Crisis at the Museum: Representing past and present migration at The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
Location
GC140, Modesto A. Maidique Campus, Florida International University
Start Date
4-3-2016 9:50 AM
End Date
4-3-2016 10:05 AM
Abstract
Crisis at the Museum: Representing past and present migration at The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
“During America’s peak years of immigration, business was never “as usual” on Ellis Island. Each period brought serious new crises that excited sensational publicity and reflected shifting national opinions that tested and ultimately redefined the immigration policy of the United States”
The words above welcome visitors to the “Ellis Island Chronicles” exhibit at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration in New York City. This third-floor exhibit is meant to take visitors through the history of the island and the various “crises” that ensued during its years as an immigration station. In this presentation, I analyze statist discourses on “crisis” as they emerge within and in relation to Ellis Island. As many scholars have argued, Ellis Island has become a key trope in U.S. narratives about nationhood and immigration (Behdad, 2005; Green, 2007). Indeed, the island and its history as an immigration station are regularly invoked by politicians at all levels of the political spectrum, often even in the service of opposing policy agendas. The centrality of this space in U.S. national imagination, as well as its status as part of the state-ran National Parks Service, makes an analysis of representations of “crisis” within and in relation to the museum quite useful for examining the ‘performativity’ of various forms of global “crises” at a national scale. This analysis comes during a time of significant change at the museum, which can perhaps be conceived as a different moment of “crisis.”
In May of 2015, two new exhibits were inaugurated at the museum. These exhibits are titled “Journeys: New Eras of Immigration. 1945—Present” and as the name suggests, they address immigration to the United States after the immigration station closed. These exhibits significantly expanded the scope of the museum, from one simply representing the history of a particular space, to one representing “the complete story of American immigration.” Indeed, these changes accompanied a significant name change, from the Ellis Island Museum to the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. These changes, however, by no means represent a ‘natural’ and ‘harmonic’ expansion of the museum’s initial goals to live up to the island’s broader symbolic meaning in national imagination. Rather, they are the end-result of a moment of “crisis,” during which the interests and visions of those involved—the museum staff, the National Parks Service, and the Ellis Island Foundation—clashed. By analyzing the changes at the museum as well as the historical underpinnings and contemporary characteristics of narratives of “crisis” at Ellis Island, this paper explores U.S. discourses on immigration and nationhood as they intersect with notions of “crisis” which are currently framing global discussions about the transnational movement of people.
References
Behdad, A. (2005). A forgetful nation: On immigration and cultural identity in the United States. Duke University Press.
Green, N. L. (2007, March). A French Ellis Island? Museums, Memory and History in France and the United States. In History Workshop Journal (Vol. 63, No. 1, pp. 239- 253). Oxford University Press.
Crisis at the Museum: Representing past and present migration at The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
GC140, Modesto A. Maidique Campus, Florida International University
Crisis at the Museum: Representing past and present migration at The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
“During America’s peak years of immigration, business was never “as usual” on Ellis Island. Each period brought serious new crises that excited sensational publicity and reflected shifting national opinions that tested and ultimately redefined the immigration policy of the United States”
The words above welcome visitors to the “Ellis Island Chronicles” exhibit at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration in New York City. This third-floor exhibit is meant to take visitors through the history of the island and the various “crises” that ensued during its years as an immigration station. In this presentation, I analyze statist discourses on “crisis” as they emerge within and in relation to Ellis Island. As many scholars have argued, Ellis Island has become a key trope in U.S. narratives about nationhood and immigration (Behdad, 2005; Green, 2007). Indeed, the island and its history as an immigration station are regularly invoked by politicians at all levels of the political spectrum, often even in the service of opposing policy agendas. The centrality of this space in U.S. national imagination, as well as its status as part of the state-ran National Parks Service, makes an analysis of representations of “crisis” within and in relation to the museum quite useful for examining the ‘performativity’ of various forms of global “crises” at a national scale. This analysis comes during a time of significant change at the museum, which can perhaps be conceived as a different moment of “crisis.”
In May of 2015, two new exhibits were inaugurated at the museum. These exhibits are titled “Journeys: New Eras of Immigration. 1945—Present” and as the name suggests, they address immigration to the United States after the immigration station closed. These exhibits significantly expanded the scope of the museum, from one simply representing the history of a particular space, to one representing “the complete story of American immigration.” Indeed, these changes accompanied a significant name change, from the Ellis Island Museum to the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. These changes, however, by no means represent a ‘natural’ and ‘harmonic’ expansion of the museum’s initial goals to live up to the island’s broader symbolic meaning in national imagination. Rather, they are the end-result of a moment of “crisis,” during which the interests and visions of those involved—the museum staff, the National Parks Service, and the Ellis Island Foundation—clashed. By analyzing the changes at the museum as well as the historical underpinnings and contemporary characteristics of narratives of “crisis” at Ellis Island, this paper explores U.S. discourses on immigration and nationhood as they intersect with notions of “crisis” which are currently framing global discussions about the transnational movement of people.
References
Behdad, A. (2005). A forgetful nation: On immigration and cultural identity in the United States. Duke University Press.
Green, N. L. (2007, March). A French Ellis Island? Museums, Memory and History in France and the United States. In History Workshop Journal (Vol. 63, No. 1, pp. 239- 253). Oxford University Press.