This slim book is part of the “How Things Worked” series, and is subtitled “How European Immigrants Entered America”. However, the author describes not only Ellis Island and its predecessor Castle Garden, but also compares Angel Island, the West Coast entry point for many Asian immigrants. When I first started working on my family tree, I thought I would just need to go back two or three generations, and find all of my ancestors who came through Ellis Island. Only one couple came during the correct time frame, and their ship landed in Philadelphia!
If you, however, did have ancestors who passed through Ellis Island, Castle Garden, or Angel Island, you could learn a lot about what their experience might have been like from this book. The first chapter talks about their journey to America, when just getting to the ship might have been a challenge. The next two chapters discuss the experience of being processed through all of the tests and questions of the Immigration Service. The fourth chapter discusses what the people who worked there experienced, which is not something I had considered before. Every chapter has quotes from either immigrants or the people working to determine whether or not to let them in the country.
This book makes clear that there were differences between the experiences of immigrants who landed on the East coast versus the West coast. While there were always a few people who were biased against people from certain parts of Europe, the main focus at Ellis Island was to get people through the immigration process. Yes, there were a number of reasons someone could be detained or returned to where they started. But at Angel Island, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, there was more of a focus on preventing individuals the inspectors thought to be unsuitable from entering the country. And in both locations, some groups of people (1st or 2nd class passengers on Ellis Island; Europeans on Angel Island) got special treatment.
If this was your family, how would you research them? Did stories about ancestors arriving from overseas make it down to your generation? That’s the best place to start, if so. Otherwise, check the research wiki on Family Search for immigration and naturalization records. These will cover all ports and border crossing locations. Ancestry or other paid sites will have records as well. You might also try https://www.statueofliberty.org/discover/passenger-ship-search/ to create an account and search their database for ancestors who came through Ellis Island. If you want information specifically about Angel Island, https://www.aiisf.org is the website for the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.