Louise writes from North America

Louise has been awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship

BBC Scotland reporter Louise Stewart has been awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to travel in North America and study the historic links between Scotland and North America.

She will be looking at the impact Scots migrants have had on the culture there and will be travelling to New York, North Carolina, Washington, Boston and then onto Canada.

NEW YORK

On Tuesday my first day in Manhattan, I take a tour of the world-famous Carnegie Concert Hall opened in 1891 built with funding from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

He was, of course, the self-educated boy from Fife who made his fortune as a steel magnate to become the richest man in the world.

The following day I see at first hand how his legacy to provide education and peace continues. I meet David Speedie at the Carnegie Council on Lexington Avenue.

Originally from Stirling he left in the early 1970s and has lived in the US working at Harvard and for the Carnegie organisation since.

I ask him about the Scottish diaspora and the fact that Scots have had such an impact on America, yet Tartan Day is a relatively new phenomenon compared to the annual St Patrick's Day celebrations.

He explains it saying the Scots who came here were all "individual Andrew Carnegies" - in that they came here to make the most of the opportunities the New World had to offer.

In many ways it seems that is what the Scots who have come here in recent times continue to do.

Heritage awards

Of course the gateway to so many migrants looking for a new life in the United States was their port of entry at Ellis Island.

During the "Golden Age" of immigration, between 1899 and 1931, 550,000 Scots were processed through Ellis Island - that is more than the French and not too far behind the huge wave of Irish migrants in the same period.

On Thursday I am invited to the annual Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards to celebrate extraordinary Americans and their immigrant heritage.

One of the honourees was Oscar-winner Mel Brooks, best known for his hit Broadway show "The Producers".

Also honoured was the Forbes family, from New Deer in Aberdeenshire.

The Pope is visiting America

B.C.Forbes was a journalist who left Scotland when he was 24. He went on to found Forbes business magazine - famous for its annual rich list, which is now published in eight different languages and has a worldwide readership.

Another famous Scot, originally from Fife, was also here this week. He may not make it onto the Forbes rich-list, but he did spend a decade in charge of the nation's finances as Chancellor.

Gordon Brown has been having meetings on Wall Street but his visit has not exactly caught the American media's attention.

In fact TV, radio and the papers are all saturated with news of the Pope's visit. Pope Benedict XVI is only the second Pontiff to ever visit America.

He has already been in Washington where 46,000 people turned out to see him in the Pope-mobile.

But he arrives in New York on Friday and security is very tight for his three-day stay with armed police lined up outside St Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.

It will be the first time a Pope has ever taken mass there. In fact the hotel I am staying in is holding an International Conference for Bishops and Vatican City Radio have taken over a floor.

Find out more about the Pope's visit and the rest of my North American travels here - next stop is North Carolina.