Jump to content

Ellis Island Special

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An Ellis Island Special is a family name that is perceived or labeled, incorrectly,[1] as having been anglicized or otherwise altered by immigration officials at the Ellis Island immigration station when a family reached the United States, typically from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[2][3][4] In popular lore,[5][6] some family lore,[1][7][8][9][10][11] and literary fiction,[3][12] certain family names are thought to have been shortened by immigration officials for ease of pronunciation and/or record-keeping, or simply due to lack of understanding of the true name—even though the name changes were made by the immigrants themselves at other times.[1]

Among the surnames that are thought of as being "Ellis Island Specials" are many that were viewed as more identifiably Jewish, resulting in last names that were not identifiably so.[1][4] Also, Germanic- and Yiddish-derived names originally spelled with an Eszett (spoken with an s sound but written ß) have been ascribed to family names like Straub (given the similarity with the letter B), which might have been said originally as Strauss in the Old World.

The phrase "Ellis Island Special" has also been adopted by some food vendors and applied to sandwiches, among other foods.[13]

History

[edit]

According to the history professor Kirsten Fermaglich, the idea that officials at Ellis Island changed immigrants' names upon arrival "did not become an important image in published literature until around 1970",[14] decades after Ellis Island had ceased to serve as an immigration arrival station. The influential 1974 film The Godfather Part II depicted the fictional Sicilian boy Vito Andolini being assigned the name Vito Corleone by an Ellis Island official.[14] Professional genealogist Megan Smolenyak has blamed the perpetuation of the myth on that film, as well as on "immigrant grandfathers who enjoyed spinning yarns to confuse their offspring".[15]

As the earlier tendency toward cultural assimilation among American Jews transitioned into ethnic pride, a false narrative of victimization arose which contended that name-changing was something done to Jewish immigrants against their will in order to de-Judaize them, rather than having been the choice of the immigrants themselves.[16]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Horn, Dara (Summer 2010). "The Myth of Ellis Island and Other Tales of Origin". Azure (41). ISSN 0829-982X. Retrieved June 13, 2011.
  2. ^ Murtha, Tara (August 6, 2008). "Laptop Anthropologist: Meeting my sister from another mister". Philadelphia Weekly. Archived from the original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
  3. ^ a b Maniaty, Tony (1989). Smyrna: a novel. Penguin Books Australia. p. 135. ISBN 9780140124361. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
  4. ^ a b Toor, Rachel (April 2011). "Riding an Elephant". Ascent. Concordia College. Archived from the original on August 25, 2011. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
  5. ^ Christensen, Linda (2000). Reading, writing, and rising up: teaching about social justice and the power of the written word. Rethinking Schools. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-942961-25-6. Retrieved June 20, 2011.
  6. ^ Caracciolo, Mike; Benson, Michael (2007). Go F*** Yourself: The Kid from Brooklyn's Rants and Other Stuff. Citadel Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-8065-2865-6.
  7. ^ Gertz, Kaitlin; Gertz, Thomas (October 28, 2007). "Around the world in 500 days". North County Times. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
  8. ^ Cohen, Leah Hager (1994). Train go sorry: inside a deaf world. Houghton Mifflin. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-395-63625-1.
  9. ^ Bell, Charles Greenleaf (2006). Millennial Harvest: the life and collected poems of Charles Greenleaf Bell. Lumen Books. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-930829-60-5. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
  10. ^ Gorenberg, Gershom (March 2, 2008). "How Do You Prove You're a Jew?". The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  11. ^ Comden, Betty (1995). Off Stage. Simon & Schuster. p. 20. ISBN 978-0671705794.
  12. ^ Schneider, Ilene (2007). Chanukah Guilt. Swimming Kangaroo Books. p. 310. ISBN 978-1-934041-31-4.
  13. ^ Pahigian, Joshua; O'Connell, Kevin (2004). The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip: A Fan's Guide to Major League Stadiums. Globe Pequot. p. 378. ISBN 978-1-59228-159-6. Retrieved June 10, 2011.[permanent dead link]
  14. ^ a b Fermaglich, Kirsten Lise (2018). A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America. New York: New York University Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-1-4798-6720-2.
  15. ^ Smolenyak, Megan (2012). Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing. New York: Citadel Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-8065-3446-6.
  16. ^ Fermaglich, Kirsten Lise (2018). A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America. New York: New York University Press. pp. 132–133, 148–150. ISBN 978-1-4798-6720-2.
Stub icon

This society-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This article related to Jewish history is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ellis_Island_Special&oldid=1287847052"