Ellis Island

The poem’s speaker contemplates and juxtaposes their European and American identity with their Native identity. The poem opens with the scene of “two Slovak children” (Line 2) who live during “the long days of quarantine” (Line 4). The children have left “the sickness” (Line 5) and “the old Empires of Europe” (Line 6). The children have arrived in America among millions of other Europeans seeking a better life in the United States. The speaker sets the influx of European immigrants in a more modern context that seems innocent and harmless, reflecting a general romanticism American culture holds for the history of Ellis Island. However, the poem’s four, center lines create not only a shift in the poem, but also reflect a recognition for the speaker: that the speaker comes from a line of white Europeans whose presence in the Americas disrupted the Indigenous peoples’ way of life.

In the final stanza, the speaker admits, “Yet only part of my blood loves that memory” (Line 18). Here, the speaker begins recognizing their Native identity, and the cost those ancestors have paid historically due to white oppression and European colonialism. The speaker states, “Another