Washington -- Some 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry to immigrants who passed through the Ellis Island immigration center between 1892 and 1954.

Among those immigrants were the songwriter Irving Berlin, who arrived from Russia in 1893 when he was 5, and Bob Hope, who emigrated from England in 1908 at age 4. (His birth name was Leslie Hape.)

Each year, the Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards honor the accomplishments of immigrants such as Berlin, Hope and America’s first female secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, who was born in Czechoslovakia and became a U.S. citizen in 1957.

The awards also recognize descendants of immigrants who came through Ellis Island, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants, filmmaker Martin Scorsese, whose grandparents came from Sicily, and actress Cicely Tyson, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean island of Nevis.

Situated at the mouth of the Hudson River in the New York Harbor, Ellis Island was the first entry point for the millions of immigrants who arrived by steamship in search of great opportunities and freedom they believed the United States could offer. The iconic Statue of Liberty, located on Liberty Island near Ellis Island, came to symbolize liberty and democracy, and it often was the first image immigrants would see as their ship neared the harbor.

On April 17, 1907, immigration officials processed the largest number of immigrants in a single day -- 11,747 -- ever at Ellis Island. To mark that occasion, the Ellis Island Foundation established April 17 as “Ellis Island Family History Day” and opened the American Family Immigration History Center in 2001.

The foundation -- which was created in 1982 to raise funds for and oversee the historic restorations of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island -- also instituted the Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards to celebrate Ellis Island “as the Golden Door to America for the 17 million immigrants who set foot on American soil there,” according to its Web site. The awards ceremony is held each year on April 17 and honorees are chosen for their contributions to the American experience.

"How wonderful to come from this immigrant stock, rooted in dreams, and boldness, and endurance,” Lee Iacocca, founding chairman of the Ellis Island Foundation, said in 2004. “It is a pedigree to be proud of."

PAST AND PRESENT HONOREES

The first Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards were presented in 2001 to Irving Berlin’s family and to three Ellis Island immigrants who came to America as children: 103-year-old Marinus deNooyer, from the Netherlands; 86-year-old Felicita (Gabaccia) Salto, from Italy; and 88-year-old Seymour Rexsite, from Poland, who became a star of the Yiddish theater in New York.

Bob Hope was honored in 2003, a few months before his death.

The 2008 honorees were author Mary Higgins Clark, whose father emigrated from Ireland in 1906; the Forbes family, descendants of Scottish immigrant B.C. Forbes, founder of the nation’s oldest major business magazine, Forbes; former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, whose paternal grandfather came from Lebanon in 1900; and comedian Mel Brooks, son of an émigré from Austria.

The honorees received a framed copy of the original ship’s passenger manifest documenting the arrival of their family members in America. At the awards presentation, Iacocca -- himself the son of Italian immigrants -- said, “Each and every one of these honorees -- these sons and daughters of Ellis Island -- represent what I admire most about Americans: the drive to succeed, even in the face of adversity, the leadership and creativity to forge their way.”

Some other honorees are Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Frank McCourt, who was born in New York but spent his childhood in Ireland; baseball legend Yogi Berra, the son of Italian immigrants; Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, whose family emigrated from Ukraine; and Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who was appointed U.S. basketball head coach for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. His grandfather emigrated from Poland.

Another award was instituted in 2004 -- the Peopling of America Award -- to honor immigrants who arrived via a port of entry other than Ellis Island. The first recipient was I.M. Pei, who emigrated from China in 1935 to study architecture. He has designed more than 60 projects in the United States and abroad. Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who emigrated from Bulgaria and France, respectively, and Philippine-born designer Josie Natori also have been honored.

More information on the family history center and the family heritage awards is available on the Web site of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. Individuals can search archives that contain passenger names, age, date of arrival at Ellis Island, ship of travel and other information.

Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are now national monuments. Information about Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty is available on the National Park Service Web site.

See also “Arab Immigrants to America Are Part of Ellis Island History” and “Immigration and U.S. History.”

More information about the American experience is available on Diversity.