They came aboard ships … just over five million they were, migrating to the United States over five decades between the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. They were Italians. They came ashore, mostly on Ellis Island in New York, but there were also other ports of call like Boston and New Orleans. With few possessions and lots of hope they disembarked with a passenger ticket in hand.

These were “documented immigrants” who had paid a legitimate entity – a steamship company as they were known in those days – to secure transport across a vast ocean to begin a new life in the new world. All was not rosy for a long time. Nor is it now.