Taking the Kids: To the Statue of Liberty

No matter what the weather, Lady Liberty should be on everyone's must-see list. She just reopened last summer after Liberty Island was damaged during Hurricane Sandy; Ellis Island, also pummeled by the super storm, didn't reopen until last fall.

The kids were impressed that most of the donations to build the pedestal were less than $1 -- France famously gave the United States the statue to honor the ideals of freedom and liberty, but it took a major fundraising campaign led by newspaper man Joseph Pulitzer to raise the needed money to erect the statue.

The kids also thought it was funny that Lady Liberty came packed in 214 crates, like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

I was more struck, though, by the fact that, for these boys -- some the first generation in their family born in the United States -- Lady Liberty and Ellis Island didn't have the same meaning as for past generations of immigrants. "My parents have never even been to New York," explained Morales, whose parents emigrated from Mexico to Los Angeles before he was born and subsequently became U.S. citizens.

Truth be told, most of them fell asleep during the historic movie at Ellis Island that chronicles the history here; Beginning in 1892, immigrants -- some 12 million -- were inspected and questioned before being allowed to enter the United States and take their first steps toward becoming American citizens.

Today, more than 100 million Americans can now claim their ancestors came through Ellis Island, including my husband's family. You can search through the American Family Immigration History Center (http://ellisisland.org/) to see if you can find the name of someone in your family who passed through. The center houses ship passenger records for more than 22 million people who landed here between 1892 and 1924.

By the early 1900s, as many as 5,000 immigrants, many whole families, were arriving here daily from Italy and Russia, Ireland and Sweden, among other places. These immigrants were subjected to a painful eye exam with a button hook to check for trachoma, a contagious eye disease. Doctors would decide in just six seconds if someone's physical defect or mental confusion warranted stopping them from entering the country, at least temporarily. (Those denied entry had their coats marked with a chalk letter.) Sadly, some family members were sent back to their country of origin. We learned, however, that most of the immigrants did successfully pass through Ellis Island and left New York for places where they had family and friends -- Germans to the Midwest; Swedes to Minnesota, the Irish to Boston. Some immigrants were young teens on their own.

The families of the boys I chaperoned certainly have had different immigration stories.

But, they all agreed, however or wherever you come from, arriving without speaking English or having much money remains just as daunting today.

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If you are touring NYC, check out Eileen's Kid's Guide to NYC, available on line and from major booksellers; The latest city guides -- to Los Angeles and Chicago -- have just been published. Follow @TakingtheKids on Twitter and Facebook.)