bill made its way out of conference. The new legislative
piece included an employer sanction program that would be re-evaluated in three years to assess
its impact on job discrimination, new amnesty pathways, reimbursement to states for costs
accrued for the legalization process, and the farm worker program. This law passed both houses
and Reagan signed it into law as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).
While IRCA appeared to solve the question of illegal immigration within American
borders, it did not actually reform legal immigration nor did it widen the numbers of those
seeking refugee status. By only focusing on illegal immigration and more specifically on its
labor market impact, IRCA did little to reform immigration policy. Furthermore, the Reagan
administration shied away from enforcing employer sanctions since much of his other work
focused on deregulation and free markets. Observers outside of the Washington Beltway found
these policy initiatives/reforms frustrating and they sought to have their perspectives represented.

The Border Patrol Museum and the Fraternal Order of Retired Border Patrol
Officers

Since Operation Wetback of the 1950s, the Border Patrol had managed to stay away from
the limelight. During the 1970s, the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization Services,
Leonard F. Chapman, conceded that his agency’s ability to successfully remove and deport the
unauthorized population needed to be improved. He argued, however, that he was underfunded
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and understaffed in order to control the "invasion of border crossers" along the U.S.-Mexico
Border.
252
Chapman, therefore, put the onus on Congress for passing the Hart-Cellar Acts of
1965 without directly addressing the issue of the U.S.-Mexico Border. His criticism required that
Congress initiate a general inquiry into the new immigration laws and its enforcement. The idea
was that this analysis could help correct unauthorized immigration and reform the issues created
by the 1965 laws.
253
Yet Congress' examination of the new laws and the U.S.-Mexico Border
further fueled the inspection of the men who had pledged their lives defending the American
borderlands. The country began to hotly debate the agency’s abuse record and its call for more
agents at the U.S.-Mexico Border. With the nation up in arms, the Border Patrol Museum opened
and the museum’s board of directors saw it as their role to educate the general American public
about the agency's duties and responsibilities.
Historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez noted that during the 1970s Americans grew
increasingly anxious and tired of the “excessive and racially discriminatory” border patrol
agency, while others became enraged by the “rampant ineptitude and corruption” of the
Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS).
254
By 1977, the Jimmy Carter administration
changed the leadership within INS, replacing Leonard Chapman with Leonel Castillo. Castillo
took it upon himself to implement changes to the ways in which the Border Patrol agency
functioned. One of his most drastic reforms came in the form of personnel turnover. Before
taking this position, Castillo had served as Houston’s first Latino City Controller, volunteered as
a Peace Corps member, and received his Master’s degree in Community Organizing at the

252
Kelly Lytle-Hernandez, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2010), 217.
253
Martin Tolchin. "U.S. Schedules an Inquiry into Immigration Services." New York Times (1923-Current
File), Nov 02, 1972.
254
Lytle Hernandez, 225.
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University of Pittsburg. Using his years of experiences, Castillo analyzed the bureaucracy within
the Border Patrol and ordered that the new federal employment benefits be strictly enforced. This
new policy required that border patrol agents who had served for more than 20 years and were
over the age of fifty-five retire.
255
This policy led to what agents later dubbed “the mandatory
exodus of January 1, 1978.”
256
With this new policy enforcement, Castillo, and the other
Immigration Commissioners after him, began to recruit border patrol agents from communities
of color.
While the Border Patrol agency continued to grow and change, the retired agents looked
to continue their collegial relationships. Several of these men got together in Denver, CO on
October 24, 1978 and decided to charter the Fraternal Order of Retired Border Patrol Officers, or
FORBPO. While the retired agents knew that this organization was supposed to help them keep
the ties they had created in U.S.-Mexico borderlands, they also understood that the organization
needed a more concrete and tangible by-product. A year after the organization’s initial meeting,
the Board of Directors met in Tucson, Arizona, and decided that the men, and their families,
should work towards establishing a border patrol museum and library. This place, they argued,
could preserve the valuable material and memorabilia that had been scattered throughout the
country when these men were asked to retire.
257
The museum and library would provide a site
that preserved the history of the Border Patrol from a national-security perspective. The museum,
therefore, existed as a vehicle for retired border patrolmen to continue to voice their philosophy

255
Interview with Leonel J. Castillo by Oscar J. Martinez, 1980, "Interview no. 532," Institute of Oral History,
University of Texas at El Paso; http://archive.gao.gov/f1002a/103782.pdf
256
Lylte Herandez, 225.
257
Harrison, Don. “Denver Charter Committee Founds Nationwide Fraternal Order of Former INS Border
Patrolmen.” The Border Line, November 1978.
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155
of the situation along the U.S.-Mexico Border and a physical symbol that could inhabit the space
they once appropriated as their own.
In order to underscore the museum’s power as an immigration historic site, and the
Border Patrol’s role in immigration history, FORBPO members debated where the museum
should physically reside. Several members argued that the museum should be sited in Yuma,
Arizona, while others insisted that the museum should open in El Paso, Texas. The divide
between Yuma and El Paso corresponded to the border patrol’s district structure. The American
northern and southern borders were divided into districts that did not always adhere to state lines.
For instance, the Los Angeles District stretched from the Pacific Ocean to east Yuma, Arizona
and north to San Luis Obispo in California.
258
This district had a different historical trajectory to
that of the Texas-based districts.
When the Border Patrol was first formed in 1924, the Los Angeles district was tasked
with stemming unsanctioned border crossers from Asian, European and Mexican descent. Kelly
Lytle Hernandez found that even as immigration restrictions against Asian and European
immigration tightened in the United States, Mexican officials opened their doors to these groups
in order to fuel Mexico’s industrialization. Thousands of Japanese and Chinese immigrants took
advantage of these opportunities, primarily moving to Sonora and Baja California. In California,
hysteria over the possible “invasion” of European and Asian immigrants via the U.S.–Mexico
border filled the pages of local newspapers. While the border patrol worked to detain Asian and
European border crossers, they assured California growers that Mexican day laborers would not
be molested. However, within a few days, Chief Nielson of the Immigration Service clarified
that Mexican workers were still required to pay eighteen dollars each time they crossed the

258
Hernandez, Migra, 70
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border. By the end of the 1930s, border patrol officers in the Los Angeles district had refocused
their efforts on policing unauthorized Mexican immigration since many of those seasonal
workers could not afford the head tax.
259
The Texas-based districts, however, had always been
tasked with patrolling against Mexican immigration. The patrolmen in these districts had roots in
the Texas Rangers. Hernandez explained that “they had grown up and lived in the U.S.-Mexico
borderlands before they became border patrol officers… they had grown up with white violence
towards Mexicanos.” Therefore, even though Yuma supporters underscored the local
government’s willingness to house the museum, at the root of the members’ debate was the
question of which of the two origin histories should be highlighted – California agribusiness or
the legacies of the Texas Rangers.
Leading the members of the El Paso supporters were Bill and Sue Cardwell Turner. Bill
Turner had served as El Paso Sector Pilot before he retired in 1978. Along with his wife, Bill
argued that El Paso needed to serve as the museum’s home since many of the Border Patrol’s
historical events happened within El Paso. He pointed, for instance, to El Paso as the first home
of federal agency’s training facility (1937 – 1961).
260
Therefore, he argued, El Paso had a
regional and national historical significance. Some members argued that if the museum was
aiming to be a center for national immigration law enforcement, then New York City needed to
be considered. They argued that this East Coast city could not easily be ignored as a center of
immigration in the country.
261
This position, however, did not have a significant hold and New
York City was dropped from consideration. If the museum was to narrate a history with the
Border Patrol at the center, they needed to underscore the U.S.-Mexico border as a porous battle

259
Hernandez, Migra, 72-75
260
Border Patrol Museum. “Border Patrol Museum and Memorial Library Foundation,” 1988. Museum History
Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.
261
Ibid.
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zone that needed vigilant surveillance. Mass media outlets routinely used the discourse of war to
illustrate unauthorized immigration from the southern border. The same could not be said for
unauthorized immigration from the northern border.
262
This story, they decided, could only be
told in El Paso as it was the unofficial home of the agency and since most of the agency's work
was oriented towards the southern border.
263

The museum's placement in El Paso forced FORBPO members to narrow focus on the
museum's mission and goals. They concluded that their museum would focus on the experiences
of border patrolmen, rather than the motivations and experiences of the border crossers. This
focus also meant that the museum would reflect the militant perspective laid out by Leonard
Chapman on issues related to the U.S.-Mexico Border, national security, and immigration
policies. An example of this emphasis can be seen in the museum's development and exhibitions.
As the museum's organizers produced exhibits, they referred to patrolmen as heroes.

A Patrolman’s Legacy

After Bill Turner passed away in 1983, Sue Turner became a leader in the museum
project, and moved to have as many supporters from both private and public organizations.
264

She sought the financial support of the City of El Paso, the Border Patrol, Immigration and
Naturalization Services, and other interested parties. On the development side unclear, Sue

262
Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante, “Arizona and the Making of a State of Exclusion.
263
Coppock, Don. “FORBPO Memorial Museum and Library Foundation Weathers Set-Back.” The Border
Line, Summer 1981.
264
In 1997, the Texas State Legislature honored Sue Turner by passing Texas Senate Resolution 464.
According the resolution, Turner was posthumously inducted into the El Paso Commission for Women Hall of Fame
for her efforts to establish the Border Patrol Museum and for her work on a 1950s cooking show on the local
television station.
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Turner worked to get the endorsements of federal agents, who could in turn entice civilians to
donate to the creation of the museum. Her efforts worked and she was able to gain the
endorsement from Leonel Castillo. His support offered the museum a large boost as he had
served under the Carter Administration and advocated for an INS that actually rendered services
and avenues for legal residency in the United States. His priorities made him many enemies
within the border patrolmen old-timers’ community who clung to Chapman’s ideology—“illegal
immigration was again at crisis levels and that, this time, the immigrants were criminal aliens,
prostitutes, and drug smugglers rather than simple and easy going ‘wetbacks’ of the past.”
265

They saw Castillo as a man who was moving resources away from the Border Patrol, rejecting
their philosophy that the only solution to problems at the border was through militaristic law
enforcement.
266
Castillo’s approval, however, helped the museum demonstrate that its narratives,
while limited in scope, were inclusive of all ideologies. Their apparent openness helped them
successfully break ground in El Paso’s downtown and open the museum to the public.
Turner also began to fundraise within FORBPO. To boost donations, FORBPO’s
newsletter, The Border Line, published a story of a border patrol widow who decided to donate
one hundred and fifty dollars instead of the suggested $25. According to the story:
…she began thinking about their experiences together in the Border Patrol and realized
that they had spent their entire lives together in the organization and that she then came to
the conclusion that she wanted to make a larger contribution in order to perpetuate the
memory and rich history of the old Patrol.
267

Even if this story is fiction, the publisher’s point was to perpetuate a particular kind of sentiment
about duty to country and family. Under this narrative, FORBPO members were not just

265
Lytle-Hernandez, 216.
266
Interview with Leonel J. Castillo by Oscar J. Martinez, 1980, "Interview no. 532," Institute of Oral History,
University of Texas at El Paso.
267
Surface, Harry E. “FORBPO Members Are Urged To Support the Border Patrol Museum & Memorial
Library.” The Border Line, Spring 1982. The emphasis is that of the author and was not originally printed.
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donating to create a non-profit institution, but also working towards maintaining a Border Patrol
that was somehow more benevolent and righteous than the corrupt institution portrayed in the
media. As Lytle Hernandez noted, the general public had reached a new level of cynicism when
it came to the Border Patrol so that in 1982 Universal Studios released a film entitled The
Border, “which portrayed the U.S. Border Patrol as awash in corruption and violence.”
268

In the construction of this narrative, the Border Patrol’s benevolence was not just encased
in the objects and the exhibits; as the story above demonstrates, family and family values became
a central component of the new museum. Like Turner, this widow was a devoted wife of a
border patrol agent who dedicated her life to his work. This story, therefore, was meant to elicit
nostalgia from FORBPO members who believed in the ideals of the American family and
structure--a man as the breadwinner, a woman as a devoted wife, and a nuclear family as the
centerpiece of American values. This text was a critique of what these men and women believed
was destroying society and social norms--the unwed mothers, the career woman, and the welfare
state. From this point forward, FORBPO and the Border Patrol Museum staff made a conscious
choice to reject financial support from the federal government, stating that they believed they
could rise if they just picked themselves up by their bootstraps.
By 1984, the museum staff received great news. The Board of Directors and museum
trustees met with Evern Wall, President of the El Paso Electric Company and the Chamber of
Commerce.
269
This meeting led to a resolution where the museum president was given
permission to sign a lease for space in the Cortez building in Downtown El Paso. This building

268
Lytle-Hernandez, 223; Garrison, Ernie. “Movie Review.” The Border Line, Autumn 1984. Museum History
Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.

269
FORBPO. “FORBPO Directors and Museum Trustees Meet Jointly in El Paso,” 1984. Museum History
Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.
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had been an important landmark in the twentieth century, housing a hotel that drew in many
national celebrities and politicians, including President Kennedy. After the hotel closed, portions
of the building were leased to government agencies. These agencies, and the chamber of
commerce, soon came to see the dilapidation of the downtown area and began to find ways of
revitalizing the space. The Border Patrol Museum’s trustees took advantage of this fact and sold
the project as a potential draw for many tourists into the downtown area. By the end of the year,
the museum had signed a lease that gave them access to the lower portion of the Cortez Building.
With lease in hand, the museum staff began to quickly work towards the opening of the Border
Patrol Museum.
On October 1, 1985, the Border Patrol Museum opened its doors to the general public.
The city of El Paso dedicated the day to the museum and decreed that October 1, 1985 would be
considered “Border Patrol Museum Day in El Paso.”
270
The museum was divided into two
sections. One space was dedicated to the exhibits, and the other space was a small gift shop. This
shop was supposed to help the museum generate enough revenue to keep the doors open. The
gift shop sold merchandise with the Border Patrol’s official logo; items included hats, shirts,
mugs, and jewelry. The gift shop also sold books that detailed the Border Patrol agents’ point of
view. Many of these books included memoirs, diaries, and opinions pieces surrounding the U.S.-
Mexico Border. For the most part, the museum produced enough positive feedback, and revenue,
to keep its doors open for most of the 1980s.
Though the museum made a concerted effort to reject federal financial support, they did
work with these entities in ways that that did not readily appear to interfere with their ideals. For

270
Haggerty, Patrick B. “Proclamation: City of El Paso, Texas.” City of El Paso, El Paso County, October 1,
1985. Museum History Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.
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instance, Terrie Cornell, the museum director, requested that the Border Patrol help the museum
collect artifacts and create a number of exhibits for their space.
271
She asked that each Border
Patrol sector in the federal government create an exhibit that explained their unique
circumstances within the Border Patrol. These exhibits, Cornell hoped, would be rotated every
several months, demonstrating how the agency operated in the past and present, and the unique
circumstances that each sector had to face. These exhibits, moreover, helped the museum in two
other ways. Firstly, they underscored the museum’s national presence and ability to speak to a
national public. Secondly, the museum’s sector exhibits helped demonstrate to patrons from
across the country the importance of the Border Patrol as enforcers of an immigrant experience
different from that of Ellis Island. At Ellis Island, immigrants all entered through one door, with
papers in hand. Border Patrol agents, however, had to look for the immigrants before any kind of
authorization could ever take place.
Cornell’s request fueled border patrol sectors from all over the nation to send materials.
The Canadian border patrol sector, for instance, showcased snowmobiles and hunting gear,
reaffirming the notion that even these agents worked in dangerous environments full of
threats.
272
Border Patrol sectors along the U.S.-Mexico Border sent in helicopters, guns, and
several surveillance tools that they used to find and capture potential unauthorized immigrants.
The most interesting of these exhibits came from the Miami sector. Miami’s agents focused on
the Mariel Boatlift, which resulted in a partnership between the Border Patrol and the Coast
Guard to control the mass influx of Cuban refugees who sought asylum in 1980.
273
The exhibit

