At age 2, my grandfather emigrated from Bonito, Italy, on the good ship Colombo and docked in Ellis Island in 1922. He became a U.S. citizen the old fashioned way — by waiting in a relatively short line, getting deloused and having his name changed from Crescenzo to Christopher.
That’s basically all anyone needed to do to become an American in those days. How times have changed. And how lucky our family was that he didn’t get separated from his parents and put in a cage in the shadow of The Statue of Liberty.
