America is truly a nation of incredible diversity.  Waves of immigrants and settlers had been arriving at the shore of this nation since the day of its birth.  They came under different circumstances, varying conditions, and bearing contrasting dreams.  However diverse their backgrounds may have been, they came to similar realizations when they stepped onto the soil of the New World: the old cliché of penniless immigrants quickly prospering in "a land of opportunities" with hard work and luck applied only to a minority of the early immigrants.  When the majority of them arrived at the shores of Ellis Island, they had little idea that it - besides being the destination of their tiresome journey from the Old World - is also the beginning of an even more arduous journey.  Burdened by the lack of education, poverty, the lack of communication skills, and many other disadvantages, they found themselves quickly filling the slums of urban centers and the bottom rank of the social pyramid.  The most formidable factor standing in opposition to their efforts at upward mobility is the innate racism, which had become so much a part of this nation's identity, and the social and legal discrimination that it inspired. 
This web page presents the stories of the Chinese, Italian, Irish, Jewish, and German immigrants and the incredible amounts of discrimination they were forced to face.  As Americans, we must take the responsibility of this nation's past, however glorious or awful it may have been, and take pride in our ancestry and our forefathers' arduous struggle with discrimination and exclusion.