THIRD GRADERS PASS THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND

(June 2008 - Riverhead, NY) The Roanoke Avenue School in Riverhead has been recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. It is also a school known for its diversity and its strong emphasis on respecting and uplifting the diversity of its student body. "We are a family," is its mantra. Because of that mantra and that diversity, the third grade studies of Ellis Island and the immigrant experience is always very poignant. This year their final Ellis Island simulation was merged with this class' WLIW21 and Thirteen/WNET learning experience.

WLIW21 and Thirteen/WNET sponsor a Reading Partnership Project at the Roanoke Avenue school, funded through a $100,000 grant from the family of Horace and Amy Hagedorn. The Reading Partnership has funded special learning experiences and books for the students, now in third grade, all the way through their school experience from kindergarten through third grade. The program offers a variety of services, including professional development for teachers, and workshops for parents to enhance learning by merging the world of books with video and internet content. The Ellis Island experience was another one of these workshops. The Roanoke Avenue School, once again, would like to thank the Hagedorn family for continuing this enriching experience for its students after the death of Mr. Hagedorn.

As part of their studies of Ellis Island, each third grader takes on the persona of someone from the country of their choice and creates an identity for that person. They also create all of the documentation they will need to be processed through Ellis Island and to become a citizen of the United States.

They stand and wait in the entrance for the initial processing, carrying suitcases and quieting fussy babies. Every child is a representative of a particular ethnic group and many are dressed in clothing representative of the country of their origin. The bureaucrat who initially checks their papers often changes their names. Edda Bauldegude with her hard to pronounce Gernam name gets renamed Edna Baker. Then, the new immigrants file through a series of checkpoints, where they have to verify their occupations and trades and what they plan to do in America. An interview questioning their morality/ethics and medical exams follow and finally they receive an American flag and their certificate of citizenship. The final step is the Oath of Citizenship and then they sing "This is America."

When asked why he had come to America, one little boy from Central America, who is himself a recent immigrant, quietly whispers, "to be free."

"Ellis Island is now a great museum, but during this program third graders experience for themselves how it felt to go through Ellis Island as an immigrant," wrote a student reporter in the Roanoke Avenue school newsletter.

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