Augustus Sherman/National Park Service The Glerum family from the Netherlands lines up in 1907. The tags were pinned to newcomers so that inspectors could process them without having to speak their language. The tags gave the name of the ship and the page and line of the manifest where the person's information was listed.

By Sally Kalson
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If you're an immigrant who passed through Ellis Island, even as a baby; if you were stationed there with the Coast Guard or worked there as an employee prior to 1954; if you were interned there as a German, Italian or Japanese "enemy alien" during wartime, Janet Levine wants to hear from you.

Ms. Levine is the oral historian with the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. She is coming to Pittsburgh on March 26 to conduct taped interviews with residents who have any of the above associations with the processing center through which millions of newcomers passed from 1892 to 1954.

	National Park Service Immigrants gather outside Ellis Island entrance in photo dated between 1903 and 1914. Click photo for larger image. Related stories: Sharpton case drives more to find roots on Web site What famous people could possibly be your relatives?

Her visit here could last up to a week, depending on how many interviews materialize. Those interested in telling their stories may call Ms. Levine's New York office, 1-212-363-3206, ext. 157, and leave a message for her to return.

"We're seeking people with firsthand experience of passing through Ellis Island, even if they don't remember that part of their immigration," Ms. Levine said.

"The intent is to gather life stories. Ellis Island is the criterion we use, but it isn't the primary emphasis. I have interviewed people who were born on the ship or shortly thereafter. The focus is growing up in the immigrant community."

Ms. Levine will select interview subjects based on age at arrival, overall experience and gaps in the current collection. Interviews last an hour, and most are conducted in the subject's residence. The only requirement is a quiet spot near an electrical outlet.

"I do it like a conversation," she said. "We go through life before they came, the decision to come, the departure, the ship voyage, coming into New York harbor and Ellis Island, where they went from there, first impressions and a thumbnail sketch of their lives here. Whatever they remember is fine and what they don't remember doesn't matter."

Eventually, the tapes and transcriptions will go into the museum's 20 public computers, available to everyone from international researchers to children on a school field trip. Subjects get an audio tape of the interview, she said, adding: "Families are very happy to have it."

In particular, Ms. Levine is looking to fill gaps in the museum's collection.

"We would love to find someone from Bulgaria," she said. "We don't have one person from there.

"Also, most of the Italians and Eastern Europeans we have are Jewish people who were fleeing persecution. We have a lot of those from Poland," she said, but very few non-Jewish Poles.

"We have Armenians from Turkey, but not many Turks.

"We also have fewer people from France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. We'd like to have more from Croatia, more Czechs and Austrians -- although we do have three of the von Trapps [of 'Sound of Music' fame]. We can also use people from the Caribbean and Africa."

The collection has a sprinkling of interviews with Chinese and Japanese, she said, although most of those newcomers arrived via the West Coast.

The Pittsburgh visit -- a first for the museum's oral history project -- is one of an ongoing series of expeditions across the country in search of Ellis Island stories.

Ms. Levine already has several interviews lined up with people who visited the museum and filled out a questionnaire. They include brothers who came with their mother from Italy in 1937 to avoid the Italian army; a former member of the Coast Guard who was stationed there in 1941; a German who fled with his parents to avoid the Nazis; and a Croatian woman who arrived in 1920.

Ellis Island was the first federal processing station for immigrants. It opened in 1892, and was reincarnated as an immigration museum in 1990.

Prior to its original opening, newcomers who arrived at various ports were processed by the states. But 75 percent still came through New York.

The period from 1880 to 1924 became what Ms. Levine called "the largest migration of people in human history."

At first, she said, those who came into New York harbor disembarked at Castle Garden, a fort in Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan. But their numbers grew so large that the U.S. government set up the intake apparatus at Ellis Island to exercise more control.

Those who arrived in first- or second-class passage were assumed to have means of support; they continued to enter via Castle Garden after a cursory medical exam on the ship. Ellis Island was for the poorer masses who arrived in third class or steerage.

"The point was to weed out people who might become a public charge," said Ms. Levine.

The poorer passengers had to undergo a more rigorous physical exam. Their papers had to be in order, and they had to have $25. Women and children had to be picked up by a man. Those without money or a man to retrieve them had to have a sponsor.

Such stories are among many already archived in the museum's collection. The first taped interview was done at the Statue of Liberty by oral historian Margo Nash in 1971. She taped 200 interviews with people who had made a life for themselves in the New World. Often they talked about how different the statue looked from when they first saw it.

Now, Ms. Levine said, the museum has 2,000 archived interviews, plus another series conducted around the country in the mid-1980s in preparation for the museum's opening. Excerpts are used in exhibits where visitors can listen in by phone.

If family members did their own audio taped interviews that are of good quality, the museum will accept them as donation, she said. The museum library also has donated diaries that were kept by immigrants, and a permanent exhibit of things newcomers brought with them from the old country.

In addition, the museum houses the American Family History Center, which affords computerized access to passenger manifests from all the ships that came into New York harbor from 1892 to 1924, when more stringent quota laws came into effect.

Those records can be accessed for free online at www.ellisisland.org.