Modern Day Ellis Island

by Sam Roseme

The state of domestic bliss my roommate and I experienced in our cubicle-sized Chinatown apartment lasted for several months. And then. And then the apartment became a modern-day version of Ellis Island, but with immigrants streaming in from various parts of California rather than the Old World. It was as if we had our own Statue of Liberty inscribed with, “Give us your unemployed college graduates, your 23-year-old adolescents, your wretched bros.” There was always some warning before one washed up on the shores of our apartment, generally in the form of a telephone call. “Oh, hey, bro, um, I’m actually, um, gonna be moving out to New York next week and was, um, wondering if I could crash at your pad for a while.”

6S

Sam Roseme has written for various publications including Readers' Digest and the New York Law Journal, and he recently wrote a book about his experience in New York City politics.