From 1855 to 1890, Castle Garden served as New York's principal immigrant reception depot. The U.S. National Park Service records that arrivals approaching the registry desk were divided into one line for English speakers and another for people who understood other languages, especially German or French. The first ordered division after disembarkation was therefore based on language.
Immigrants registered their names, ages, occupations and destinations, then encountered services for baggage, railway tickets, employment and currency exchange. The depot was intended partly to protect newcomers from fraud, but mass processing depended on classification. Whether a person could speak directly with an officer affected how instructions were understood and how the next step was reached. Castle Garden's two lines show immigration as more than geographic passage: newcomers also had to translate themselves into language an administration could process.