Statue of Liberty in Black and White/via Pxhere.com
Antonio Pasin’s story of coming to America starts where most of those who came to this country with nothing but a dream start—on a boat, crowded against the rails of the lower deck, where passengers could just barely see the Statue of Liberty’s green robe and flame ablaze against the city’s gray skyline. Antonio had left his family and home village outside of Venice, Italy, to set out for the faraway land of America on his own. He promised himself he would return after he had made enough money to buy back his family’s home. He was sixteen years old.
The Statue of Liberty welcomed more than twelve million immigrants to America’s shores between 1900 and 1954. Immigrants would pass by “Lady Liberty,” then go through inspection on Ellis Island before settling in New York, Chicago, or one of America’s other bustling cities.
Antonio boarded as one of the third-class steerage passengers on a ship named the Cleveland, which set out from Genoa, Italy, in the spring of 1914 and docked about two weeks later in New York—the city that was rumored to be the “Capital of the World.” The date of Antonio Pasin’s arrival is recorded in the Ellis Island passenger logs as April 19, 1914, exactly three months, one week, and two days before the start of World War I. Fleeing the political turmoil and poverty of many European states at the turn of the twentieth century, some fifteen million Europeans arrived on America’s shores leading up to the war—more than three million of which were Italian, making them the largest group of new immigrants to America. In time, they would bring us pizza, blue jeans (an Italian textile invention, not an American one), Yogi Berra, Frank Sinatra—and the little red wagon.
After passing through Ellis Island, Antonio boarded a train headed to Chicago. Overall, the journey from Italy into the heart of America took about twenty days, but the only thing Antonio would ever talk about was that moment he saw the Statue of Liberty. He would later name the first wagon he built the Liberty Coaster, after “Lady Liberty”—the first face to greet him when he landed on America’s shores.