271
Harrison, Don. “Border Patrol Memorial Library/Museum.” The Border Line, October 1979.
272
Barrera, Eduardo. “Aliens in Heterotopia: An Intertexual Reading of the Border Patrol Museum,” in
Ethnography at the Border. Ed. Pablo Villa. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003): 167.
273
Cornell, Terrie. “Director’s Annual Report, May 1987-May 1988.” Border Patrol Museum and Memorial
Foundation, Inc., May 1988. Museum History Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.
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showcased a refugee boat, expressing the idea that these men and women were attracted to an
American liberty not offered in Cuba.
In addition to discussing the regional differences, the Border Patrol Museum staff made
sure to note the border patrolmen’s shared valor and honor. . Titled the “Wall of Honor,” this
exhibit replicated the wall at the lobby of the Border Patrol's main office in El Paso. It
showcased the names and lives of the border patrolmen killed in the line of duty. While the
exhibit’s labels portrayed the “facts” of these men’s deaths, they did not detail the circumstances,
leaving the museum’s visitors with the assumption that they died for their country similar to that
of a marine, soldier, or sailor. As local scholar Eduardo Barrera made clear, "death frames the
issue as a mythical opposition...where two subjects are engaged in a conflict that can only be
solved through...annihilation or assimilation."
274
Under the exhibit’s motifs of duty and honor
and life and death, the museum reinforced and applauded the federal agency’s aggressive
actions. According to the museum's organizers, these projects depicted "a spirit not unlike the
American dream in that a handful of pioneers through blood, sweat, and tears that had the guts
necessary to lay the foundation for the United States Border Patrol.”
275
In other words, this
museum wished to legitimize their militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border as a necessary
artifice to the security of American values.
Aside from the “Wall of Honor,” the museum had several exhibits that illustrated the
Border Patrol’s role in moving the nation towards a more democratic state. These exhibits
showed their operation of prisoner-of-war camps during World War II, a border patrolman's
foiling of an attempted plane hijacking in 1961, and their work in suppressing the civil rights

274
Barrera, 167.
275
Brandemuehl, Roger P. “Harry Surface,” October 9, 1985. Museum History Drawer. National Border Patrol
Museum, El Paso, TX.
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riots at University of Mississippi in 1962.
276
These exhibits described the border patrol as a force
that went beyond its call of duty at the U.S.-Mexico border to ensure the national security of the
United States both in civil and military settings. While not centering her narrative on El Paso,
Cornell also created exhibits that spoke to the agency’s presence within the local community.
These exhibits described the creation of the training academy in El Paso for agents and dogs, and
their work apprehending unauthorized immigrants through random traffic checks throughout the
borderland communities of the Southwest. Together, these exhibits painted an image of the
Border Patrol as a national law enforcement agency that worked to ensure the safety of
Americans citizens. The agents emerged as patriots who deserve to be honored.
For the Border Patrol Museum, the greatest contribution to the history of the U.S.-Mexico
Border was the stories of the border patrolmen themselves. By the end of 1988, Cornell had
collected close to fifty oral histories from border patrolmen and their families.
277
These stories
centered on one of the major ethos of the museum—the memories of old Border Patrol, whose
stories should be captured in a way that valorized their work along the border. However, this oral
history project also hoped to acknowledge the work of the women behind the men. Wives of past
officers were encouraged to donate their histories to the museum library. Cornell believed that
these histories needed to be told from these various and unique perspectives, and that her archive
would one day rival that of the University of Texas at El Paso's Oral History Institute and Border
Studies Program. While this oral history collection remained significantly smaller than those in
UTEP, it did in effect do what it set out to do. Cornell was able to collect oral histories, poems,
memos, and letters that showed the complex interactions between border communities, the

276
Cornell, Terrie. “The Museum Director’s Corner.” The Border Line, Winter 1986.
277
Cornell, Terrie. “Director’s Annual Report, May 1987-May 1988.” Border Patrol Museum and Memorial
Foundation, Inc., May 1988. Museum History Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.

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nation-state, and the border patrol agents. Since the collection initiative began, scholars and
activists were given access to these records to help deepen understanding of the U.S.-Mexico
borderlands and the space that the U.S. Border Patrol agency occupies within it.
The museum’s desire to showcase the valor of the border patrol agents required that it
create a dichotomous relationship between border patrolmen and border crossers. Border crossers
were portrayed as devious and mischievous. For instance, the museum had a display titled,
“Weapons Seized from Illegal Aliens,” which exhibited the different kinds of objects that the
border patrol agents confiscated from unauthorized immigrants. These weapons included kitchen
and utility knives, scissors, and screwdrivers. The labels that contextualized these artifacts
explained that these objects were taken away in order to protect the border patrol agents from
any possible harm. These objects, however, had other possible uses in the long stretch of the
border-crossing journey. “There is no reference about these objects’ possible use to cut paper,
nails, or hair (scissors), to eat (knives), or to fix things,” according to Barrera. Furthermore,
while the museum noted that these objects could be used in self-defense, they did not interrogate
the possibility that these unauthorized immigrants could encounter hostile wild animals or
criminals. Lastly, this display unintentionally demonstrated the marked differences between a
militarized work force—who used guns, and helicopters to detect and capture potential border
crossers—and a disenfranchised work force—who entered the country with multi-use objects,
and little else.
In addition to framing border crossers as suspect, the museum consistently referred to
potential border crossers as “illegal aliens.” Museum staff saw this term as a generic marker for
anyone who entered the United States without proper documentation:
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Illegals or illegal aliens. That to me was interesting because you know if I were to go into
another country illegally or without documentation, what would they call me? An illegal
alien. It is not a derogatory term at all. It simply states the fact that they are here without
permission.
278

Staff members’ unwillingness to acknowledge the social construction of this term meant that
they could not interpret these histories holistically. More specifically, by focusing on the border
crossing as a criminal act, the museum limited its ability to interrogate the nuances of the border-
crossing populations and the complex reasons behind the actual act. Seemingly, the only exhibit
that deviates from this pattern is the Miami sector display. According to the exhibit labels, the
Mariel Boatlift needed to be understood in the context of U.S.-Cuba Relations. These
immigrants, therefore, were not marked as illegals, or illegal aliens. Rather, they were refugees
seeking a better life, away from the ruthless dictatorship of Fidel Castro. The same
contextualization was afforded to U.S.-Mexico border crossers like the Guatemalan immigrants
seeking political asylum.
Even though museum staff denied that the term “illegal aliens” was ever tied to any one
particular political viewpoint or racial epithet, many of the museum’s benefactors ascribed to a
militaristic and racist viewpoint. The best example was showcased in FORBPO’s monthly
newsletter, The Border Line. This newsletter had several articles that reported on the different
kinds of immigration legislations that were being debated during the 1980s. FORBPO even had a
Washington, D.C. representative who would ensure that their assessments of the situation along
the U.S.-Mexico Border were addressed and voiced. When the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill failed in
1983, the representative wrote in The Border Line that people on Capitol Hill just could not

278
Brenda Tisdale Oral History
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understand that the “perception among Mexicans is that the United States doesn't mind if they
come over to work.”
279
This comment asserted what many FORBPO members believed—
unauthorized immigrants were responsible for America’s high unemployment. Furthermore,
when IRCA passed Congress, the representative pointed out that the bill did not alleviate the
workload for current border patrolmen, as authorized immigration remained intact.
280
For these
men, Congress failed to comprehend that Mexican immigrants were criminals, who not only
crossed the border illegally but also took potential employment from American citizens.
Ironically, IRCA’s major reforms were focused on employee sanctions and the overall labor
market.
The Border Line newsletter, however, did not limit its characterization of the immigration
debate to the written word. Illustrations of unauthorized immigrants as Mexican, dirty, and
conniving were sprinkled throughout its pages. These images, and the ideologies they espoused,
bled into the museum’s gift shop. By 1989, the museum’s shop chose to sell a t-shirt that played
off the Ghostbusters movie logo: instead of a white ghost inside the red circular slash, the black
shirt displayed an image of a Mexican peon with a sombrero, mustache, and ripped huaraches.
This man held a chili pepper in one hand, while he crept through a fence hole. Below the image
was the Spanish translation of the Ghostbusters catch-phrase, “Who you gonna call?” Robert
Conner, a 41-year-old El Paso resident, heard about the t-shirt from a friend and went to the
museum to see the illustration for himself. He was horrified and contacted the Border Patrol
demanding an explanation. The agency’s director notified him that the border patrol and the
museum had no explicit partnership.

279
Surface, Harry E. “Shelving Of Simpson/Mazzoli Bill Dashes Hopes of Border Patrol Agents.” The Border
Line, Fall 1983.
280
Pilliod, Al. “Status of Legislation on Immigration Reform.” The Border Line, Summer 1985.
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Frustrated, Conner reached out to El Paso Times to investigate how this shirt could be
sold in a non-profit organization, which claimed to serve as an educational institution for the
community. A newspaper reporter contacted the museum, seeking an explanation to no avail.
After the newspaper contracted the museum several times the Border Patrol deputy director, Gus
De La Vina, had to intervene. He contacted the museum staff and requested that they stop selling
the shirt. The following day the museum removed all of the shirts and made sure they would not
be available for patrons’ consumption. Sue Turner later explained to the local newspaper that the
staff was confused by the criticism since they thought the shirts were great, further underscoring
the museum’s unwillingness to divorce their opinions about immigration from their analysis.
LULAC’s state director commented on the situation explaining that the t-shirt was “a reflection
of the political philosophy of the Border Patrol Museum.”
281

While LULAC’s assessments of the t-shirt, and what it represented, were accurate. They
did little to contextualize the museum’s regional context. After IRCA, the role of the Border
Patrol within the Southwest changed, increasing its policing efforts within local communities.
Since the 1986 law emphasized employment sanctions, Border Patrol agents were propelled to
inspect jobsites where workers were suspected of entering the country without proper
documentation. Immigration raids at factories and farms became more commonplace. The
Border Patrol also increased its use of highway checkpoints after the Supreme Court ruled in US
v. Martinez-Fuerte that the Border Patrol checkpoints did not actually violate motorists’ Fourth
Amendment rights against search and seizure. The Supreme Court reasoned that since these
inspection stations where within the international borderlands boundaries, the checkpoints served

281
Rodriguez, Berta. “T-shirt Busters: Border museum item called ethnic insult.” El Paso Times. El Paso, TX,
January 12, 1989.
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as a reasonable course of surveillance to deter immigrants who may have bypassed the agents at
the border.
282

Since the Border Patrol had a larger leeway to enter communities and survey them,
immigrants, both legal and illegal, became hyper vigilant, constantly carrying some form of
documentation. This reaction led to an increase in the production of false documents from green
cards, social security cards, to state drivers’ licenses. Immigration rights’ activists argued that
this strategy seems like the only solution available to them as agents patrolled Latino
neighborhoods and engaged in ethnic profiling. Therefore the relationship between and El Paso
residence and the Border Patrol was antagonistic at best, and when the museums t-shirt incident
reached the local media’s attention, it only reaffirmed residences’ suspicion of the Border Patrol
as a racist institution.
Shortly after the t-shirt incident, the City of El Paso decided to raise the museum’s rent.
Though there is no archival evidence to link the two issues, the fact remained that the museum
could not reach an agreement with the landlord nor could they find a similar space with an
affordable rate. By February 28, 1991, the museum had to close its doors. While the museum’s
closure disappointed the museum’s staff and board, it also aroused them to make new network
and nurture past relationships. More specifically, the museum began to work more closely with
Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS). They reached an agreement with federal agency
to temporarily house the museum gift shop at the El Paso Border Patrol Sector headquarters. INS
also approached museum staff about featuring several photographs from their collection during

282
Borderland is defined as a 100 mile radius of the physical U.S. Mexico border.
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an Ellis Island exhibition that marked the agency’s one-hundredth anniversary.
283
Furthermore
during the time that the museum’s gift shop remained within the Border Patrol’s headquarters,
the board began to negotiate with INS about finding a new and more permanent space for the
museum. This partnership gave the museum leverage to approach the city and request that they
receive two acres of wilderness at the Franklin Mountains State Park located at the northeast
corner of the city. The City of El Paso first acquired the park from the U.S. Department of the
Interior with the stipulation that the land be used for recreational activities and cultural
institutions. To ensure that the City of El Paso remain committed to these goals, the Department
of the Interior mandated that the City seek permission before leasing the land to any other
entity.
284
By the summer of 1992, the city reached an agreement with the museum; they leased
the land to the museum for one dollar per year, for a lease of thirty years. To build a structure
that would house the museum, collection, and gift shop, the museum raised $400,000. By August
1992, the City Council voted on an ordinance to build the new facilities.
The city’s renewed sense of cooperation with the Border Patrol Museum came about at
the same time that the city’s Latino population had reached a boiling point with the Border Patrol
itself. The same day that the museum ordinance was passed, city councilmembers created the
Border Patrol Local Accountability Commission, appointing a six-member panel to monitor
reports of Border Patrol agent abuse.
285
This commission became one of the city’s solutions to a
civil lawsuit filed against the Border Patrol by a group of high school students and teachers. The
local Border Rights Coalition, a civil rights organization, helped the students and staff file their

283
Cornell, Terrie. “Museum Director’s Corner.” The Border Line (Winter 1991). Museum History Drawer.
National Border Patrol Museum; Mochel, Al, and Ken Langford. “The Nation of Immigrants Foundation.” The
Border Line, Spring 1991. Museum History Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.
284
Coppock, Don. “Museum News.” The Border Line, Winter 1992. Museum History Drawer. National Border
Patrol Museum.
285
Keck, Benjamin. “Council May Allow Foundation to Re-Establish Border Patrol Museum.” El Paso Times.
August 30, 1992, sec. Borderlands. Museum History Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum.
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complaint after the Border Patrol continually harassed Latinos on the high school campus,
regardless of their citizenship status. The lawsuit made national news as the plaintiffs won a
temporary injunction against the Border Patrol. The case’s judge cited the federal agent’s actions
as a violation of rights, abuse of power, and targeted ethnic profiling.
286
Due to the bad press and
the court ruling, the Border Patrol El Paso Sector Chief Dale Musegades announced that he
would step down from his position.
While the city’s response to the Bowie High School case seemed paradoxical at first, it
was actually a reflection on the local residents’ complex relationship with the Border Patrol.
Local residents wanted the Border Patrol to display self-control even as it worked to control the
number of border crossers. As sociologist Timothy Dunn noted, public opinion among residents
championed the Border Patrol’s need to assert its role as border enforcement and prevent the
movement of unauthorized immigration into the city. However, these same residents found that
the Border Patrol’s tactics created more harm than good. More specifically, the Bowie High
School case “questioned the current means of border enforcement, mainly the negative
‘spillover’ effect on Mexican Americans and legal Mexican immigrant residents, not the border
enforcement per se.”
287
Even as the city instituted a local watchdog to safeguard against Border
Patrol abuse, it also wanted to reaffirm that it is willing to cooperate with the federal agency and
support a positive working relationship with border patrol agents, past and present.
By April of 1993, the museum project broke ground and within eleven months, the
museum re-opened to the general public in a few facilities.
288
However, not all local residents

286
Dunn, Timothy J. Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation That Remade
Immigration Enforcement. University of Texas Press, 2010.
287
Dunn, 49.
288
Sanchez, John. News Release. “Local Groundbreaking Begins on National Border Patrol Museum.” News
Release, April 13, 1993. Museum History Drawer. National Border Patrol Museum. Lujan, Julio. “Museum
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agreed with the museum’s politics and educational materials. By September of 1994, El Paso
Times published an editorial that questioned the museum’s intellectual integrity. According to
the article’s author Xavier Orozco, the museum gift shop displayed a book titled, “The
Wetbacks,” and when he voiced his concern about the book’s lack of context and racist
connotations, the staff “made it clear…[that] it would not be removed as I requested.”
289

This editorial surfaced at the same time that El Paso was once against thrust into the
national limelight. After Chief Dale Musegades left his post, the Border Patrol hired Silvestre
Reyes as the sector chief. Because of the court injunction against the federal agency, the bad
press, and local residents’ animosity, Reyes devised a new border enforcement strategy. Instead
of going out into the community to enforce employee sanctions, Reyes launched Operation
Blockade (renamed Operation Hold the Line three weeks later). This initiative took border patrol
agents out of El Paso’s neighborhoods and placed them all along a twenty-mile stretch of the
U.S.-Mexico Border between El Paso and Juarez. Local residents and the federal agency
celebrated this new tactic as a victory since the number of illegal entries dropped within the
urban part of El Paso and the incidents of ethnic profiling dropped. The Border Patrol took
Reyes’s approach and deployed agents along the border’s San Diego/Tijuana section in
California and the Nogales sector in Arizona. Operation Gatekeeper and Operation Safeguard,
respectively, served to shift unauthorized immigration from the urban centers to the Southwest’s
desert valleys. Immigrants’ movement to the desert transformed the ways in which El Paso
residents began to see the issue of border crossing. Civil rights organizations became human

Collection Impresses Patrons.” El Paso Times. March 4, 1994, sec. B. Border Heritage Center. El Paso Public
Library, Main Library.
289
Orozco, Xavier R. “Yank ‘Wetback’ Book.” El Paso Times. September 3, 1994, sec. A. Border Heritage
Center. El Paso Public Library, Main Library.

