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A review by dreesreads
Ellis Island by Georges Perec
1.0
Page 14: an entire paragraph dedicated to explaining how inspectors at Ellis Island changed peoples' names.
OK, that never happened. It's a myth. This is known (see links below), now. I was hoping for a footnote explaining the error. No? OK...well, I imagine it will be discussed in the afterword. Wrong! Page 59: "As lore had it, they seemed to translate last names almost homophonically, subjecting them to distortions that rendered them unrecognizable..." NOOOOOO. The inspectors at Ellis Island did not even write down names. The names were written--the passenger lists you can view online--were written at the point of embarkation, when the tickets were purchased (and crossed out names purchased tickets but did not embark). This is not lore, this is MYTH.
Don't hire a poet to write about and explain history. Please. As a historian and genealogist, we don't need myths like this spread further.
Some name change articles (there are LOTS):
Smithsonian Mag: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-did-ellis-island-officials-really-change-names-immigrants-180961544/
NYPL: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island
JewishGen: https://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ellismythnames.html
ALA Journal: https://journals.ala.org/index.php/dttp/article/view/6655/8939
Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-americans-changed-their-names-but-not-at-ellis-island/
OK, that never happened. It's a myth. This is known (see links below), now. I was hoping for a footnote explaining the error. No? OK...well, I imagine it will be discussed in the afterword. Wrong! Page 59: "As lore had it, they seemed to translate last names almost homophonically, subjecting them to distortions that rendered them unrecognizable..." NOOOOOO. The inspectors at Ellis Island did not even write down names. The names were written--the passenger lists you can view online--were written at the point of embarkation, when the tickets were purchased (and crossed out names purchased tickets but did not embark). This is not lore, this is MYTH.
Don't hire a poet to write about and explain history. Please. As a historian and genealogist, we don't need myths like this spread further.
Some name change articles (there are LOTS):
Smithsonian Mag: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-did-ellis-island-officials-really-change-names-immigrants-180961544/
NYPL: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island
JewishGen: https://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ellismythnames.html
ALA Journal: https://journals.ala.org/index.php/dttp/article/view/6655/8939
Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-americans-changed-their-names-but-not-at-ellis-island/