By Molly Thacker
In recent years, the arrival of unaccompanied immigrant children to the United States has galvanized public opinion, confounded elected officials, and generated media coverage both heartfelt and hysterical. As Americans grapple with how to best address these young people, the long and unexamined history of unaccompanied child migration to the United States often remains overlooked. In my dissertation, I sought to understand how the nation’s first attempts at regulating this unique form of migration at the turn of the twentieth century influenced modern laws and perceptions. After conducting research in 1,300 immigration casefiles of unaccompanied children stored in the National Archives and over 4,000 clippings from 193 different newspapers and periodicals, I realized that the news media played a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and government actions regarding these most vulnerable of immigrants.
Journalism history was not an initial focus of my dissertation, but as I perused the archived casefiles, I understood how this story could not be told without analyzing media influence. I found numerous instances of clippings sent to immigration officials by the public, urging action for detained children based on stories that pulled at their heartstrings, in addition to interoffice memos referencing that morning’s Washington Post or bureaucrats fretting about how editorials would spin their decisions. American newspapers were not just a window into how the public viewed this form of migration—journalists were active participants in shaping the discourse, legislation, and lived experiences of unaccompanied immigrant children.
I argue that sensational newspaper coverage regarding the arrival of Greek and Italian boys contributed to the pathologizing of unaccompanied child migration and led to the first federal laws regulating this practice. In contrast to earlier portrayals of Irish and German unaccompanied children, praised in the media for their plucky spirit and apparent desire to become Americans, newspapers painted these newcomers from southern Europe as unloved, neglected spawn from broken homes who would undoubtedly become future criminals or dependents on state coffers. Media coverage can shape the contours of debate, and the hysteria and moral panics generated by such stories manufactured consent for new restrictions on unaccompanied child immigrants.
However, some children used the media to their own advantage, and newspapers became a platform of protest and agitation for unaccompanied immigrants and their advocates. One such instance was Shlomi Kleinman, a 12-year-old stowaway detained by officials at Ellis Island in 1907. After escaping an abusive father in Warsaw and evading Russian imperial soldiers, he arrived in New York seeking his mother who had immigrated years before; however, he had no address, only the names of two uncles with whom he believed she was living. Before Shlomi could be deported, aid societies placed advertisements in the city’s Yiddish press searching for his uncles in the Lower East Side, and major New York papers printed his pitiful yarn. Once the Associated Press newswire circulated his story, Ellis Island and immigration officials in Washington became inundated with letters from across the country, pledging support for the boy if his mother could not be found. But against all odds, the uncles heard the news, and indeed, Shlomi’s mom was there. The boy was duly admitted, and census records confirm they made a home together in Manhattan—a reunion made possible thanks to the power of the press.
While modern sensibilities may be shocked by the thought of children embarking on treacherous migrations alone, Americans have welcomed such children before. My research demonstrates the weighty position that news media held in influencing which unaccompanied children were met with succor or with scorn, a role it still occupies today.
Molly Thacker is a doctoral student at Georgetown University.