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rights watchdogs, constantly lobbying for immigrants’ rights and a change in immigration policy
that reflected the realities of local residents. By the end of the twentieth, both the museum and
the Border Patrol continued to be hotly contested institutions within El Paso as Latino residents
pushed against the narratives that portrayed immigrants as criminals.

Angel Island Revisited

The realities of recent immigrants did not just impact the kinds of histories reclaimed
within Texas. In 1993, the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) launched a
national campaign to have the immigration barracks officially recognized as a national landmark.
These new efforts came about as the AIISF’s leadership changed and the organization tried to re-
establish its national presence. As part of their efforts, they created a travelling exhibit, an
education curriculum, and a public campaign to cast Angel Island as an important space in
American history. Together, these efforts paid off and they reached their goal four years later.
Similar to the Border Patrol Museum, the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation sought
to connect the history it portrayed with the immigration debates in California and around the
country.
Before 1993, the Paul Chow of the AIISF had continued to hold his tours of the
immigration barracks even though the building itself had not had any real retrofitting efforts
since the 1970s. By the mid-1980s, the building was again starting to lose its luster and Chow
needed to find a way to fundraise to ensure that the building not fall apart. Even though the
building was a part of the California State Parks system, the state agency had limited funds for
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the amount of parks, recreational spaces and historic sites under its care. With little monies and a
large system to operate, the California State Parks kept a de-facto laissez-faire policy, allowing
buildings to naturally succumb to the elements unless private funds were used to intercept.
Simultaneously, independent filmmaker Felicia Lowe approached Paul Chow about creating a
documentary that portrayed Angel Island’s history. Chow was impressed with Lowe’s work and
her drive, asking her to join the Foundation’s Board.
Though the California State Parks had a laissez-faire policy, the system employed a
dedicated staff that tried to create a better experience for its visitors. Felicia Lowe began to build
a relationship with Tom Lindberg, who was the Supervising Ranger for all of the Angel Island
State Park. Lindberg showed interest in working with AIISF and Felicia Lowe to create an
interpretive program that would relieve Chow from his overcrowded schedule as Chow still
worked for CalTrans as an engineer. Chow, Lowe, and Lindberg crafted a script that they then
shared with the Angel Island Association volunteers.
290
In so doing, the group finally created a
collaborative relationship among the California State Park system, the Angel Island Immigration
Station Foundation, and the Angel Island Association that had worked to save Angel Island. As
Felicia Lowe recalled, “all of those relationships at the end of the day really worked towards the
common goal of really trying to build out the Immigration Station so that the story, it’s sic
history, it’s sic story would be made known. Up to that point, it had been a virtually unknown
story.”
291

By the end of the 1980s, AIISF had begun to gain momentum. Felicia Lowe released her
film, Carved in Silence, in 1988, using historical materials and dramatic recreations to detail the

290
Chris Chow Oral History.
291
Felicia Lowe Oral History.
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histories of Chinese immigrants who were detained at Angel Island during the height of its
operation as an immigration station. The film received a wide range of accolades including a
“CINE Golden Eagle, A Chris Plaque, and an Honorable Mention by the National Educational
Film and Video Association.”
292
AIISF capitalized on this national press and applied for grants
to create a national educational campaign centered on Angel Island’s immigrant past. Their
efforts won funding from the Hitachi Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation to prepare educational materials that would be implemented in San Diego and
Chicago during the 1989-90 school year.
293
Though AIISF continued to bill Angel Island as the
“Ellis Island of the West,” Lowe recalled that the board members worked to move beyond that
moniker:
Well, we tried to distinguish ourselves for a long while and resisted just using that, or else
we would say its Ellis Island with a twist because of the exclusion story. But you know,
when you think about Ellis Island and its welcoming message and then you think of
Angel Island, which was built to enforce Exclusion Act; it is the opposite. I think that
really does reflect and fill out the picture of the complex relationship America has always
had towards immigrants. But people sometimes get stuck in the mythology of the early
19
th
century, 20
th
century, where people could come through quite readily especially if
you’re European but if you were Southern European then that affected you more.
294

More specifically, Lowe attempted to disrupt the East Coast bias in the national
mythologies of the American immigration experience. Yet, her goal to discuss the successes and
failures of the American immigration system was not always welcomed by everyone in the
AIISF board. Some board members wanted to reinforce the notion that their ancestors suffered
but succeed in spite of their inhospitable situations. Lowe found this kind of attitude

292
Lowdown Productions. “Carved in Silence.” Last modified 2014.
http://www.lowedownproductions.com/carved-in-silence/
293
Portfolio Project, Angel Island Association, Angel Island Immigration Station, California Historical Society,
and Coordinating Committee for Ellis Island. Angel Island. Washington, D.C: Portfolio Project, 1989.
294
Felicia Lowe Oral History.
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disheartening but she, along with Chow, continued to move ahead with the momentum they had
produced.
By 1991, Paul Chow won the Department of the Interior’s “Take Pride in America”
award. His fellow colleagues at the Angel Island Association nominated Chow, citing his
dedication to conserving the island’s historical integrity. According the non-profit, Chow
devoted over 1,500 hours to Angel Island in 1991 alone, directly affecting about 4,000 people
through his interpretive tours, naturalization ceremonies at the island’s immigration station, and
public awareness campaigns.
295
Chow’s award, and his nomination by the Angel Island
Association, gave Lowe and the rest of the Board the impetus to begin a national campaign to
designate the barracks as a national landmark.
With the educational materials in hand, Paul Chow announced that his organization
would be applying for landmark status, tying the Angel Island immigration station barracks to
the struggles to open the Ellis Island Museum. When Chow announced the organization’s
intentions he publically called himself, “the poor man's Iacocca,” referencing Iacocca’s national
campaign to restore and preserve the Statue of Liberty and to open the Ellis Island Museum.
296

He went on to say that his public announcement was about drawing attention to the experiences
of immigrants who were detained at Angel Island and to bring awareness to the fact that Angel
Island stood as “our 'Mayflower,' our Plymouth Rock, our Statue of Liberty; a monument to the
Asian immigrants' strength, courage and spirit.”
297
Chow’s references to Angel Island’s
underdog status and Eastern seaboard iconography attempted to capture the national imaginary

295
Angel Island Association. “Association Nominates Paul Chow for ‘Take Pride in America Award.’” Herald.
1992, Winter edition, sec. 6-8. Bancroft Library.
296
Hoyt Belcher, Nancy. “Angel Island Beacon.” Modern Maturity, 1993. Clipping and Pamphlet File
Collection. Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library.
297
Ibid.
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and to place Angel Island within a national framework. This reference also highlighted the
different experiences of Asian immigrants to that of European immigrants at Ellis Island. By
claiming ownership of Angel Island and the experiences that immigrants faced at its immigration
barracks, Chow, and by extension AIISF, pointed to a racialized identity that originated at Angel
Island—an identity that all Americans needed to understand.
AIISF, however, pushed beyond the dichotomous relationship between Angel Island and
Ellis Island. The fiftieth anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act’s repeal was 1993, and AIISF
board members drew on this anniversary to unpack the links between racist rhetoric and anti-
immigration sentiments. They co-sponsored a naturalization ceremony with San Francisco’s
Chinese Cultural Center during which 103 people of Chinese descent were sworn in as new
citizens. One of the new citizens was Suey Ting Gee, a Chinese woman who had immigrated to
the United States in 1933 under a false name in order to by-pass the restrictions placed on her
because of her nationality and race. After the ceremony, Mrs. Gee had the opportunity to watch
the film, Separate Lives, Broken Dreams. The filmmaker Jennie Lew wanted to show the deep
impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on Chinese American communities. Focusing on the law’s
power over the construction, and deconstruction, of families, Lew traced the lives of wives who
were abandoned in China after their husbands left to the United States and were unable to return.
She also followed the stories of women who were reunited with their husbands, decades after
separation.
For Lew, this story resonated with her present-day audiences as the 1980s and 1990s
immigration debates centered on questions about family reunification, legality, and access to
resources. Like the lives of the women documented, current immigrants faced the reality of their
families being torn apart because not all family members held the same legal status. This fact
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was especially important to Robert Rubin, a San Francisco civil rights attorney who argued
before the Supreme Court in support of Haitian refugees who were detained in Guantanamo Bay.
Rubin found this event, the film and its accompanying exhibition, especially poignant as he was
forced to argue against the legal principles of the Chinese Exclusion Act. By placing the legacies
of the Chinese Exclusion Act in conversation with the contemporary immigration debates, AIISF
placed Angel within a larger, and more meaningful, conversation about immigrant rights.
The question of immigrant rights became an important issue to tackle at the local and
national levels as Americans saw resurgence in xenophobia, particularly as it pertained to Asian
and Latino immigrants and the languages they spoke. English-only legislative pieces began to
appear on the voting ballots across the country and Florida became the first state in the United
States to implement an anti-bilingual ordinance. Other states and cities soon followed step as
John Tanton, founder of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and U.S. English,
began to financially support ballot measures that pushed English-only. In 1985, the City Council
of Monterey Park, a suburb of Los Angeles, drafted an ordinance that would restrict the number
of Chinese-language business signs. A city official noted that even though many
councilmembers saw this initiative as racist and divisive, they still publicly supported the
measure for political cover.
298

The anti-immigrant sentiments within the country, however, were not limited to
linguistics. Ballot initiatives in California, Texas, and Arizona asked that state residents forbid
any form of state benefits to undocumented residents and their children. Included in these efforts

298
WARD, MIKE. “Chinese Only? Monterey Park Sees the Signs.” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1985.
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-04-30/local/me-19924_1_monterey-park. ARAX, MARK. “Stronger Rules on
English in Signs Pushed by Council.” Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1985. http://articles.latimes.com/1985-12-
05/news/ga-633_1_sign-ordinance.
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were California’s 1994 Proposition 187, or the “Save Our State” Initiative. Republican
assemblyman Richard Mountjoy of Monrovia, a city just northeast of Monterey Park, first
introduced this ballot measure and Governor Pete Wilson publically campaigned in support of
this measure as he ran for re-election. The measure, soon, drew wide media attention as President
Bill Clinton went to California to oppose the passing of this law. Clinton argued that the bill was
counterproductive since the federal government was the only government entity that had the
power to legislate immigration law.
299
Despite major opposition by civil rights groups,
Californians voted to make Proposition 187 into law on November 8, 1994. Three days later
federal judge Matthew Byrne filed a temporary injunction against the measure on constitutional
grounds. Proposition 187 had officially thrust California into the national limelight.
The AIISF Board saw the effects of California’s immigration debates as other states
began to pass similar ballot initiatives and the Chinese Exclusion Act commemorative event
initiated a national campaign to raise awareness. The organization started to revamp and produce
more educational materials, ensuring to also broaden the histories that surrounded Angel Island’s
immigration. Board President Claudine Cheng asked architect Dan Quan to help the organization
create an exhibition that detailed Angel Island’s history and importance. As Cheng put it, “this
historical exhibit project is very timely because in 1994, we are witnessing again strong anti-
immigrant sentiments due to the poor economy…this reminds Asian Americans of the hardships
and discrimination they had suffered in the late 19th century.”
300

299
Martin, Philip. “Proposition 187 in California.” International Migration Review 29, no. 1 (1995): 255.
doi:10.2307/2547004.

300
Lim, Gerard. “Angel Island Exhibit Trying To Go National.” Asianweek. June 3, 1994.
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By the end of 1995, Dan Quan designed an exhibition titled, “Gateway to the Gold
Mountain: Remembering the Past, Imagining the Future,” pro bono. As Dan Quan traveled with
the exhibition, he spoke about Angel Island’s national importance and relevance. His speaker’s
program helped him bring awareness to the preservation campaign and its present-day
implications. Quan traveled with the exhibition throughout the country for four consecutive
years. Along the way, he came in contact with National Park Service staff, which helped him and
AIISF frame a successful application for national landmark status. As Quan noted, “The
landmark designation provided the springboard for the Immigration Station Foundation to
reinvigorate the preservation campaign…[the traveling exhibition] provided a platform for
networking with legislators, public agencies and community groups to raise interest and to form
alliances.”
301

As national interest in Angel Island’s history picked up, AIISF Board converged and took
a step back to re-evaluate the organization’s mission and long-term goals. One of the first steps
was to have Dan Quan join the board. From 1995 to 1997, Felicia Lowe and Dan Quan began to
work together to reorganize and professionalize the board. Dan Quan recalled that this process
took several years because there were many steps involved:
The fundamental issue of board development and recruitment was tackled first.
Transitioning from an all-volunteer board to one with a professional staff and an
operational budget was also initiated. Concurrently, the mission and vision of the
organization and the type and extent of programs that could be supported were
considered. For the past few years the organization has been in a fluid state as policies,
plans and solutions have been debated, instituted, and refined. At the same time, the
foundation also realized that every opportunity to advance preservation efforts was
crucial. While struggling with internal organization, foundation members actively sought
avenues for funding site preservation.

301
Judy Yung Archival Material
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As part of this process, AIISF hired Kathy Ko to write grants and Katherine Toy to help the
organization implement education programming. Felicia Lowe, who by this point had become
AIISF President, also began to hold a series of visioning workshops with Park Service officials,
local artists and historians. These workshops allowed AIISF to receive feedback about their
organization, its mission, and objectives. In 1999, Lowe and Quan invited Dan Iacofano, a
design management consultant, to lead a workshop for community members from different
ethnic and community organizations to cogitate about how to best merge the interests of their
constituencies. This workshop led to a working document that became the blueprint for a future
museum and interpretive center.
By 1999, all of their efforts prevailed. The National Park Service designated the Angel
Island immigration station a national historic landmark. This national recognition opened doors
for more federal funding opportunities and resources, and more specifically, for the immigration
station to receive recognition from the newly formed “Save Our Treasures” initiative founded by
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
302
In order to gain this coveted recognition, Lowe used that
working document that came out of the communities’ workshop. During the communities’
workshop, participants suggested that AIISF move beyond the Chinese “paper son” narrative that
had been so well documented. To AIISF’s good fortune, they had already begun that process.
Quan’s traveling exhibition had actually come from a partnership between AIISF and San
Francisco’s Japanese Historical Society. Furthermore since the National Archives housed Angel
Island’s Alien Files (A-Files) right outside San Francisco’s city limits, AIISF was able to keep an
ongoing relationship with the federal organization. By the end of the twentieth century, the
Department of the Interior, the National Trust, and the White House Millennial Council had

302
Felicia Lowe Oral History
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finally recognized Angel Island as a national landmark. As AIISF had predicted, these accolades
came with a $500,000 grant to begin the preservation process of the immigration barracks.
Within a year, California voters passed a State bond measure that set aside $15 million
specifically for the restoration of the Angel Island Immigration Station. These funds, in turn,
allowed for Congress to authorize an addition $15 million in matching funds in 2005 so that
station could be fully restored and opened to the public as an interpretive center.

