America’s most famous traveler — besides Carol and me, I say with a wink — was actually a Frenchman: Alexis de Tocqueville. He rode all over the young United States in the 1830s and produced a remarkable study of the American people. What amazed this young political thinker more than anything else was the influence […]
‘Boroughing’ in to New York City
Posted August 23rd, 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC-4)
Writing about Ellis Island last time, I mentioned that the U.S. Supreme Court ended years of controversy over exactly where the old immigration station — now a museum — officially sits. New York Harbor, of course. In New Jersey waters, not New York’s, it turns out. Which got me thinking about another, nearby saga of […]
Ellis: Isle of Joy and Despair
Posted August 17th, 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC-4)
In the give and take over immigration policy in this country, it is sometimes correctly pointed out that we are all immigrants to this land. Or descendants of one. Even American Indians trace their lineage to peoples who crossed a land bridge from Asia. And at least one-third — some say 40 percent — of […]
Rough Journey on the Underground Railroad
Posted August 9th, 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC-4)
I have just returned from a cross-country trip, west to east. I flew to California to collect Carol, who had spent the better part of three months taking photographs in that vast and varied state, and it was time to drive her and her caravan’s worth of equipment home. We crossed through drought country — […]
