Willow Creek Fifth-Graders Experience Ellis Island

For one morning, fifth-graders at experienced what some of their ancestors went through as the students took place in an Ellis Island simulation.

Students were randomly assigned immigrant identities, from Italy, Russia, Germany, Poland, Greece or Scandinavia.  Each "immigrant" received some open and closed information.

Open information could be written or illustrated on their nametag and included such facts as their country of origin, age and other physical qualities, interests, and attributes.  

Their closed information included physical ailments, problems in the past and the amount of money they had.  Typically at that time, the United States wanted immigrants to have at least $30 to enter the country.

If students were not selected to be immigrants,  they were assigned to be a worker who served as a processor, questioning each immigrant who came through.

"Students love simulations in social studies since it makes history come alive," said Rosemary Mehok, Willow Creek fifth-grade social studies teacher. 

"They enjoy dressing up and role playing. Instead of merely reading about the influx of immigrants coming to America in the early 1900's, they are able to assume an identity of a person who would be typical of someone coming to America at that time and understand what it would be like to go through the processing center."

Prior to the simulation, the students read about Ellis Island in reading class and completed an interactive website.  Then on the day of, the immigrants went through the following sequence:

• Boat ride: First class passengers enjoyed refreshments in the lounge, aka the teacher's lounge. Third class passengers spent time crammed in steerage, aka the school's boiler room.
• Station 1 Background: Processors asked five questions - name, country, age, sex, marital status.
• Station 2 Vocation: Immigrants were asked about their past jobs, number of years they worked, and if they had any skills or references.
• Station 3 Character: Made sure immigrants are respectable and did not have a shady past, problems with the law or extreme political views.
• Station 4  Health: Two doctors -- one male and one female --  checked to see if immigrants  had any medical or mental concerns.  They marked a letter on the person with chalk if there was a problem.  For example, X= mental illness or  E= eye.
• Clearance: The processor reviewed the immigrant's checklist to see if they have the required number of points (28) to enter the country.  If not, they could go to Appeals and plead their case -- either for their character or health.  If the Appeals Processor agrees, then they are allowed to become citizens but if not, they are deported.
• Loyalty Station: New citizens are  shown the Constitution and told of its importance, say the Loyalty Oath and are welcomed into the country.
• Deported: If an immigrant was deported they were escorted out of the school building (and of course, allowed back in).  Reasons for deportation included  problems with the law or exiled from their homeland, poor health (mental or physical), little or no money or education or simply too old.

Throughout the process, the immigrants were only allowed to use two English words per sentence.  

"The simulation was really fun because we can pretend to be someone else," said Johnny Naisbett, who was a German immigrant for the day. "This was much more fun than a regular homework assignment."

His classmate Izzy Taylor, who played an 80-year-old Italian woman, agreed.

"It was fun dressing up, but not being to use a lot of English was really hard," said Taylor.

Unfortunately, her story did not have a happy ending, as she was character deported for being too old and having no one to live with in the United States.

After the immigrants were processed and became citizens, they moved on to the next classroom that was set up like a neighborhood.  Students then cluster with others with the same nationality and work together on a task, similar to the way immigrants lived in cities.