Conclusion

The Border Patrol Museum and AIISF’s national campaign both served to widen the
scope of immigration history within the public sphere. Though both institutions worked to
represent their respective constituencies, they still worked to change the kinds of immigration
histories that were represented in larger national discourses. In the case of the Border Patrol
Museum, FORBPO and the museum staff challenged Americans to think about the people who
actually enforced American immigration law. They asked their visitors to think about these
patrolmen’s motivations, lives, and challenges. In turn, El Paso’s Mexican American community
questioned the museum’ representations of immigrants and their families. Though this dialogue
was riddled with problems, it did, at least, work to underscore the importance of the U.S.-Mexico
Border in immigration historiography. Similarly, AIISF’s renewed efforts to nationalize the
Angel Island story served to expand the borders of immigration history. No longer was it
acceptable to discuss immigration history in the public sphere by concentrating on the
experiences of white ethnics in Ellis Island. Their national campaign forced an immigration
campaign about the United States’ gatekeeping history and policies.
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Memory Activism in Los Angeles and New York City

In 2001, with the help of the Garment Worker Center (GWC) and the Asian Pacific
American Legal Center of Southern California, a group of Latino garment workers sued Forever
21 claiming that the company knowingly employed subcontractors that denied workers lawful
wages and exposed them to dangerous working conditions. According to the suit, workers sewed,
ironed, and/or packed Forever 21 clothing six days a week for less than the minimum wage.
Among the many workers suing Forever 21 was Guadalupe Hernandez. Hernandez had moved to
Los Angeles from Mexico City when she was seventeen years old. She found employment in the
garment industry in downtown Los Angeles, in order to support herself, her sister, and her family
back home. After the lawsuit seemed to be stuck in the judicial system, the GWC organizers
realized that the garment workers needed a public campaign to bring awareness to their plight.
With the help of the GWC organizers, workers launched a national boycott against Forever 21.
Hernandez traveled throughout the country urging student groups and consumers to avoid the
popular retail store.
She travelled to New York City where she visited the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum and the Ellis Island Museum. She was immediately struck by the similarities between
her story and that of the immigrants from the turn of the twentieth century. “!Creo que todo sigue
igual!”
303
she exclaimed as she walked through the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. She
stood in dismay as she saw the living and working conditions of a family of Polish Jews who
used their Lower Eastside apartment as a garment workshop. Yet her astonishment did not

303
According to the documentary maker, her exclamation can be translated to “It’s just like today!”
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dishearten her. She next visited Ellis Island, taking notes of an exhibition about New York
sweatshops. She wanted to describe what she saw to her colleagues back home in Los Angeles.
For Hernandez, both the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Ellis Island served as
reminders that her struggles for fair wages were part of a larger and longer struggle for human
dignity within the United States. This sense of historical continuity gave her the fortitude to
continue her work and during the twenty-fourth month of the boycott campaign, she applied for a
part-time position as an organizer at the GWC. She credited her experiences in the New York
museums as her inspiration. She recalled finding her notebook from New York while cleaning
her house and thinking about an image she saw of a group of women who held a banner that
read, “Organize.” “Si ellas tuvieron el valor de hacerlo en esa epoca, porque no ahora.”
304
These
immigrant women of the past reminded her that workers needed to stand up for each other.
Hernandez understood that even though the GWC organizers found Hernandez’s leadership
qualities appealing, they, themselves, were not actual garment workers. She felt that she was the
best representative of garment workers in Los Angeles, and her passion came through her
application. The GWC hired her as a part-time organizer. Hernandez then took the lessons she
learned and applied them to her struggles in the present. She showed her fellow workers that
together, they made a stronger force against those who exploited them. Her labor history lessons
boosted the workers morale and kept them invested in the fight for rights. Her efforts panned out
and after three years of struggle, Hernandez and the other garment workers won the case.
In the words of Ruth Abram, the founder of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum,
“history had supplied a strategy.” In the case of Hernandez, the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum and the Ellis Island exhibitions equipped her with a comprehensive understanding of

304
Translation: If they had the courage to do it in that time period, why can’t we do it now?
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the importance of grassroots organizing and the participation of garment workers in the fight for
justice. These exhibitions gave her the courage to move beyond her comfort zone and seek
employment at the Garment Worker Center. She was no longer the recipient of social services
but a purveyor to her peers. Furthermore, Hernandez’s actions helped fulfill Ruth Abram’s
original mission. She had created the Lower East Side Tenement Museum “as a tool for
contemplating and addressing contemporary issues…broached by the Museum’s historic
interpretations.”
305
When Hernandez placed her own struggles into the larger American context
of labor organizing and immigrants’ rights, she in fact found that the answer to her frustrations
were within history. History had supplied a strategy.
In this chapter I will examine the founding of two immigrant museums—the Japanese
American Museum in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district and the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum in New York City. Unlike the previous generation of immigrant museums within the
United States, these history institutions sought to be more than purveyors of the immigrant past.
They made it their mission to address present-day grievances by using the immigrant past as a
tool. Furthermore, they engaged in a memory recovery that required them to open dialogues
across various divides, be they racial, ethnic, or class-based. This form of historical work
required that the museums remain grounded in an ideology of social justice and scholarship,
while asking participants to move beyond their comfort zones. As they worked within their local
communities to address these national issues, they found that they needed to create partnerships
at the local, regional, national, and international level. In so doing, they demonstrated that
museums could be more than just sites of historic preservation and repositories of memory.
These museums became overt and transparent in their ambitions to serve as sites of memory

305
Ibid.
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activism.
306
They became spaces that not only opened a dialogue about past grievances, but
actively empowered immigrants and their children. The Japanese American National Museum
and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum created programs that went beyond the boundaries
of educational programming, striving to become social justice forums.
These museums’ ambitions and dynamic goals derived from their founders. Both
museum projects were born from people who witnessed racial discriminations in the 1940s and
1950s. Unlike the American Museum of Immigration, or even Ellis Island, these museums
attributed their origins to a national social system that was wrought with racial frictions and
contention. Many of those involved in the development of these sites were direct recipients of
racial injustices. Their ideas about social justice were colored by their involvement in the social
justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s. As they created, developed, and executed their
museum programming they understood that the ideas they espoused had far-reaching
consequences for race relations. Their goal was to create a meaningful impact on
disenfranchised communities—at the local, regional, and global levels.

Recovering Forgotten Memories

In 1942, the Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple became one of the many assembly
centers across Southern California used by the federal government to amass ethnic Japanese
before they were evacuated to internment camps during World War II. In a span of a year, this
Buddhist temple went from a bustling community center to a depot where families said their last

306
I borrow this term from Ruth Abram, who self-identifies as a memory activist.
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good-byes to their friends and neighbors.
307
After internment, some of these families returned to
Los Angeles and attempted to rebuild the lives they once had. The Hongwanji Buddhist Temple
began to slowly regain the community prestige it had had before World War II. By the middle of
the 1960s, the temple congregation had grown too big for the small temple building. Temple
leaders found a site on First and Vignes Streets, choosing to open a larger temple in this space.
By August of 1967, the temple leaders inaugurated the new building, opening it to the general
public. Advertising their grand opening in the Los Angeles Times, leaders invited all Angelinos
to participate in their Obon festival where they promised a carnival with rides and plenty of
food.
308
As the new temple became a space for renewal and progress, the older temple building
was left abandoned and in decay. The City of Angeles bought the property in 1969, hoping to
lease it out as a community center,
309
but the temple remained abandoned into the 1980s. It was
not until Bruce Kaji, a World War II veteran, announced that he wanted to open a Japanese
American museum in the mid-1980s that the temple walls came to see life and a renewed sense
of community. Mayor Tom Bradley expressed support for Kaji’s plan, and revealed that the East
West Players, an Asian American performance troupe, had also expressed interest in housing
their organization in the temple.
310

In the years that followed, civic leaders and community members turned the idea of the
Japanese American National Museum into a reality. In many ways, the museum began like many
other history museums across the country. Its mission centered on the retelling of Japanese

307
"Little Tokyo, in Los Angeles' Heart, Becomes Ghost Town." The Atlanta Constitution (1881-1945), May
09, 1942. http://search.proquest.com/docview/504103868?accountid=14749.
308
Obon festivals are Buddhist celebrations, where devotees honor the dead. A Western equivalent of this
religious holiday would be the Meican celebration of the Day of the Dead.
309
Hirano, Irene. “Introduction: Commitment to Community” Common Ground: The Japanese American
National Museum and the Culture of Collaborations. Ed. Akemi Kikumura-Yano, Lane Ryo Hirabayashi & James
A. Hirabayashi (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2005), 4.
310
Holley, David. “Old Temple, Church Symbolize Efforts to Preserve Little Tokyo: TOKYO: Preservation.”
Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File). September 4, 1985, sec. Part II.
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American history in the United States and it began as a project dedicated to the preservation of a
historic building. However, in other ways, the museum used its mission to do something new. As
a cultural institution, the museum used the memory of Japanese American internment to create a
space for social justice in Los Angeles, and eventually the world. From its inception to the
present, the museum staff strategically created spaces of cross-cultural exchange, cultural
understanding, and avenues for positive change within the community.

Personal Investments

Bruce Kaji and his family were moved to the Manzanar War Relocation Center during
World War II. While in Manzanar, Kaji earned his high school degree and chose to join the
Military Intelligence Service. After the War, he moved back to Los Angeles, where he became a
real-estate developer and banker. As a real-estate developer, he remained committed to Los
Angeles, working on projects that fueled growth in underserved communities.
311
By the 1980s,
he proposed a new plan to redevelop Little Tokyo. His plans required that all of the buildings on
First Street remain intact, so as to commemorate the Japanese American enclave that once was.
In addition he planned on expanding housing in the surrounding area in order to create a mixed-
use community. His plans coincided with the efforts of Colonel Young Oak Kim and Yoshio

311
Throughout his career, Kaji worked on several projects that focused on improving the lives of racial and
ethnic minorities: including a redevelopment plan on Broadway in the 1950s, the creation of a Watts Medical Center
in the 1960s, and serving as president of the Savings and Loan League, an association that worked to support
minority-owned finiancial institutions. “Legitimate: ‘Darling’ Skimpy $35,000 With Rainy Weather, K.C.” Variety
(Archive: 1905-2000), July 22, 1959.
“9 Civic Leaders Named To Watts Hospital Body.” Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005). April 20, 1967.
http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.usc.edu/docview/564863833/abstract?accountid=14749. Stone, French F.
“Savings And Loan League Salutes Carver.” New York Amsterdam News (1962-1993). July 2, 1975.
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Buddy Mimiya. Both men had attempted to curate an exhibition that detailed the efforts of
Japanese American soldiers during World War II.
Colonel Young Oak Kim and Yoshio Buddy Mimiya both dedicated themselves to the
war efforts during World War II. Kim, a second-generation Korean American from Los Angeles,
enlisted in the military in 1941, and within half a year was selected to enter the U.S. Army
Infantry Officer Candidate School. Upon graduation, he was assigned to the 100
th
Infantry
Battalion, a Japanese American unit from Hawaii. During his time in this unit he worked
alongside the all-Japanese American 442
nd
Regiment, successfully leading them in a number of
missions across Europe. He continued working for the Army, serving in the Korean War and
moving through the ranks until he retired in 1972. After retirement, he dedicated his time to
creating spaces that showcased the resilience of Asian immigrants and their families.
Mimiya was a Japanese American Nisei born and raised in San Diego. His father, a
Japanese immigrant, was involved in the local nihojinkai (Japanese people’s organization),
kendo club, and judo club. As a consequence, when the United States declared war against
Japan, federal agents took out a warrant for his arrest and went to San Diego to pick him up.
However, instead of arresting his father, they picked up Mimiya instead. Mimiya’s father was
fragile and old, so Mimiya assumed his father’s identity. Government officials kept Mimiya
under arrest for several months before realizing their error. They released him and picked up his
father, incarcerating him at the U.S. Justice Department internment camp in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. By the end of the year, Mimiya and his family were also relocated to the Poston War
Relocation Center. Wishing to demonstrate his allegiance to the United States, he joined the
100
th
Infantry Battalion, serving under Kim’s command. When his tour was over, he moved to
Denver and bought a hotel so as to remain closer to his father who was still in Santa Fe. Mimiya
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worked at the hotel until his father was released at the end of the war. By 1946, Mimiya and his
family returned to San Diego. He married, fathered children, and eventually made his way up to
Torrance, CA, where he worked as a real-estate broker. Once in the Los Angeles area, he
reconnected with Kim. Together they began to reflect on their past experiences, realizing that
their stories needed to be told.
Kaji’s redevelopment plans intersected with Kim and Mimiya’s desire for an exhibition.
Instead of competing, they worked as a team to move the project forward, under a common
vision—“to ensure that Japanese Americans’ heritage and cultural identity were preserved.”
312

For these men, the museum became even more pressing as many of the first-generation
immigrants passed away. They knew that they needed to do something to relay the hardships and
successes of their parents and themselves, in order to ensure that future generations remain
cognizant of their roots in this country.
Once Kaji, Kim, and Mimiya joined forces, they lobbied local and state politicians to
help them secure the funds they needed to preserve the temple, open the museum, and conserve
their histories. Art Torres was one of the first politicians to back the museum project. As a long-
time California State Assemblyman, Torres, who was the representative of East Los Angeles,
worked to represent the Latino community in the state legislature. When he defeated State
Senator Alex Garcia in 1982, his constituency widened to include Little Tokyo residents. Torres
began to look for projects that had a wider appeal beyond his East Los Angeles constituents. One
of his first legislative bills allowed Chinese restaurant owners to hang peking ducks in front of
the windows. State public health officials had originally required that all perishable foods be
stored at temperatures either below 45 degrees or above 140 degrees to prevent bacterial growth

312
Hirano, Common Ground, 3.
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that could cause food poisoning. Torres discovered a UC Davis study that found that peking duck
was actually immune from this growth even after 24 hours at room temperature.
313
Torres also
introduced legislation to extend the 110 freeway through South Pasadena and connect it to the
210 freeway.
314
Though this measure failed, it underscored Torres’s attempts to represent all of
his constituencies within his district. When Kaji, Kim, and Mimiya approached Torres, he
worked with them to create an appropriations bill that gave the project the start-up funds they
needed. Torres was able to secure $750,000 in state funding by 1985 and Kaji, Kim, and Mimiya
incorporated the Japanese American National Museum as a private, non-profit organization.
Once the museum leadership got the start-up funds and non-profit status, they moved to
secure the leasing of the former Buddhist temple. They first petititioned to have all twelve
structures on East First Street, between San Pedro Street and Alameda Street, entered into the
National Register of Historic Places. This move ensured that the temple would not be torn down
for future redevelopment projects. They then moved to lobby the Los Angeles Ciy Council in
hopes of ensuring the city’s endorsement. Their efforts paid off and city council agreed to lease
the temple for $1 a year, while the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency granted the
project $1 million for the preservation and earthquake-retrofitting of the temple. The city’s
endorsement also allowed for Torres to return to the California State Legislature and request a $1
million matching grant.
Alongside the museum’s efforts to secure a space and funding, the museum’s Board of
Trustees, headed by Kaji, went about securing an experienced and scholarly staff. They hired

