To Eri­ca Rand, con­tem­po­rary Ellis Island, with its glitzy exhibits and kitschy sou­venirs, exem­pli­fies all that is wrong with the Unit­ed States. Ellis Island stands as a mon­u­ment glo­ri­fy­ing cap­i­tal­ism while at the same time triv­i­al­iz­ing the hard­ships and the dis­crim­i­na­tion the immi­grants encoun­tered in the coun­try. Rand cites man­i­fold aca­d­e­m­ic pub­li­ca­tions and pop­u­lar media to sup­port these con­clu­sions. As a Jew, Rand is espe­cial­ly sen­si­tive to the dis­tor­tions of the Jew­ish expe­ri­ence. In one set of gift shop plaques, the Israeli flag is used as the back­drop for the Ellis Island sil­hou­ette, there­by ignor­ing the fact that Israeli immi­grants were nev­er processed at Ellis Island. The State of Israel was formed in 1948 after Ellis Island was no longer used as an immi­grant entry point. Nor do all Jews iden­ti­fy Israel as their sym­bol­ic home­land. Anoth­er dis­tor­tion is that ​“Jews” and ​“Hebrews” are often list­ed apart from their coun­try of ori­gin, as a dis­crete sta­tis­ti­cal group, sug­gest­ing that Jews are the eter­nal sojourn­ers, nev­er actu­al res­i­dents of the coun­tries they inhabit. 

As a fem­i­nist and a les­bian, Rand is riled by the omnipresent glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of the tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly. The exhibits gloss over the gov­ern­ment offi­cials’ oppres­sive patri­ar­chal con­duct toward women and their ​“polic­ing of gen­der.” Unac­com­pa­nied sin­gle women, gays, les­bians and trans­gen­der peo­ple were sub­ject to exclu­sion as undesirables. 

For some read­ers, the book will appear wit­ty and insight­ful, but for most read­ers it will often appear doc­tri­naire and be dif­fi­cult to read. Eri­ca Rand is pro­fes­sor of art and visu­al cul­ture and chair of women’s and gen­der stud­ies at Bates Col­lege. She is the author of Barbie’s Queer Acces­sories. Biblio.