My great grand father came over from Italy in 1892 when Ellis Island was brand new. Did he have to bring any papers with him in order to be processed? I know the W.O.P. stories but were the immigrants required to have any documentation? This came up in an argument about the illegal immigrants here now i.e. "how were your people any different that the ones coming now?" The only answer that I have is that my people came legally, without knowing were they just let in or did they "formally" immigrate, with documents etc. What was the exact requirement for paperwork in 1892? Anybody know?

"The Wanderer" <rosieonmychest@nyc.rr.com> ha scritto news:E0kfg.3405$%h.412@news-wrt-01.rdc-nyc.rr.com: > My great grand father came over from Italy in 1892 when Ellis Island > was brand new. Did he have to bring any papers with him in order to be > processed? I know the W.O.P. stories but were the immigrants required > to have any documentation? This came up in an argument about the > illegal immigrants here now i.e. "how were your people any different > that the ones coming now?" The only answer that I have is that my > people came legally, without knowing were they just let in or did they > "formally" immigrate, with documents etc. What was the exact > requirement for paperwork in 1892? Anybody know? I believe Italy did not issue passports until 1901 so your ancestor may not have needed any documents. BTW there were NO immigration restrictions in USA in 1892, unless you were Chinese (Asian??). Or unless you were sick or had an illness or were somehow deemed "undesirable" (criminal). So there was almost NO way to be an illegal immigrant. And if you somehow were "illegal", after 5 years there was complete amnesty. In fact the imputus for Italy to start to issue passports was the desire by Italy to show the immigrant was not an undesirable. Futhermore, until the 1950's there was NO numeric restrictions on Mexico (American hemisphere countries ???) regarding immigration, even when the USA severely restricted other immigration in the 1920's. Why? Well farmers wanted cheap seasonal labor (sound familiar?) This is the crux of the problem today. Now that we are really restricting immigration the "illegals" have grown. But back in the day they would be 100% legal. Therefore the argument that our grandfathers were legal is specious as NO one was illegal except as noted above. The WOP (without papers)=Italian is another urban myth. Think about this ... all countries had tens of thousands of immigrants that may have been "With Out (Proper) Papers. (And until the 1900's you may not have even needed papers) ... So why aren't Poles, Irish or others without papers called WOPs. A more plausible source of the word wop is the Spanish adjective guapo, pronounced approximately 'wopo' or 'hwopo,' depending on dialect. Its prime meaning is 'beautiful' or 'handsome.' As a noun it came to mean 'dandy" or 'foppish male.' Then, Spanish soldiers (Aragonese) sent to Sicily (remember there was no "Italy" until 1860 and Sicily was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies run by the Spanish Aragons then the Spanish Bourbons) took the word guapo meaning 'dandy' with them where the word entered Sicilian dialect as guappo. The word made its way north in Italy to become part of the dialect of Naples also. Italian guappo turned into a term of affection among Italian men who, when some of them immigrated to the United States in the late 19th century, carried the word to America as a term of male affection. Then, says this theory, non-Italian Americans heard Italian men referring to one another by this term, so the Americans misheard/mispronounced this as "wop" instead of "Gwop" and then made the word wop an insult for Italians in general.