313
Fox, Stephen. “California Legalizes Old-Style Peking Duck.” The Washington Post (1974-Current File). July
7, 1982, sec. STYLE The Arts Television Leisure.
314
“San Gabriel Valley Digest: Pasadena Help Asked to Defeat Bill on Freeway Gap.” Los Angeles Times
(1923-Current File). January 27, 1983, sec. SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.
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Project Coordinator Nancy Araki, former director of the communications firm Visual
Communications, Curator Akemi Kikumura-Yano, recent PhD in anthropology, and Executive
Director Irene Hirano, former Executive Director of T.H.E. Clinic, which served low-income
women in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles.
315
By 1988, museum leaders moved to create a
National Board of Governors with Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) as its chair. Cofounders
Kaji, Kim, and Mimiya remained active in the museum efforts but transformed their role in the
museum from administration to advocacy, becoming the first members of the museum’s
President’s Volunteer Council. This move was seen as a transformative gesture by the museum’s
staff and volunteers. As Hirano recalled, they “encouraged the expansion and transformation of
the board…this spirit of sharing was another major step in the National Museum’s evolution.”
316

Once the museum’s leaders and major frameworks were set, the museum staff, trustees, and
volunteers moved towards the fundraising stage. Their strategy was simple: bring as many
people as possible to the table. This approach meant that the museum’s monies were not tied to
one or even ten entities. Instead, funding came from a broad base of individuals, families, and
corporations with regional, national, and international ties to the stories that would be portrayed
at the Japanese American National Museum. By the time the museum opened its doors, nearly
13,000 members had invested in the museum project.
317

315
“From Concept to Reality: National Museum Hires Project Coordinator.” International Examiner (1976-
1987). November 6, 1985; Komai, Chris. “Press Release: Irene Hirano to Transition Position; Akemi Kikumura
Yano Named CEO for National Museum,” January 29, 2008. http://www.janm.org/press/release/118/; “Clinic
Reflects Ethnic Mosaic in Crenshaw.” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1993. http://articles.latimes.com/1993-11-
07/news/ci-54470_1_japanese-women-japanese-community-primary-health-clinic.
316
Hirano, Common Ground, 5.
317
According to Hirano, the fundraising effort that surrounded JANM represented “the first time Japanese
citizens contributed to a Japanese American effort of this scope.” Hirano, Common Ground, 10-11.
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Grassroots Recovery

While the museum was still under construction, Akemi Kikumura-Yano began to
research and assemble the resources needed to curate an inaugural exhibition. Similar to the
fundraising strategy, Kikumura-Yano worked to create an exhibition that was collaborative in
nature. She assembled a five-person exhibition team to develop the main themes and goals.
Then, in 1989, she, along with James Hirabayashi—an Ethnic Studies professor at UCLA--
launched a nationwide search for artifacts. The exhibit titled “Issei Pioneers, Hawaii and the
Mainland, 1885-1924” covered the lives of the early Issei immigrants, who traveled between
1885 and 1924 to Hawaii and the western mainland states. As part of her collection drive,
Kikumura-Yano asked that people donate photographs and their personal narratives. The
museum advertised their efforts in the national periodical, Asian Week, where Hirabayashi noted
that the museum’s goal was to capture the interesting stories of the Issei and showcase “things
that they brought along with them from Japan, things they treasured over here.” By the end of the
article, the staff noted that they were looking for the tools and equipment Issei immigrants
associated with their early jobs in the railroads, farms, saw mills, and cannerieis. Similar to the
Ellis Island Museum and the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, the staff hoped to
document the lives of a generation of immigrants that was slowly dying. However their narrative
were based on the research they conducted and the artifacts they collected. Quickly realizing that
their collections would include oral histories and twentieth-century media, the team contracted
filmmakers Robert Nakamura and Karen Ishizuka to produce a film to complement the Issei
exhibit.
318

318
“Wanted: Issei Artifacts For JANM’s First Exhibit.” Asian Week (1983-1989). July 21, 1989.
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As filmmakers Robert Nakamura and Karen Ishizuka moved to showcase the lives of
Issei pioneers through film, they found themselves traveling throughout the country. On a
research trip to Seattle in 1989, they found out that many Issei documented their lives through
home movies, and that one early Issei in particular had several film reels documenting his life as
a frozen-pea business owner. Nakamura and Ishizuka traveled to Denver, Colorado, and
Oakland, California, in search of these “twenty 400 foot reels of 16 mm b/w film taken as the
mid-1930s when Eastman Kodak first marketed this amateur gauge to the American public.”
319

The discovery of these films led to a nation-wide collection campaign for more home movies.
The films assembled became the foundational collections of the museum’s Moving Image
Archive, and the basis of the three-screen installation piece titled, “Through Our Own Eyes.” As
a section of the inaugural exhibition, this installation piece showcased the ways in which early
Japanese immigrants attempted to make the United States their home.
320
Both the collection
drive and the Moving Image Archive became the bedrock for the museum’s culture of
collaboration and allowed the staff to develop programming and exhibitions that authentically
reflected the experiences of Japanese immigrants and their families. These collections initiated a
process of historical recovery that allowed the evidence to determine the museum’s interpretation
of Japanese American history and curatorial procedures.
Furthermore as the museum’s curators worked to stay true to the sources, they uncovered
an important attribute of Japanese immigrants and their families. Japanese families, and their
descendants, have interacted with people outside of their ethnic community since they first began
to immigrate to the United States in the nineteenth century. This revelation dictated Not
necessarily that most of the stories that were retold in the museum, and its first exhibition,

319
Ishizuka, Common Ground, 31.
320
Ishizuka, Common Ground, 37.
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included people that were not of Japanese origin. More specifically, these histories included
moments in which some Japanese resisted discriminatory laws and/or participated in
multicultural communities. For instance, when discussing the life of Japanese immigrants in the
Hawaiian sugar plantations, Kikumura-Yano et al. made sure to include the interactions of
Japanese families with other Asian contract laborers
321
. Even though the museum remained
steadfast in its objectives to preserve the histories of Japanese immigrants and their descendants,
the museum curatorial staff also remained committed to portraying these histories within the
multicultural landscapes in which they existed.

Sites of Social Justices and Moments of Reconciliation

The day that the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) was scheduled to open,
Gregory Alan Williams, an African American actor of the television drama Baywatch, saved the
life of Japanese American Takao Hirata. April 30, 1992, was the second day of the 1992 Los
Angeles Riots. Local television stations looped B-roll footage of the civil unrest, while Mayor
Tom Bradley declared on live television that he was imposing a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
322
Before
the civil unrest, JANM had advertised its grand opening as the inauguration of a museum for all
Americans and a museum that retold the human experiences of people of Japanese descent.
Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu traveled to Los Angeles to attend the opening of the

321
Furthermore, the exhibition curators note that these interactions unfolded as Japanese immigrants from
different regions and prefectures segregated themselves from one another (i.e. Okinawans and Japanaese nationals
from mainland Japan). “Issei Pioneers - Hawaii and the Mainland 1885-1924 - Part 4.” DiscoverNikkei.org.
Accessed April 21, 2014. http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2011/1/24/issei-pioneers/.
322
Mayor Tom Bradley Expresses Disappointment on Rodney King Verdict with Chief Daryl Gates. News
Footage. Los Angeles, CA: KABC-TV, 1992.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thKeRSkz7dY&feature=youtube_gdata_player.
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museum. Yet by the end of April 29
th
, he was huddled out of the New Otani Hotel as the rioters
chattered the official’s hotel windows.
323
What should have been a day of celebration quickly
became a day of solemn contemplation. Museum staff held a smaller private opening, and ten
days later they publicly declared their commitment to becoming a major bridge among ethnic
and cultural groups. Chris Komai, the museum’s public relations coordinator, expressed this
sentiment thusly:
A big supporter of the Japanese community, David Hyun, said [the opening of a museum]
is something his own Korean community might concentrate on in the future. In light of
last week's violence it is evident that large gaps exist between communities not only here
in L.A. but all over the country. There's a lack of communication, lack of understanding.
If we begin to know each other as people, real people, then incidents like this are less apt
to happen.
324

JANM’s reiteration of its mission required that it go beyond its initial goals of memory
recovery to newer ideas about memory activism. According to the museum’s executive director
Irene Hirano, “[the museum’s] programming offers more than a passive experience in which
visitors simply observe…from volunteer docents who help bring stories alive through their
personal experiences to the thousands of donated artifacts…the [museum] embodies an intensely
personal experience of historical events.” This first-person approach to museum deviated from a
living-history format. Instead of having the docents dress in period clothes, museum-goers got to
have open dialogues with docents, most of whom had experienced Japanese internment during

323
Johnson, Maureen. “Reaction to L.A. Riots Ripple Around the World with AM-LA Riots, BJT.” AP News.
May 1, 1992.
SCHOENBERGER, KARL. Bi caos, “Japan’s L.A. Consul General Exudes Optimism : Commerce: Koichi
Haraguchi Says He’s Not Alarmed about Relations with the United States,despite edit punctuation Recent Friction.”
Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1992. http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-13/business/fi-3856_1_united-states.
324
Picache, Beverly R. “Japanese American Museum Hopes To Bridge Gap Between Cultural Communities.”
Asianweek. May 8, 1992.
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World War II. This approach also required that the museum actively position itself as a civil
rights advocate.
Soon after pledging to be a space of civic dialogue and democratic participation, JANM
staff moved to find histories that could facilitate their executives and goals. By February 1993,
they opened the “We Shall Overcome” exhibit. The exhibition curator Alison Kochiyama chose
to honor Martin Luther King’s birthday and Black History Month by displaying Japanese
Americans’ involvement in the national civil rights movement of the 1960’s. She featured Bill
and Yuri Kochiyama, Japanese American activists, who worked closely with Malcolm X at the
Organization of Afro-American Unity in Harlem. Among the many images featuring the
Kochiyamas was the famous photograph of Malcolm X just after he was shot with Yuri
Kochiyama kneeling by his side. The exhibition also highlighted the lives of various other
activists who travelled to the American South to fight racial discrimination. This exhibition
expressed the idea that civil rights movement was not just an African American issue. According
to Alison Kochiyama, “It was an American crisis, and dealing with it enabled all Americans to
benefit from the fight against human injustice and inequality.” The exhibition was also one of the
museum’s first attempts to shift the ways in which the civil rights movement was discussed in
the public sphere. In creating this exhibition, the museum attempted to break the black/white
discourse that was often used to discuss racial inequality and civil rights activism.
While “We Shall Overcome,” attempted to disrupt narratives on the civil rights
movement, the goal of the museum’s exhibition “America’s Concentration Camps” was to
increase awareness of the experiences faced by Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans
during their time in internment camps. The exhibition’s title spurred national dialogue about
what a concentration camp was and who had the right to use the term. Soon after the museum
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staff first decided to create an exhibition about the interment experience, Karen Ishizuka, the
exhibition curator, scoured local, regional, and national archives discerning the government’s
rationale behind the interment of people of Japanese descent.
During her research, she discovered that initially federal agencies referred to the
incarceration sites as internment camps. Her research led her to discover that the government
and mass media used this term both to uphold and to condemn the camps. Ishizuka discovered
that as Hitler’s atrocities became ever more present in the American consciousness, officials
began to use euphemistic terms like “assembly” or “relocation” centers, to dull public perception
of the government’s discriminatory actions. After the war, federal jurists and even former
President Truman condemned the government’s use of “relocation” or “assembly” centers, as
they remained steadfast in their belief that the mass incarceration centers were in fact
concentration camps.
325

During this research phase, she created an advisory board that included members of the
Jewish community in Los Angeles, as well as representatives of other ethnic organizations.
When the issue of the exhibit’s title came up, a debate ensued over JANM’s use of the term
“concentration camps.” Some Jewish leaders believed that the term had become synonymous
with the Holocaust, while other rejected the idea of its exclusive application to the Jewish
experience. Members of other ethnic groups reminded Ishizuka that concentration camps were a

325
Ishizuka uncovered a document in where Justice Owen J. Roberts stated that “an ‘assembly center’ was a
euphemism for a prison…so-called ‘relocation centers’ a euphemism for concentration camps.” (Ishizuka, 104).
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common occurrence in world history.
326
At the end of the consultations, Ishizuka decided to keep
the term in the exhibit.
While Ishizuka could have produced any exhibition that examined the constitutionality of
the camps, she took a step back to reassess the museum’s goals. She reminded herself that the
exhibition was supposed to capture the experiences of the inmates, and turned to John Kuo Wei
Tchen’s “dialogic exhibit or museum” model. Under this model, the interpretation of internment
camp history needed to come from the personal experiences of the inmates and not the state. As
Ishizuka recalled:
The inmates became the voice of the exhibition. Their experiences and words were
transformed into text panels. Keepsakes they had previously regarded, and often
disregarded as insignificant or having only personal value were now important ‘artifacts.’
Instead of relying on government and news agencies, we used family photos and personal
snapshots to emphasize the first person perspective.
327

Though the exhibition was meant to focus on the experiences of the camps’ inmates, the
JANM staff understood that the term “concentration camp” was highly contested. The museum’s
goal was to produce an exhibition that turned visitors into active collaborators in reclaiming and
retelling their own history. As they planned the exhibition, JANM staff reached out to a broad
constituency beyond the inmate community. The staff created several spaces within the
exhibition where visitors could express their own realities. For instance, the staff set up camp
registries, where former inmates could sign their own names, the names of their families, along
with their ID, block, and barrack numbers. Former inmates were then invited to place a wooden

326
Karen Ishizuka, “Coming to Terms: America’s Concentration Camps,” Common Ground: The Japanese
American National Museum and the Culture of Collaborations. Eds. Akemi Kikumura-Yano, Lane Ryo
HIrabayashi, and James A. Hirabayashi (Boulder, CO: Univ. of Colorado, 2005), 105.
327
Ishizuka, 15.
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model barrack on a map that showed the cap’s blueprints. This strategy is part of a larger
innovation in museum interpretation, that invites visitors to experience vicariously and
kinetically the past they are “visiting.” The exhibit also included the opportunity for former
inmates to fill out a photo album page with accounts of their experiences. Last, the exhibition has
a “Lost & Found” bulletin board where former inmates could reconnect with friends and family
members with whom they had lost contact through the years due to relocation.
Though this exhibition was meant to be an on-site temporary exhibition, JANM staff
accepted Steven Briganti’s invitation to mount the exhibition at the Ellis Island Immigration
Museum. Ishizuka saw this as an opportunity to reach a national and international audience that
knew little of the Japanese American experience during WWII—including the use of Ellis Island
itself as a detention center for “enemy aliens” during the war.
328
Moreover, showcasing this
exhibit in Ellis Island would legitimatize JANM’s work and increase its public standing at a
national level. Similar to the exhibit in Los Angeles, JANM created a New York-based advisory
council for the new exhibition. Ishizuka collected artifacts from the tri-state area, gathered
information on Ellis Island’s usage as a detention center, and incorporated the information into
the exhibition.
Five months before the exhibition was due to open, Ralph Applebaum, the exhibition
designer, expressed concern over the title. Ishizuka reminded Applebaum that the advisory
council supported the term’s usage and that they advised her to “conduct dialogues…regarding
its philosophy.”
329
That January, Irene Hirano, JANM’s director, spoke at the National
Conference of Jewish Museums in New York and invited Jewish organizations to co-sponsor

