“I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” – President George Washington

June is National Immigrant Heritage Month. Its goal is to honor and recognize the contributions and diverse cultures of immigrants to the United States. And the month also promotes understanding and appreciation for the immigrant experience and the valuable contributions immigrants have made and continue to make to our American story.

Beyond indigenous groups and tribal nations that inhabited the land, the United States is a nation of immigrants. One, two, or ten generations back, there was a parent or grandparent who came to the country from afar to craft a new future.  In old family Bibles, on the back of photographs, and in letters, there are stories of people journeying from a thousand ports across the globe for a thousand different reasons to restart their lives in a new country that offered hope and opportunity. Our nation of 340,000,000 people has millions of unique stories that are told in thousands of different languages all searching for the same hope of a better future.

Between 1820 and 1920, 34 million immigrants came to the United States escaping poverty and war or just looking for freedom and prosperity for themselves and their families.¹ While Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay was a busy U.S. Immigration Station on the West Coast for people traveling from Asia and across the Pacific Ocean, Ellis Island became a primary port for immigrants from Europe and the West. The National Parks Service fact sheet on Elli Island notes “… that approximately 40 percent of America’s current population can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island.”²

Names were never angelized by authorities at Ellis Island, with immigrants being able to decide for themselves if they wanted to keep their birth name or change it upon departure from their home country or arrival. According to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island’s non-profit that contains a robust, searchable database of arrivals, “… the names listed on a manifest reflect the passenger’s ‘original’ name and were not ‘changed’ at Ellis Island, despite this popular myth.”³ This allowed immigrants to hold onto their heritage, their traditions, and their names as they started new lives and built new communities in the United States.

Those traditions from Jewish families in Russia fleeing pogroms to Italians fleeing political instability, and natural disasters to the Irish fleeing famine, all make up part of our American origin story. And at the Korematsu Institute, we believe ALL of our histories are important. There is no place more important than the public education classroom for sharing the truths, victories, defeats, and voices of all peoples and the power of the U.S. Constitution. This June we celebrate the countless ways immigrants have shaped the United States, from our innovations in technology and medicine to the richness of their heritage and history threaded through American life and the shared dream of a brighter future that brought them to our shores. Their story is our story. This is about all of us.

Links:

1. 2025. “Fact Sheet: Ellis Island – Statue of Liberty NM.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/npnh/learn/news/fact-sheet-elis.htm, May 30, 2025.
2. 2025. “9 Things You May Not Know About Ellis Island.” History.com. https://www.history.com/articles/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-ellis-island
3. 2025. “Connect With Your Heritage.” Statute of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation: https://www.statueofliberty.org/discover/passenger-ship-search/, May 31, 2025.