Published 2011 by Prometheus Books

Toward a Better Life: America's New Immigrants in Their Own Words—From Ellis Island to the Present. Copyright © 2011 by Peter Morton Coan. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Trademarks: In an effort to acknowledge trademarked names of products mentioned in this work, we have placed ® or ™ after the product name in the first instance of its use in each chapter. Subsequent mentions of the name within a given chapter appear without the symbol.

Cover images: “Statue of Liberty, 1934” courtesy of the Milstein Division of
United States History, Local History & Genealogy, the New York Public Library,
Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
“Ellis Island, New York City, Postcard” courtesy of Picture Library,
the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
“Immigrants Waiting on Ellis Island” courtesy of Corbis Images.

Cover design by Nicole Summer-Lecht.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Coan, Peter M.
    Toward a better life : America's new immigrants in their own words : from Ellis Island to the present / by Peter Morton Coan.
        p. cm.
    Includes index.
    ISBN 978–1–61614–394–7 (cloth : alk. paper)
    ISBN 978–1–61614–395–4 (ebook)
    1. Immigrants—United States—Interviews. 2. Immigrants—United States—Biography. 3. United States—Emigration and immigration—History. I. Title.

JV6450.C63  2011
304.8'73—dc22

2011014990

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper