John DuBois Photography

Island of Hope, Island of Tears

I am the child of an immigrant.

From 1892 to 1954 Ellis Island in New York Harbor was a gateway for millions of immigrants to America. My mother was among them. This project evolved into an exploration of place, of who came and, of the spirit of what remains. The images are constructs framing past with present while inviting questions of self and our humanity; we all come from somewhere, for many Ellis Island was a beginning and an end.

Ellis Island is the best known entry portal for immigrants seeking a home in the United States. Over 60 years ago the immigration station located in New York Harbor processed its last immigrant culminating nearly 62 years of immigration and over 12 million immigrants to the USA.

This series started from a exploration of family history expanding to parallel the contemporaneous immigration conversation today and examines the current, frozen state of the hospital on the island. Immigrants entering with need of medical treatment or isolation from the general population were housed here. This project is my personal interpretation of a present state framed by a past - a call out to the present to remember who came, from where and why. It has a past that asks for remembrance and a spirit that dwells in the present. Does that past ask something of ourselves today exploring these same questions, to understand that meaning in a more complete way?

Another part of the Ellis Island story is the proximity of the Statue of Liberty which adds a deeper meaning to the words in Emma Lazarus' poem ' 'The New Colossus'. Lazarus commented after the poem's publication that "Wherever there is humanity, there is the theme for a great poem". There is humanity here, in what remains.