A fifth-grader at Amity Elementary Center journeyed more than 100 years into the past to create an essay that’s competing for national honors in a contest conducted by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
“A Child’s Journey Through Ellis Island” by Sarah Soriano, 11, has won the organization’s awards for Berks County, the eastern region of Pennsylvania and the whole state.
On June 25, Sarah will be a special guest at the national Daughters of the American Revolution meeting in Washington, where she will compete against state winners from across the country.
“I’m really excited,” Sarah said at her Douglassville home. “I was speechless when I found out I’d won.”
A trip to Ellis Island Immigration Museum with her maternal grandmother, Debbie Miller of New Jersey, planted the seed for her essay. Her paternal grandparents, Victor and Dorothy Soriano of New Jersey, provided passports and other documents of Sarah’s great-great grandparents, Italian immigrants who came through Ellis Island.
Based on the documents and other research, Sarah reconstructed the arrival of Rose Ruggiero Soriano, her great-great grandmother, in an imaginary letter written to a relative back in Italy.
“I’m finally in America,” the letter begins. “The ship docked on a small island with an enormous red brick building and a giant green lady. She’s so beautiful, I wish you were here.”
The letter goes on to describe how Rose makes her way through the induction center, not understanding a word of English. The noise was deafening, and she waited in line for hours before being examined by men in white coats. She was marked with an “H” because of a heart murmur.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Would they not allow me through to America? Would they send me back? A chill went down my spine,” Sarah imagined Rose thinking.
A stickler for detail, Sarah worked on the essay for weeks. When it came time to write, she drew on her extensive research and advice from her teacher Patricia Ast, who teaches fifth grade.
“It just came out as I wrote,” Sarah said. “I just thought of all the research I’d done.”
Victor Soriano, Sarah’s father, said having access to family history helped make the story more realistic.
“It provided the inspiration that helped her come up with a more compelling story,” said Soriano, 41, a computer software engineer.
Melanie Soriano said her daughter has creative and artistic inclinations.
“We’re so very proud of her,” said Melanie, 41, a substitute teacher.
Sarah’s not the only creative one in the Soriano house.
Her brother, Brian, 14, had a poem published in Accolades, the journal of the American Library of Poetry, in 2014.
In “Seeds,” Brian recounts the cycle of regeneration as seeds, scattered by the wind, take root and grow.
In Sarah’s essay, Rose spends three weeks on Ellis Island before being reunited with her mother, who’s already in the U.S.
Before leaving, Rose pauses and gazes in awe at the Statue of Liberty.
“I took another look at the green lady, it seemed like she was smiling at me,” the letter reads. “My new life had finally started.”
Contact Ron Devlin: 610-371-5030 or rdevlin@readingeagle.com.
