What Italian Immigrants Carried to Ellis Island — and What They Left Behind

Sharing is caring!

Between 1880 and 1924, four million Italians made a journey most of us can barely imagine. They left their villages, their families, and everything they had ever known. All they took with them could fit in a single bag.

That bag, and what it held, tells the whole story of one of the greatest human migrations in history. This is what Italian immigrants carried to Ellis Island — and what they had to leave behind forever.

The Journey That Changed Everything

Most Italian immigrants in this era came from the south — Sicily, Calabria, Campania, and Basilicata. These were poor regions hit hard by drought, failing harvests, and economic collapse.

For most families, emigrating was not a dream. It was a last resort. Southern Italy had been left behind while the north of the newly unified country developed. Land was scarce, taxes were high, and there was little prospect of things improving.

The journey by ship took two to four weeks. Most travelled in steerage — the cheapest class, packed into the lower decks with hundreds of others. There was little ventilation, limited food, and almost no privacy. Seasickness was constant. Illness spread quickly.

By the time the ship sailed into New York Harbour, passengers had survived rough seas, weeks of uncertainty, and for some, the deaths of fellow travellers. But the hardest part was still ahead.

What They Carried in Their Bags

Ask what an Italian immigrant packed and the answer tells you everything about what mattered most to those families.

Religious medals and small icons were almost universal. A Madonna di Pompei, a Saint Christopher pendant, a scrap of cloth from a church back home. These were not decoration — they were protection for a journey into the unknown.

Many women sewed money into the lining of their clothes. A few carefully saved lire. Men sometimes carried their tools — a shoemaker’s last, a tailor’s scissors — because a skill was the most portable thing of all.

Seeds were common too. Tomato seeds, herb seeds, or pips from the fruit trees they had tended at home. It might sound like a small thing. But for people whose lives had revolved around the land, seeds were a way of carrying Italy across the ocean. They planted them in window boxes and small gardens in cities that had no room for either.

The Six Seconds That Decided Everything

The first stop after disembarking at Ellis Island was the Great Hall. Immigrants climbed a steep staircase and were quietly watched by doctors as they walked up. Those first few steps were a test.

In as little as six seconds, a doctor could mark a person with chalk. An X for suspected mental illness. A B for back problems. An H for heart concerns. A K for a hernia. Those who were marked faced further examination in rooms set aside for the purpose.

The most feared test was for trachoma, an eye disease that meant automatic rejection. Doctors used a small buttonhook — the same tool used to fasten shoes — to flip back the eyelid and check for infection. Most immigrants had never seen a doctor in their lives. The procedure was shocking, and often painful.

Doctors processed thousands of people each day. The decisions they made in those few seconds could determine the rest of a family’s life.

Enjoying this? 30,000 Italy lovers get stories like this every week. Subscribe free →

The Twenty-Nine Questions

After the medical inspection came the legal processing. Every immigrant had to answer 29 questions. Where are you from? Do you have work waiting for you? Do you have money? Do you know anyone in America?

The answers had to match what the ship’s manifest recorded. A mistake — or a simple misunderstanding caused by the language barrier — could lead to detention in the island’s holding rooms for hours, or even days.

About 2% of all immigrants were turned away. They were sent back to Italy on the same ships that had brought them over. It was rare, but the fear of rejection hung over everyone who stood in that hall.

The island was called Isola delle Lacrime — the Island of Tears. Not just for those who were rejected, but for all of them. Because everyone who walked through those doors understood, perhaps for the first time, the full weight of what they had given up.

What They Left Behind

The ships could carry bags. They could not carry a village.

Italian immigrants left behind their land. In many cases, land that had been worked by the same family for generations. They left behind their dialect, their piazza, their feast days, and the sound of the church bells they had grown up hearing.

They left behind family. Parents they would likely never see again. Siblings, grandparents, lifelong friends. Many planned to earn money in America and return home within a few years. Many never did. The years passed, children were born, roots took hold in a new country, and Italy became a memory rather than a place you could still go back to.

Some never spoke Italian at home again. Not out of shame, but because survival required English, and there was no time left over for anything else.

How Italy Came to America Anyway

The immigrants who passed through Ellis Island did not leave Italy behind entirely. They rebuilt it.

In New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston, Italian neighbourhoods grew up around regional loyalties. Sicilians lived near Sicilians. Calabrians found their own community in the next street. The same regional dialects were spoken. The same patron saints were celebrated with the same processions and the same food.

The food took root most of all. Dishes from humble village kitchens in Campania and Sicily evolved in America into something new — what the world now calls Italian-American food. Baked ziti, chicken parmesan, the Sunday meatball. These are not traditional Italian dishes. They are what happened when Italian tradition met American ingredients, American ovens, and American portions.

The Italy those immigrants carried across the ocean was a snapshot of a single moment in time. In some ways, it is better preserved in those Italian-American communities than it is in Italy itself. Recipes written down in New Jersey in the 1950s are sometimes closer to the original than anything you would find in a modern Italian kitchen today.

If you want to understand Italian-American roots, consider planning a trip to Italy from the US — retracing the journey your ancestors made, in reverse. And if you want to visit the southern regions that sent the most emigrants — Sicily, Calabria, Campania — our guide to the top places to visit in Italy is a good place to start.

When Italian-Americans return to the villages their great-grandparents left, they sometimes find that the old ways have changed more than they expected. The dialects have softened. The recipes have been updated. But in a kitchen in New Jersey, or a feast-day procession in Boston’s North End, something of that original Italy still lives on.

It crossed the Atlantic in a single bag. In a few seeds. In the memory of a Sunday ragu simmering since dawn. And it never quite let go.

You Might Also Enjoy

• What Little Italy Kept Alive That Modern Italy Has Nearly Forgotten
• Why Americans Are Flying to Italy to Find the Village Their Family Left Behind
• Top 10 Places to Visit in Italy

Plan Your Italy Trip

Ready to explore Italy for yourself? Our Ultimate Italy Travel Guide has everything you need — from the best regions to visit to practical advice for first-timers and returning visitors alike.

Sharing is caring!