328
During World War II, Ellis Island served as a concentration camp for Japanese, German, and Italian enemy
aliens.
329
Ishizuka, 107.
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public programming on the subject. Here, she met Diane Dayson, superintendent of the Statue of
Liberty. Dayson raised concerns over the exhibition’s terminology and the possibility of negative
press from the Jewish community. By February, Dayson asked JANM to censor the exhibition
and threatened to cancel its showing if the word “concentration” was not removed from the title.
Within weeks, JANM had heard from Jewish leaders, scholars, and museum
professionals. The majority urged the museum to dismiss Dayson’s demands. Some cited her
censorship as a means of covering up the story of internment with the euphemisms that had been
used in the past. Others felt that it was “inappropriate and quite dangerous for any educational
institution to dictate the interpretive posture on an exhibition to those who have studied,
analyzed, and mastered the subject.”
330
Even Jewish activists felt disturbed, stating that Dayson
had succeeded in “offending both the Japanese and Jewish American communities in one
thoughtless gesture.”
331
In other words, the questions of who had the authority to retell World
War II history, and what history they could tell, lay at the center of the debates.
Senators Daniel K. Inouye and Daniel Akaka, intervened for JANM. They met with the
Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, about the matter. Roger Daniels, a member of the
Historical Advisory Council for Ellis Island, also met with Dwight Pitcaithley, NPS’ chief
historian.
332
The pleas worked and a week later Dayson informed Hirano that the exhibition
would remain unaltered. After a sigh of relief, JANM organized a meeting the American Jewish
Committee (AJC) and Jackie Lowey, deputy to NPS director Bob Stanton. The press got word of
the meeting and published inflammatory articles stating that the exhibition had created a tug-of-

330
The person speaking is Lonnie Bunch, while he was still at the National Museum of American History in
Washing D.C. His stance was one of many academic and museums professionals. (Ishizuka, 109).
331
Ishizuka, 110.
332
Roger Daniels also served on the advisory council for the original exhibition in Los Angeles.
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war between the Jewish American and Japanese American communities over “their status as
history’s victims.”
333

A meeting that was intended for a couple representatives of Jewish American and
Japanese American organizations soon turned into a larger meeting with organizations like the
National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Gathering
of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and the Japanese American Citizens League. During the meeting,
attendees were respectful of each other while still defending their positions. Benjamin Meed,
president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, broke the stalemate with a
pragmatic resolution. Meed suggested that the term be kept but that a jointly authored statement
be posted at the beginning of the exhibition explaining the definition of a “concentration camp,”
further educating the public that the Japanese American community was not equating their
suffering during World War II to that of the Jewish community.
The exhibition opened in Ellis Island with the new alterations. Though an arduous
process, the exhibition’s reworking served as an example of how a dialogic exhibit model helped
to reconcile the two collective memories—one of Holocaust survivors and another of Japanese
detainees. As JANM put itself in the national limelight, it provided the space for a national
conversation between ethnic groups to take place in regards to public memory, war, and the
social injustices faced by both communities. The conversation, itself, became just as important as
the content of the exhibition. Through this reconciliatory framework, the various communities
involved accommodated each other and cooperated in an effort to find common ground. The
exhibition became the tool to further public understandings of World War II history, trauma, and

333
Ishizuka, 113.
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public memory. Public historians, and community members, worked together to find a solution
that not only met their needs, but the needs of the general American public.
This exhibition also helped JANM start an international conversation about social justice.
During its tenure in Los Angeles, various human rights activists from African and Latin
American countries visited JANM to see this exhibition. These activists met with JANM staff
and had a productive conversation about the parallels between the injustices Japanese Americans
faced during WWII and contemporary issues within these activists’ native homelands. The
exhibition’s powerful message resonated with people at the local, national, and international
levels, pushing JANM’s staff to continue using the “dialogic” model and informing all of their
work from that point forward.
By 1999, JANM embarked on a collaborative initiative similar to the “Concentration
Camps” exhibition. They tasked themselves with exploring and reinterpreting the history of
Boyle Heights through the lens of its residents, past and present. Boyle Heights is a
neighborhood just east of Little Tokyo and the Los Angeles River. Since most of Los Angeles
has restrictive covenants that barred Mexicans, Asians, Jews, and Blacks from buying property
elsewhere, Boyle Heights became one of the city’s most heterogeneous neighborhoods during
the period from the 1910s to the 1950s. Using the tools they garnered from the “Concentration
Camps” exhibition, JANM approached several organizations that served various constituencies
within Boyle Heights. This step allowed for the museum to create a collaborative space that
placed all organizations on equal footing. Well, a lot more was required to establish “equal
footing” than this initial approach. Representatives from these organizations worked to
determine the project’s framework, outreach, research, and public programming. Together they
decided to solicit guidance from a panel of scholars that had direct expertise of Boyle Heights.
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The discourse that these conversations facilitated led the partners to conclude that the
research, while guided by scholars, needed to come from the community. They built a
community-based research strategy that focused on collecting artifacts, narratives, and histories
from community members. This strategy resulted in three separate, but equally important steps –
collection days, community discussions, and oral history interviews. These processes of memory
recovery and recording created a powerful and inclusive narrative about Boyle Heights that did
not privilege one ethnic group over the other, allowing for people, who would otherwise go
unnoticed, to present their stories. One such person was Mollie (Wilson) Murphy. Mrs. Murphy
first came to one of the Collection Days with plastic bags of ephemera. She initially went to the
Collection Day to ensure that African Americans were acknowledged as part of Boyle Heights.
However, she also went to the Collection Day to see if the museum wanted her more than 100-
letter collection she had received from her Nisei friends who were interned. As project scholar
George Sanchez acknowledged in his American Studies Association presidential address, “the
packages she carried represented the power of ethnic interaction similar to the museum’s first
exhibition, the Power of Place engendered Tchen’s “dialogic museum” model, portraying “local
intersecting private uses of history with the way it for…”
JANM’s adherence to the “dialogic exhibition” model helped them advance their mission
of civic dialogue and democracy. Furthermore, their collaborative and community-based work
helped them create artifacts of a usable past. They became locally, nationally, and internationally
known as a forum for social justice and civic engagement. They outgrew the temple and
converted it to the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. The museum also
commissioned a “Democracy Forum” with a 200-seat auditorium, and the gallery spaces were
transformed into the Hirasaki Democracy Hall, while the Legacy center became a Democracy lab
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(interactive classroom). This institution became the museum’s educational centerpiece where
students and teachers from across the nation participate in democracy education workshops and
programs. During these programs, participants learned the skills needed to ensure democracy,
culminating in an event where students demonstrated their newly acquired skills. For instance, in
2005, students from five different Los Angeles Unified School District’s high schools learned
about mental illness and its effect on local communities. By the end of the program they had
organized a free awareness concert on the plaza adjacent to the National Center. Titled “Rock n
Rights for the Mentally Disabled,” this concert was meant to generate public discourse about
Angelinos’ dedication, or lack thereof, for this marginalized population. The students partnered
with Lamp Community, a non-profit that provides housing, health recovery, and job training to
homeless people with serious mental illness, asking visitors to donate items to support this
marginalized population. In addition, they produced and distributed an “Awareness Pamphlet”
with educational information on related issues. The museum’s commitment to civic dialogue and
cross-cultural understanding transformed its mission from one of discourse to one of action. In
their attempts to recover lost memories, they created teachable moments and moved into spaces
of action.

A Lower East Side Tenement

In 1863, Lukas Glockner, a German immigrant, bought a plot of land in the Lower
Eastside of Manhattan and built a four-story tenement. The 97 Orchard Street tenement served as
Glockner’s home and source of income. He took care of his property and did regular
maintenance, though this task became more difficult to sustain as housing regulations became
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more stringent. By 1886, he sold the property for $29,000. The building changed hands several
times as housing regulators pushed the tenement’s owners to update fixtures, provide heating,
electricity and indoor plumbing. In 1934, the New York City Housing Authority was created to
institute new tenement reforms and deal with dilapidated housing structures, which lacked
modern conveniences. This regulatory institution placed major pressure on the tenement’s latest
owners, the Helperns, and by 1935 they had evicted all of the building’s tenants. The Helpers
found that it was cheaper to evict all the occupants, so they boarded up the living quarters of the
building and left the commercial space open to the public. During its tenure as a tenement, the
structure housed nearly seven thousand immigrants, and their families.
While the commercial space of 97 Orchard Street remained open, the residential portions
of the building fell into disrepair. This fact, however, made the building appealing for Ruth J.
Abram and Anita Jacobson. Both women had begun working together when they joined forces to
preserve and restore the Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York’s Lower East Side
neighborhood.
334
This synagogue had flourished during the first part of the twentieth century, but
the 1920s restrictive immigration laws, the Great Depression, and movement of older immigrants
out of the Lower East Side affected the synagogue’s congregant numbers. By the 1950s, a leaky
roof had forced the small congregation to move out of the main , leaving the building to suffer a
similar fate to that of 97 Orchard Street. Both Abram and Jacobson joined the Eldridge Street
Project (ESP) in hopes of creating a cultural center that offered educational programming. As
Abram recalled, “I raised money for the ESP, wrote and organized a tour and a play to bring the
public in, and spoke on its behalf on numerous occasions…It was here that I met Anita Jacobson,

334
Tutela, 95.
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who was volunteering.
335
They were tasked with developing walking tours of the Lower East
Side and theatrical productions based on the Jewish immigrant experience.
Abram’s and Jacobson’s involvement in the preservation efforts at the Eldridge Street
Synagogue opened their eyes to the fact that the Lower East Side had multiple structures that
were in need of preserving and that the neighborhood still retained much of its appeal for new
immigrants. They surmised that many of these structures could serve as entry points for their
interpretation of immigrant history in the Lower East Side. From this realization germinated the
idea that the public needed a museum that focused on immigrants and their experiences in the
urban landscape. They formed a separate organization in 1984—the Lower East Side Historical
Conservancy:
Ruth’s goal always was to the Tenement Museum to tell the story of immigration through
housing and tenements. And so, we started the Lower East Side Historic Conservacy,
which broadened; it wasn’t just the synagogue; we did tours of the Lower East Side, and
we put on performances…auditioning actors, wanting to be a tour guide, doing it in the
first person. It was a lot of fun.
336

This new organization, Abram and Jacobson theorized, could reinterpret the Lower East
Side’s immigrant past, present, and future. This mission would require that the organization not
only offer historic walking tours for the Lower East Side’s visitors, but serve as a resource center
for the current immigrant communities living on the Lower East Side. In order to do this work
effectively, Abram and Jaconson began to create a network of community members who had
similar ideas. This network included social activists and historians like urban critic Roberta
Gratz and African American historian James Oliver Horton. Together they began a two-pronged

335
Tutela, 95.
336
Tutela, 97
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process. The first was to sponsor research projects that detailed the lived experiences of the
Lower East Side’s residents between 1840 and 1920. Researchers found that migrant and
immigrant populations settled in the neighborhood as they transitioned into New York’s urban
landscape. The second portion of the organization’s time was spent on public programming.
Jacobson produced “living history” tours, where actors performed the parts of various historic
characters in period costumes.
As Jacobson and Abram expanded the operations of their organization, they began to
need more space. They searched throughout the Lower East Side for a storefront that had historic
appeal and relevance. In 1986, according to Anita Jacobson, as she and Abram met with a realtor
to see if the 97 Orchard Street storefront could serve their needs, she walked around the building
looking for a restroom. As she went down the hallway, she found a building with sheet-metal
ceilings, turn-of-the-century toilets and an aging wood banister. For Jacobson, 97 Orchard Street
offered them the opportunity to expand their non-profit organization. "It was as though people
had just picked up and left,’ Jacobson recalled. It was a little time capsule...I called Ruth and said
'We have got to have this building.' It was perfect." As a time capsule of the neighbor’s
immigrant past, this structure served the organization’s goals. Abram and Jacobson quickly
rented out the storefront, hoping to one day buy the entire building and restore it.
Abram’s push for a Lower East Side Tenement Museum was furthered by her own
upbringing and social activism. Abram up in Atlanta, Georgia, where she witnessed the racial
injustices that African Americans faced in the American South. Her father, Morris B. Abram,
was a civil rights activist and lawyer. He graduated sum cum laude from the University of
George in 1938 and was chosen to be a Rhodes scholar when Britain entered World War II. He
postponed his trip to Oxford University and went to the University of Chicago Law School
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instead. After the war, he went to England where one of his professors arranged for him to join
the staff of prosecutors at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Abram was
disturbed with what he heard and from this point forward, he dedicated himself to fight for civil
and human rights. Once he returned to Georgia in 1953, Abram ran for Congress on a platform to
desegregate public schools. He lost the Democratic nomination due to Georgia’s County Unit
System, which gave white rural populations an advantage over black urban populations. Abram’s
defeat propelled him to fight this law in court. His work led him to work repetitious closely with
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. since both men agreed that the Georgia legislature used the law to
codify racial discrimination. By 1963, Abram helped win the case against the County Unit
System, the state’s insurrection and illegal assembly laws, and he brokered the first large,
middle-income housing project open to black families in Atlanta. His work garnered him
considerable national attention and by the end of the year he moved to New York City. He
remained committed to civil rights, serving as the President of the American Jewish Committee
(1963-1968), President of Brandeis University (1968-1970), and Chairman of the United Negro
College Fund (1970-1976). Simultaneously, he worked with several presidential administrations
on international affairs, becoming the first counsel-general to the Peace Corps in 1961 and then
serving as the United States representative for the United Nations Commission of Human Rights
under the Johnson administration.
Ruth Abram, who had experienced discrimination in high school on the basis of her
Jewish background, had grown keenly aware of the racially discriminatory laws faced by African
Americans, and like her father, she worked towards improving civil rights and liberties. After she
graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, she went to work for the NAACP Legal Defense and
Education Fund as a Title VII coordinator. Afterwards, she worked as the executive director of
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the Norman Foundation and the program director for the American Civil Liberties Union. Her
laudable career in civil rights, and her MSW from the Florence Heller School at Brandeis
University, made her an appealing candidate for the Women’s Action Alliance, which had cycled
through three different executive directors during its first three years.
337
In 1974, Abram became
the organization’s newest executive director, in which position she served for five years. Under
her leadership, the organization’s fundraising programs flourished and she was able to maintain
various projects in childcare, job training, and political lobbying. It was during her time in this
organization that she discovered what she called, “the power of history.” As she recalled:
In the l970s, I was organizing a National Women's Agenda. Things had been going very
well. Group leaders from extremely diverse national women's organizations had actively
participated in the formation of the Agenda's platform. But suddenly it was stuck. Casting
about for a solution, I telephoned Gerda Lerner, then Chair of the Women's Studies
Department at Sarah Lawrence College and founder of the modern women's history
movement. Introducing myself, I explained my dilemma and asked if I could have a
historical consultation. There was a long pause, and finally Dr Lerner said, `No one has
ever asked me, a historian, to help develop strategy for the present.' A few days later,
Professor Lerner treated me to a personal lecture on the history of women's organizing
efforts. Every successful national effort organized by women had been organized from the
grass roots up. And from that encounter, I was able to see what I had been doing wrong. I
had been organizing from the top down. I restructured the campaign, and finally, in 1975,
on the steps of the United States Capitol building, women from over 100 national women's
organizations announced the formation of a National Women Agenda. History had
supplied a strategy.

