Growing up, I knew my family came here from the West Indies via Ellis Island. And that my grandparents were born in Trinidad and Barbados. I knew the culture and the food, but I didn’t know the specifics of their history. It bothered me that there was no mention of Caribbean immigrants coming through Ellis Island.
On Sunday, September 9, 1990 I opened up The New York Times and found a two page article that featured six people who had come through Ellis Island as children. To my amazement and pride, I recognized that two of them were my mother’s uncle and cousin. Her uncle was fleeing injustice in the Caribbean and he became a doctor in Harlem. His daughter followed in his footsteps. She was so young when they arrived that she could not remember the journey, but she did recall going up a shaky ladder onto the boat. A picture of my relatives is still hanging on the wall at Ellis Island and I am hoping to pay another visit there this fall to see it again.
