Islands of light and hope

They say a trip to New York is not complete without a visit to the Statue of Liberty.

Some are content to glimpse at the “the lady,” as the statue is also referred to, via free boat rides encircling the island or admire the shrine from a distance at Manhattan’s Battery Park.

My family braved New York’s first weekend of snow and rain and visited Liberty Island, formerly known as Bedloe’s Island, and the nearby Ellis Island. Both trips proved to be absolutely instructive, enriching and spirit-lifting.

At a time when news headlines of the New Year seem to be weary spillovers from the previous year, what we gleaned from our interaction, from what we read in panel boards sprawled all across both museums and the entire experience filled the void for that constant yearning for light and hope.

Originally named “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the colossal monument was “a symbolic gift” from France to the United States. It was envisioned and eventually bestowed by a group of French literati headed by Edouard de Laboulaye, who, at that time, was disgruntled and remonstrating against political despotism in his own country. It is said that bequeathing the statue – a masterpiece that took 21 years to build since its conception in 1865 – came at a perfect time: the Civil War ended, slavery was abolished and America was gazing towards its centennial.

Beneath the 300-foot plus monument are stunning stories of diligence, unity, audacity and the geniuses of a sculptor (Auguste Bartholdi, who created the statue in his Paris workshop), an architect (Richard Morris Hunt, who designed the pedestal) an engineer (Gustave Eiffel of Paris’ famed Eiffel Tower) and hundreds of craftsmen who labored for years to erect what would be a symbol of “nationalism, prosperity, new technology.”

That it was conceived, laboriously built, shipped out of France, loaded in more than 200 crates on a ship that almost sank due to the sheer volume of its load and painstakingly assembled in Bedloe Island, to my mind speak of the power of dedication, persistence and the timeless gift of friendship between two countries. The icon of friendship eventually became the “gateway to New York City,” thereby providing peoples entering the city from all across countries – may they be visitors, immigrants or, in our case, transient residents – radiant beams of light, hope and courage while on American soil.

At the right side upon entering the Statue of Liberty Museum are interactive screens, which guests can tinker with and be celebrated through the massive “Becoming Liberty” monitor. We wished to see the Philippine flag on the gigantic monitor so our children fiddled with the screen, snapped our family photo and picked seven ideals that we as Filipinos associate with liberty: family, education, equality, identity, expression, home and justice.

We marveled at the novelty of the interactive activity, especially when we saw our photo set against the backdrop of the Philippine flag merging with frames and flags of peoples from diverse nationalities to form the Statue of Liberty on the giant screen. We wished and wondered how, in a perfect world, freedom and peace could be easily achieved through such an uncomplicated manner. I felt that the activity had left an imprint in the hearts of people and gave most of us much optimism as we left Liberty Island and took the boat to Ellis Island.

Built as “a memorial to all who made America their adopted home,” Ellis Island is said to have been the gateway for around 12 million people that came to the US starting from the late 19th century. The stunningly imposing French Renaissance structure, where immigrants, mostly Europeans arriving in America were “processed,” is now known as the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.

Entering its broad welcoming door and exploring the vast building from the baggage room, to the expansive “Registry Hall” festooned with two huge US flags on both sides, the dormitories and a hall dedicated to “Treasures from Home,” gave us a semblance of how it was like to be “processed” upon entering US soil back then.

Wistful, I thought of how it felt for migrants to leave their home countries with only a few pieces of luggage packed along, but with tons of hope tucked in their spirit. I imagined families, children, the elderly, the healthy and infirm who had to go through the “six-second medical check-up” because one can be denied entry if suspected to be a carrier of communicable diseases.

While the children and the hubby searched for ancestors who might have entered America via Ellis Island (which they found!) – thanks to the museum’s amazingly extensive electronic database – I didn’t pursue with mine because the over 7,000 Delgados came from Spain and South or Latin America and not from the Philippines.

What we liked so much about the Ellis Island exhibition is the honesty, transparency and unadulterated views of history. For example, while “Journeys: The Peopling of America” chronicled the expeditions of peoples from all continents, how they started anew and settled comfortably in this “land of milk of honey,” we also read about heart wrenching tales of colonization, slavery and illegal immigration, the latter still being a stark reality these days. The museum revels on how America had helped transform lives regardless of their race, yet it also acknowledges how, in the process, they had caused suffering, pain and oppression to people.

At the dormitory where immigrants, detainees especially, temporarily slept while awaiting transfer, we took note of the cots neatly layered in contraptions. My daughter commented on how, more than 100 years ago, America had already put much effort in making conditions, to borrow her words, “more humane” to migrants. I left Ellis Island thinking of the millions of Filipino migrants elsewhere in the world and with those two hopeful words in mind.