In 1979, Abram was replaced as the executive director of the Women’s Action Alliance,
and she decided that she would go to graduate school and get a degree in history. She entered
New York University (NYU) where she was a Kennan Fellow, earning her Master’s degree.
While in NYU, she founded Paraphrase, Inc., a non-profit organization, whose goals centered on
reinterpreting scholarship for a general audience. As president of Paraphrase, she produced

337
Abram graduated from the Florence Heller School at University in 1971.
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“Send Us a Lady Physician: Women Doctors in America, 1835-1920.” This program included a
traveling exhibition, an anthology, which she edited, and a “living history” visit to a female
doctor, which was co-sponsored by the American Association of Women in Medicine (AAWM).
This work won her the AAWM Camille Mermond Award in 1987. By the time that Anita
Jacobson and Ruth Abram met on the Lower East Side, Abram had had decades of
administrative and programmatic experiences in the non-profit and social justice worlds.
By 1988, Jacobson and Abram began to construct a Board of Trustees for the Lower East
Side Tenement Museum. Board members came from a range of professions—from the
Commissioner of Housing Preservation for New York City to an IMB marketing manager.
Together, this group of men and women drew up a list of ten objectives. Many of these
objectives centered on the museum’s historic preservation aspirations and history practices.
However the last two objectives focused on Abram’s ideals. The penultimate objective required
the museum to “support, and collaborate with, existing cultural and community resources,” while
the last objective mandated staff and board members “to encourage ethnic interaction and cross-
cultural communications and understanding among various religious, ethnic, and racial
groups.”
338
It was these two objectives that made the museum stand apart from the rest. They
basically stated that it was not only obligated to collect and preserve New York’s immigrant past,
but that it had a responsibility to use this history in a way that built a sense of community and to
provide an open space for discussions related to issues of inclusion and tolerance.

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Redefining A Community Museum’s Goals

Even though Anita Jacobson and Ruth Abram chartered the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum (LESTM) in 1988, fundraising enough money to buy the property from the Helpern
family was a difficult task. In order for the Tenement Museum to secure property ownership, it
needed to raise three million dollars. As Abram noted, “foundations accustomed to funding
traditional museums could not categorize the Tenement Museum.” The Tenement Museum was
supposed to become something different and unique, and while exciting, this fact meant that
potential donors did not know if they were funding a historic preservation effort, a social service
provider, and/or an immigrants’ rights advocacy center. So Abram used her Board as a means to
an end by asking its members to use their networks to find the $3 million needed to buy the
property. By October of that year, the Tenement Museum had submitted thirty-four grant
applications to various corporations and foundations, and had even approached the City of New
York to use eminent domain and acquire the property on their behalf. However, as Paul Crotty,
the then-Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development detailed, this city commission
did not have that function: “Even if I had such a property, I wouldn’t give it to a museum; my
mission was to provide housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.”
339
Even if Abram
meant to organize a space that clung to the ideals of a useable past, the museum’s goal were not
always in line with the various funding sources that were readily available.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, Abram focused her time and energy towards the
preservation portion of the museum. She surmised that if the museum gained local, regional, and
national recognition, it would have the credibility it needed to attract potential donors and

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funders. During an early walk-through, Abram found several apartments that still contained the
belongings of their previous tenants. These artifacts pointed to the fact that many of these tenants
had left the tenement in a hurry. Upon realizing this, Abram and Jacobson dedicated themselves
to researching the lives of the specific families that had once lived in the building. They
understood that the museum would have a larger and more meaningful impact if it offered
visitors the histories of the tenement’s residents, rather than composite representations of typical
ethnic families.
340
Abram and Jacobson assembled a group of researchers to help them discover
as much as possible about the families that once occupied the building
341
. Many researchers
offered their services as pro bono work or as in-kind contributions, giving Abram the historical
capital she needed to argue the site’s historic relevance. Once she gathered enough information
to create a clearer picture of the building’s historic value, Abram petitioned to have the federal
government designate the building as a historic site. By 1992, the building was added to the
National Registrar of Historic Places. This designation helped Abram fundraise, which in turn
allowed for the federal government to take the next step and finally designate the site as a
National Historic Landmark in 1994. By 1998, Congress designated the Tenement Museum an
affiliated site of the National Park Service and the National Trust of Historic Preservation. 97
Orchard Street became the first tenement preserved as a historic site in the nation’s history.
While Abram worked on the fundraising and historic preservation aspects of the
Tenement Museum, Jacobson managed the museum’s educational and public programming. By
the time the museum opened in December of 1988, she had curated a photography exhibition of
tenement life, developed walking tours about the Lower East Side’s African American and

340
Bruner Foundation, 43-44.
341
Abram successfully acquired a $75,000 grant from the Philip Morris Company to pay for 18 historians from
across the country to conduct research on the Tenement Museum’s behalf
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Chinese immigrant pasts, and produced a children’s musical.
342
Much of the materials and
narratives that she used were based on the historical research that the museum staff and
consultants had cobbled together. Jacobson’s original plan was to use the research findings to
concoct fictional archetypes of Lower East Side residents. However, this idea was scratched the
day that Josephine Baldizzi Esposito walked into 97 Orchard Street. Esposito had been nine
years old when her family was evicted from 97 Orchard Street. They had lived in a two-room
apartment from 1928 until 1935, and walking back into the building in 1989, she recalled, “was a
dream come true.”
343
Esposito volunteered her time to the museum, donating family treasures
and recounting her memories of how her family’s apartment and building had once looked.
Using Esposito’s family story as a blueprint, Jacobson and Abram refocused their
research efforts on former residents, owners and shopkeepers at 97 Orchard Street. They
examined Census material, court and voter records, and other public documents, trying to find 97
Orchard Street descendants. This new focus led them to various families, who at one point or
another, had inhabited the building. In addition to their recreation of the Baldizzi family’s
apartment, they reproduced the households of the Glockner family (the tenement’s orginal
owners), the Gumpertz family (German Jews in the 1870s), the Moore family (Irish Catholic in
the 1870s), the Levine family (Russian Jews in the 1890s and 1900s), the Rogarshevsky family
(Lithuanians in the 1900s), and the Confino family (Greek Sephardic Jews in the 1910s).
Starting in 1994, the Tenement Museum inaugurated new tours based on the newly
reconstituted households. Unlike earlier tours, these new tours were thematic in nature,
addressing the various aspects of an immigrant’s life. One of the most powerful and thought-

342
LESTM, 14.
343
LESTM, 7-9
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provoking tours was titled “Piecing it Together: Immigrants in the Garment Industry.” This tour
focused on the Levine and Rogarshevsky families. Tour guides showed how both families lived
and worked in their 97 Orchard Street apartments, tying their experiences to New York’s larger
sweatshop histories. During the tour, guests were asked to reflect on the families’ lived
experiences and how they compared to present-day circumstances.
The museum’s new exhibitions and tours attracted much needed attention and helped the
museum move closer to its goals and objectives. This national and international publicity
allowed for the museum to finally raise enough money to purchase the building from the Helpern
family. By 1996, the Helpern family accepted Abram’s offer of $750,000. With full ownership of
the site, Abram was able to invest the rest of the three million dollars towards the building’s
preservation and retrofitting efforts. This momentum also gave Abram the confidence to enact
programs that promoted tolerance and historical perspective of the immigrant experience. For
Abram, the museum’s adherence to its goals of community-building was just as important as the
historical preservation efforts of the building.
In the 1990s, the Lower East Side remained a popular neighborhood for millions of
immigrants. As one of the remaining neighborhoods in Manhattan where rent was still
affordable? for people with low incomes, Abram understood that the neighborhood was ripe for
gentrification. By the end of the 20
th
century, the Lower East Side began to transform into one of
Manhattan’s trendiest neighborhoods. The space’s rise in popularity resulted in a struggle over
affordable hosing and who had access to these opportunities. Abram, herself, became entangled
in the neighborhood’s residential upheaval. In 2001, when her neighbors at 99 Orchard began to
renovate their property, Abram sought to acquire the building, evict the tenants, and expand her
museum. She teamed up with the Empire State Development Company to take over the property
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under eminent domain. The Holtzman family had owned the property for four generations and
did not see how Abram’s efforts coincided with her museum’s goals and objectives. The
Holtzmans hired lobbyists to travel to Albany and gain support of their state representatives. By
early 2002, sate legislature publicly supported Holtzman, and Abram aborted her efforts. As
Jacobson later recalled the situation did not help the museum’s reputation among their neighbors:
“I’m glad that it didn’t work out…” (Tutela, 157). Abram’s need to be a good neighbor also
stemmed from the museum’s position as a powerful entity and cultural institution that was
helping change and frame the community, even as it worked to preserve it.
Abram partnered with the University Settlement Society of New York in order to offer
English classes and workshops to recent immigrants. In 2002, this program became known as the
Shared Journeys program. The Tenement Museum offered teachers of English and civic courses
the opportunity to visit the museum with their students, in order for them to have an open
dialogue and space about their place in the larger American society. By having dangling
participle these immigrants walk through the exhibits about past experiences they were able to
see that they were not alone. In addition to these workshops, Abram partnered with the New York
Times to develop a guide to New York City for recent immigrants. Published in 2003 in English,
Spanish, and Chinese, this guide offered new immigrants insights and advice about healthcare,
housing, employment and education. The guide also provided referrals to the city’s leading
immigrant support organizations. By publishing this guide in three separate languages, Abram
acknowledged that recent immigrants to the Lower East Side were different from earlier waves
of immigrants but required similar needs and attention.
The Tenement Museum’s civic engagement was not limited to recent immigrants. It also
developed a coalition of 200 organizations from the Lower East Side, calling it the Lower East
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Side Community Partnership Project. The museum launched this program in 2000 in order to
bring together various neighborhood organizations and discuss common goals and agendas. This
coalition was also set up to counter the Lower Eastside Historic District. This historic district
was developed by the Jewish community council to highlight Jewish landmarks, and not the
neighborhood’s multi-ethnic past. More specifically, even as the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum was included as part of the historic district, other equally important landmarks were not.
African American and Latino civic leaders protested this cultural district as a whitewashing of
the Lower East Side’s history, arguing that cultural representations directly correlated to the
redistribution of resources like housing and schools. An editorial in the Daily News openly
suggested that this new historic district was racist: “the result is really a Jewish Lower East Side
historic district…as a stand-in for the history of the whole neighborhood…it looks more like he
gerrymandered voting district than a coherent neighborhood.”
Leaders of St. Augustine asked the Tenement Museum to help them fundraise and create
meaningful community-based programming. During their discussions, participants realized that
at the center of this project was a goal to have a historic site in lower Manhattan that identified
African Americans as contributors to New York’s urban landscape. This predominantly African
American congregation believed that the site was once used as a “slave gallery.” At the core,
therefore, was a large issue over who could claim ownership of the Lower East Side. To address
this issue, the project staff invited community leaders from various ethnic and community-based
organizations to a community discussion. During these meetings, organizers found that the slave
galleries could serve as a space where different constituencies could discuss their experiences
with marginalization and exclusion. Melissa Nieves of University Settlement drew parallels
between this history and the experiences of undocumented immigrants. These conversations
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motivated the project team to research the space, and continuously report back to community
leaders.
Their investigation inspired a powerful cross-cultural exchange of ideas and it motivated
the Tenement Museum staff to begin training as dialogue facilitators. Soon the museum became
a neutral space for various peoples to discuss hot button issues like racism, discrimination, or
immigration.
In 2002, the Tenement Museum sponsored a forum for the labor industry. Garment
industry workers, union representatives, and clothing manufacturers were invited to participate.
Guests toured the museum’s sweatshop apartment, and then gather to discuss how each sector in
the garment industry could participate in addressing abuses in the industry. Participants found
this dialogue engaging and fruitful; one clothing manufacturer noted that the Tenement Museum
was an ideal environment for discussions among people in conflict. The success of this event led
to the creation of a program titled, “Kitchen Conversations.” Debuting in 2004, “Kitchen
Conversations” abided by the same kind of format as the garment industry forum. Participants
came from all walks of life. First, they walked through one of the recreated apartments within the
Tenement Museum. Then, they were gathered into a conference room where they could talk
about their experiences. This forum allowed participants to engage in a dialogue about
contemporary immigration issues while reflecting on the experiences of past immigrants. The
ultimate goal was to have participants gain new perspectives on immigration issues and become
active facilitators within their own communities.

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Connecting to a Global Network

While JANM and the Tenement Museum worked to create local spaces for civic
engagement and dialogue, they did so with the support of their global networks. In April of 2000,
the Tenement Museum announced Ruth Abram’s formation of the International Coalition of
Historic Site Museums of Conscience. Abram had originally developed this global network in
1999. After receiving grants form The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, she invited
representatives from nine historic-site museums including JANM. In December of that year, nine
organizations met at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study and Conference center in Italy,
where they discussed their common goals and argued that cultural institutions could be
instruments of change. The nine institutions included the District Six Museum (South Africa),
the Gulag Museum (Russia), Liberation War Museum (Bangladesh) LESTM, Women’s Right
Historic District, the Slave House (Senegal), the Project to Remember (Argentina), Terezin
Memorial (Czech Republic), the Workhouse (England), and JANM. All of these sites defined
their missions around social issues and most used their historic sites to address contemporary
issues. According to the Coalitions founding document, these sites’ “belief that it is the
obligation…as a primary function.” In laying out this mission, these sites promised to assist one
another as they forged a kind of memory recovery and memory activism that had not existed
before. Yet, even as they understood that their common goals of conscience were optimal, the
worlds in which they operated were not. This acknowledged that these sites existed in a complex
eco-system that required them to continuously renegotiate how their goals manifest and how they
are received. As they LESSM, assessed,
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While representing various countries and histories, the Coalition members discovered
many commonalities. They identified some of the goals of historic site museums of
conscience: to challenge stereotypes; inspire citizens to take social responsibility; inform
people of their rights; work towards reconciliation; remind the world of the fragility of
liberty; encourage governments to create a climate in which sites of social conscience can
be preserved and interpreted responsibly; and empower local constituencies and cultivate
local talent. They also examined special challenges that the sites face: walking the line
between telling the story and engaging in politics; determining when the time is ripe to
tell the story in all its complexity; interpreting horror in such a way that visitors can cope
with it and learn from it; inserting new/buried history into school curricula; defining/
negotiating appropriate relationships with state and national governments; and airing
taboo subjects. Finally, they identified themes that cross national boundaries which could
form the basis of international programming: urban "renewal", forced removal, "slum"
clearance; poverty and welfare; homelessness and housing the poor; the official
classification or segregation of people; the contribution of "ordinary" people; war; human
rights and tolerance; immigration; slavery; women’s rights; political repression; and
racism.

The stage was set. Memorials could now use memory activism at the local, national, and global
levels.

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Conclusion

This dissertation demonstrates the dynamic relationship between governmental cultural
policies and the social-political agendas that emphasized the United States as “a nation of
immigrants” during the second half of the twentieth century. It centers on public history
institutions, which served as venues for immigration scholars and museum practitioners to
produce American immigrant narratives. As my study shows, these narratives began to circulate
during the Cold War in order to unite the country against communism. Yet, as time progressed,
the narratives used to describe American immigration began to change and evolve. This
evolution did not always mean the demise of other narratives. Rather, these successive narratives
overlapped, and at times, worked in tandem with one another. This dissertation, therefore, argues
that the immigration narratives espoused during, and after the Cold War, were dialectically
related to the public policies implemented at the local, state, and federal-levels.

