BLC+ELLIS+ESSAY

 Ellis Island Essay Ice22 Ruby 5-1-08

 Ciao. My name is Pietro Cei. I am nine years old and I speak Italian. I am from the Northern part of Italy, Lorsolo to be exact. I came to America with my little brother Camillo Cei who is three years old, my mom Margherita Gardi and my step father, Secondo Franchini. My step Father paid for all of our tickets. I am meeting my cousin, De Paoli Carlo in America. I used to live with my step fathers mother but now we are going to live in America. I am traveling on a ship called Duca Delgi Abruzzi. It is really big. I would guess that it is about 50 feet wide and it weighs more than I can count! My family is leaving the country because there is trouble there but my parents won’t tell me what kind. They said something about people doing bad things and innocent people getting convicted for no reason. Therefore we have decided to travel to America where we would have a new life. My parents would have jobs that were better than the ones in my country. I was excited and happy that I would come to America and see my cousin that I haven't seen since in a very long time. We are coming to America for a new and better life. We slept on the floor of the boat because we didn't have enough money to be in first class and we were so tired. We had to get up very early in the morning. We eventually got used to sleeping on the ship and we didn't get sea sick anymore. We ate pretty much what we were given from my father which wasn't much. The weather though, was beautiful. I loved looking out into the crystal water and see some animals like fishes. There were a few storms but we survived through them. When we saw our first sight of the land we were so happy. My father pointed out the statue of liberty to me. It was beautiful. To me, it looked like a green lady holding the torch but to my mother and father it meant more. I t meant that we had arrived safely and had made it through the difficult journey. When we landed we went through the Ellis Island Process. It was really boring and kind of scary because people kept looking at us and watching our every move. There were people who came from all over the world. My parents had to go and fill out all kinds of paperwork about themselves. They asked a lot of questions. It was hard for me and my family to understand what they were saying in the beginning. Later, a guy named Joe translated for us. This made it much easier. Everyone around us was speaking different languages. Most of them I didn't even recognize. Later we had to go and get a medical exam. They had doctors to see if we were sick or if we had any diseases. There was one guy who was in the line way ahead of us who had a sickness called Polio. I don’t know what happened to him and I had no idea what Polio was. When my parents heard this, they started worrying because they didn't was us to catch it. Once this process was over we went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There we lived with our cousin De Paoli Carlo. Life is great in America, the land of the free.