Conceptual Frameworks
This study used three conceptual frameworks to analyze and organize the evidence it
examined. First, it used the concept of the power of place, demonstrating that the production of
immigration narratives was grounded to specific places in the American landscape. Second, it
examined the ways in which public history served as an extension of political culture, positing
that the immigration narratives espoused by various public history institutions were a creation of
their socio-political environments. Last, this dissertation examined the immigration narratives
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themselves, revealing that even as the various immigration narratives co-existed with another,
different publics valued the narrative’s worth and its national importance differently. This kind
of classification led to a stratification of the various narratives in the larger American collective
memory. Put together these conceptual frameworks allow for the nuances of memorialization to
unfold.
This dissertation holds several examples of how the power of place operates within
public history institutions. As stated in the dissertation’s introduction, Dolores Hayden’s power
of place framework posits that people use social spaces to ground their cultural identity, and that
these spaces are themselves an extension of personal and collective memories. In this
dissertation, the American Museum of Immigration argued that European immigrants entering
the New York Harbor all held the same memory—Lady Liberty greeting them as they arrived to
the United States. This collective memory, they reasoned, required that the base of the Statue of
Liberty hold a museum that examined the historical trajectory of immigration in American
society. Ellis Island preservationists, however, contended that this claim was based on a
particular American sentiment that escaped the realities of the immigration processes immigrants
faced while in Ellis Island. Therefore, they believed that the immigration station should become
the country’s immigrant memorial space and not the Statue of Liberty. Yet, as the number of
immigrant narratives rose, so did the number of memorial sites that could espouse a collective
immigrant identity that deviated from the Ellis Island narrative. Both preservationists at Angel
Island and the U.S. Border Patrol Museum practitioners, for example, worked to ground the
immigrant narratives in the West. They argued that the Ellis Island narrative favored the
experiences of European immigrants and the immigrant experiences in the American West were
different. They argued that both Angel Island and the U.S.-Mexico Border needed to be
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nationally recognized in the larger American imaginings. And, by the 1990’s, the Japanese
American National Museum and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum worked to move the
memorialization of the immigrant experiences outside of the confines of the immigration process
and towards the lived experiences of immigrants in the urban landscape. In each case, the public
history institutions rationalized their importance in American collective memory by making an
argument about the actual spaces they inhabited.
This dissertation also demonstrated how public history practitioners used their socio-
political environments to disseminate their immigration narratives. The American Museum of
Immigration began as a Cold War project and the Park Service was able to gain federal
appropriations because it billed the project as such. Yet, as the Civil Rights Movement gained
national attention, the AMI was scrutinized and new immigrants narratives arose to complicate
the narratives espoused there. In New York City, this challenge meant that Ellis Island was
preserved and opened to the general public. In San Francisco, the Civil Rights challenged
translated into the preservation efforts at Angel Island, and the eventual opening of an
interpretive center at the island’s immigration barracks.
The Civil Rights laws passed in 1965 included the Hart-Cellar Act, which flattened the
country’s immigration quota system and inadvertently produced a rise in unauthorized
immigration. Subsequently, the U.S.-Mexico Border took on national prominence as political
pundits attempted to account for the rise in unauthorized immigration from Latin America and
the Border Patrol worked to enforce the new immigration legislation. This political climate gave
the U.S. Border Patrol Museum new relevancy, as it attempted to place the history of the federal
agents into larger narratives about American immigration and enforcement. The debates that
surrounded unauthorized immigration, however, also brought with them questions about human
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rights and human dignity—how did the enforcement of restrictive legislative translate into the
lived experiences of immigrants? Angel Island preservations worked to address this question,
elevating the memories they preserved to a national scale. The question about human dignity also
ignited museum practitioners to re-evaluate the purpose and function of their institutions. Public
history institutions, like the Japanese American National Museum and the Lower East Side
Tenement Museum, worked to create exhibitions and public programming that did more than just
memorialize the past. These institutions became forums for social change, attempting to address
present-day grievances with the histories that they told. JANM, for instance, turned the final
section of their exhibition about Japanese American internment into a bulletin board, where
family members and friends could find themselves after they were separated during their
incarceration. Therefore as the national socio-political environment changed, public history
institutions address their local cultural contexts.
Lastly, this dissertation places the various immigrant narratives in conversation with one
another. Even as the initial immigrant narrative that arose during the Cold War fractured during
the Civil Rights Movement, these various fragments worked in competition with each other,
serving different segments of American society. The Civil Rights challenge that initiated the
fragmentation paved the way for the rise in the white ethnics symbolic narrative and the
gatekeeping narrative that followed. These two narratives, however, worked along side each
other, addressing the lived experiences of different populations. For white ethnics on the East
Coast, the symbolic ethnicity narrative allowed them to ground their collective identity in their
individual choice as their white privilege accorded them the ability to move seamlessly through
American society with limited difficulties. For racial minorities, the gatekeeping narrative
aligned to their experiences as second-class citizens. Asian Americans and Latinos understood
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that their experiences in the United States were tied to their ancestors’ entry into the country.
Therefore the immigration narratives espoused in the United States are directly related to race,
class, and citizenship.
In reviewing the dissertation’s conceptual framework, I have demonstrated that this
dissertation uncovers a history rarely discussed within immigration or public history scholarship.
This study makes several noteworthy contributions to both disciplines, asking scholars to begin a
conversation about how these disciplines intersect. It demonstrates that ideas about race and
ethnicity, citizenship, and the nation converged in historical sites to shape the ways in which
mainstream Americans during the latter part of the twentieth century came to understand
immigration and the immigration process. I will now to turn to laying out the various narratives
discussed within the dissertation and the public history institutions that used them.

Narratives Revisited

As shown in the first chapter, the actual tethering of American nationhood to immigration
did not actually occur until the Cold War. The United States’ ideological battle with communist
Russia required the American government, and its people, to distinguish its democratic and
capitalist values from those of Russia. The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in
New York City capitalized on this Cold War sentiment, proposing that the National Park Service
construct an immigration museum at the base of the Statue of Liberty. The Park Service
conceded and helped establish the American Museum of Immigration. This museum championed
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the narrative of American exceptionalism, arguing that the United States was unique in its ability
to take immigrants from around the world and melt them into one united front. The museum’s
use of this concept, also known as the melting pot theory, required that it focus on the
experiences of northern and western European immigrants. Spearheading these efforts were the
grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Alexander Hamilton, Ulysses S. Grant, and Pierre S.
Du Pont. Together they reimagined the symbolic fervor of the Statue of Liberty, recasting it as an
icon of immigration and a major refuge for Europe’s poor and persecuted. This narrative’s
emphasis on immigrants’ contribution and ingenuity allowed for the American Museum of
Immigration to retain a narrative form that exalted the accomplishments of the early American
national heroes and adhered to the great men theory. They argued that this narrative was
inclusive in nature as it described the basic experience of all Americans.
The American Museum of Immigration, however, did not receive the full support of
everyone. The second chapter illustrates how Civil Rights activists, primarily of African
American descent, opposed the museum’s simplistic rendering of American immigration history
and its nationalist sentiments. They challenged the American Museum of Immigration to
acknowledge the American political structures that excluded peoples on the basis of race and
ethnicity. They also objected to the rendering of all of American history as a sequential
narrative—a narrative that assumed that all racial groups entered the country on the same footing
and had the same opportunities to melt into the mainstream. In other words, they wanted the
museum to move away from its great men treatment of immigration history and recognize the
social histories of various racial and ethnic groups. This challenge required that the American
Museum of Immigration rethink its conceptual framework, though their solutions left much to be
desired for frustrated constituencies. Instead of acknowledging the trials and tribulations that
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various racial and ethnic groups have had to face in the past, the American Museum of
Immigration placed token historic figures into their larger narrative of American exceptionalism.
The solution frustrated both the Park Service and African American politicians.
Yet, the Civil Rights challenge was not just constrained to the American Museum of
Immigration. The second chapter also examined how Asian American activists in the San
Francisco Bay used their networks to save the Angel Island immigration station barracks from
demolition. The site had once served as the holding space for Asian immigrants, mostly of
Chinese and Japanese descent, during the first part of the twentieth century. The barracks
remained abandoned until a park ranger found them and discovered that their walls were covered
with poems from immigrant detainees. These poems became the rallying point for Asian
American activists who argued that the immigration barracks served as spatial proof of the
racially discriminatory laws that plagued their communities. They argued for the preservation of
these barracks as historical monuments to the Asian American experience. Their strategy worked
and the California Park Service abandoned its plans to eliminate the barracks from Angel Island
State Park and the California State Legislature appropriated monies for the preservation of the
immigration barracks.
Though the Civil Rights challenge successfully pushed against the Cold War narrative
that centered on the great men theory, it did not keep public history institutions from
emphasizing the latest assimilation theories in their rendering of American immigration history
and how it connected to larger narratives about American exceptionalism. The third chapter of
this dissertation examines the new immigration narrative that arouse in the 1970s. Unlike the
Civil Rights challenge, which emphasized groups’ rights, the newest rendering of the Cold War
narrative stressed individual’s rights and the historical experiences of eastern and southern
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European immigrants. Capitalizing on the country’s bicentennial celebrations, white ethnics in
New Jersey and New York worked to preserve Ellis Island and open the grounds for public tours.
The Smithsonian also created an exhibition titled, “A Nation of Nations,” which narrated the
American immigrant experience as the quintessential American experience. This latest rendering
of American immigration defined ethnicity as a voluntary individualistic identity that could be
used during special occasions with little significant societal consequences. This narrative
continued into the 1980s, becoming one of the major drivers for the demise of the American
Museum of Immigration and the opening of the Ellis Island Museum.
The ascension of the Civil Rights challenge and the revision of the European immigrant
model in the public arena enabled the fracturing of the immigrant narrative. This fracturing gave
room to the rise of a third narrative. The fourth chapter examines this narrative and the two
institutions that held steadfast to it. This narrative posited that the United States was a
gatekeeping nation, at least when it came to the western part of the country. The U.S. Border
Patrol Museum in El Paso, Texas worked to incorporate the histories of border patrol agents into
the larger narratives of immigration history and border enforcement. The museum arose after
many agents were forced into early retirement as the Border Patrol, itself, was changing in terms
of demographics and border enforcement tactics. These newly retired agents felt that they needed
to address the fact that the United States had attempted to keep Mexican immigrants outside of
the United States since 1924—long before the 1980’s culture wars and rise in illegal immigration
along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Local residents, however, were not pleased with the narratives
that the museum espoused and the local residents’ distrust of the museum received more press
attention than museum’s exhibitions and public programming.
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The second institution to discuss the country’s gatekeeping past was the Angel Island
Immigration Station Foundation. This organization was created shortly after the California
legislature passed an appropriation bill to secure the preservation of the Angel Island
immigration barracks. AIISF’s main purpose was to serve as a fundraising foundation and ensure
that the barracks remain open to the public. By the end of the 1980s, the foundation’s leadership
changed and the new administration worked to expose the barrack’s national relevance. AIISF
argued that the barracks were not just the physical symbol of Asian American plight but a space
with larger national implications. They argued that Angel Island was the first space in the United
States where the country’s gatekeeping policies were implemented and enforced. Therefore,
Angel Island was the birthplace of the United States as a gatekeeping nation. They argued that
these policies were not eliminated with the implementation of the Immigration Act of 1965 and
that the Angel Island immigration history actually had larger present-day implications. AIISF’s
push for national recognition not only helped them change public discourse about immigration
history and policies, but it also enabled them to get federal recognition. By the end of the 1990’s,
Angel Island received federal monies to have the site preserved and it was granted national
historic landmark status.
The fracturing of the nation’s immigrant history had local and global ramifications. Local
history institutions understood this fact and several museums began to consciously use the power
of memory to benefit people and constituencies in the present. The fifth and final chapter of this
dissertation, therefore, examines two of these organizations. Titled, “Memory Activism,” this
chapter lays out the founding of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and
the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City. Both museums were created to serve
as forums of social justice for populations within Los Angeles and New York City. The
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museum’s founders understood that history could serve as a solution to present-day grievances
and they created exhibitions and public programming specifically for the benefit of those
populations. By the end of the 1990’s, both organizations partnered with several organizations
museums outside of the United States. These organizations all had the same thing in common—
they wanted to be vehicles for social change. From this partnership, the International Coalition
for Sites of Conscience was born. Put together, these chapters not only detail the evolution of the
immigrant narrative in popular imaginings, but they also describe the socio-political agendas that
affect how these narratives are understood and used in public discourse.

Project Limitations

This dissertation evaluated the creation of several public history institutions and their
relationship in the development of immigrant narratives during the second part of the twentieth
century. In order to do this effectively, I stayed close to the archival materials I collected and the
oral histories I conducted. This methodology did allow me to achieve my goal but it also left my
study with a number of limitations. Therefore, as I move forward with this project I will attempt
to build on this research and address these limitations.
First, while this project does show how the American Museum of Immigration came to
use the phrase, “a nation of immigrants,” in order to espouse their support for American
democracy and anti-communist sentiments, it does not fully explore what kinds of immigrant
narrative existed before the Cold War or why the American Museum of Immigration Board of
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Trustees chose to discuss American democracy as a by-product of American immigration. What
made these men focus on the country’s immigrant past and not, for instance, industry? To
address these questions, I would have to examine public renderings of immigration history
before the Cold War. How was immigration history discussed in school textbooks, museums, or
other public history institutions? In answering the question of what came before the American
Museum of Immigration, I will better equipped to answer the question of why this museum’s
board of trustees chose to focus on immigration in their Cold War efforts.
Second, while this project addresses the issue of public discourses and how they were
implemented in public history institutions, it does little to address the relationship between these
discourses and the narratives espoused in popular media. Similarly, this project’s focus on
specific cultural institutions limited my ability to discuss how these projects compared to other
cultural institutions. Were these the only institutions to discuss the immigrant narrative or did
others adopt the narrative as well? Much of this is due to the fact that there are several successful
studies that have already done this work. Therefore, my task for the future will be to evaluate and
interweave these secondary sources with my research. I need to address whether these were the
only institutions using the immigrant narrative or if there were other popular renderings of an
American collective memory that included immigration.
Last, this research does little to address the current state of the various institutions it
examined. Since 2003, there have been numerous changes in administration and focus within
these cultural institutions. While these changes do not detract from the project’s larger
arguments, they are nonetheless historically valuable to note. Therefore in revising the next
rendering of this project, I will need to address how these institutions have evolved since 2003.
Similarly, in my focus on the cultural institutions and their respective narratives, I did little to
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expand upon the background of specific key players or key actors within these organizations. I
need to do more to contextualize the histories of the institutions by addressing the biographical
background of key intellectuals, museum practitioners, and activists involved in these projects.

Conclusion

The immigration sites and museums discussed in this dissertation showcase the
importance of place to the retelling and commemoration of American immigration history. The
aim of this dissertation has been to focus on these diverse institutions because the history of
immigration is, in itself, varied and complex. Many of these sites purported to analyze all of
immigration, but they did so from one particular lens, be it through an immigration port (like
Angel Island or Ellis Island), or through a community experience (like the U.S. Border Patrol
Museum or the Japanese American National Museum). In both cases, these institutions were
forced to reconcile the idea of “a nation of immigrants” with the racialized realities of
immigration. My purpose is to demonstrate that throughout the latter part of the twentieth
century these institutions were created precisely because many people’s identities, and their ties
to the nation-state, were dependent on how their histories were folded into the broader ideas of
the United States as an immigrant nation. These new iterations of immigration narratives, in turn,
affected the kinds of policies that surrounded immigration, and what the wider American
audience learned about those policies.

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Pelayo, Monica (author)

Core Title Producing heritage, remaking immigration: American cultural policies, 1950-2003

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publication Date 08/18/2014

Defense Date 08/14/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag American Museum of Immigration,Angel Island,Border Patrol Museum,Cold War,Ellis Island,Historic Preservation,immigration,Japanese American National Museum,Lower Eastside Tenement Museum,memory,narratives,OAI-PMH Harvest,public history,Statue of Liberty

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sánchez, George J. (committee chair), Agius Vallejo, Jody (committee member), Halttunen, Karen (committee member)

Creator Email mrpelayo@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-460772

Unique identifier UC11287050

Identifier etd-PelayoMoni-2820.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-460772 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-PelayoMoni-2820.pdf

Dmrecord 460772

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Pelayo, Monica

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA