The 1980s and 1990s were the reign of economic opportunities and growth. The era of Reaganomics in the United States, lowered marginal tax rates, lessened regulation, restrained government spending, and followed noninflationary monetary policy.  Although it caused a severe recession in 1982, the long-term effect of tax and budget cuts revived the economy by

North American Free Trade Agreement logo

1984.  Interest rates, inflation, and unemployment fell and family income grew by $4,000.  During the 1990s, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act cut taxes for low-income families as well as, small businesses.  Under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, market and trade prospered due to free trade with Canada and Mexico. However, policies on immigrants made economic rise for some very difficult. According to the US Census Bureau, New York City has 2,082,931 immigrants. Due to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, many of these immigrants faced discrimination as well as unemployment. Employers were required to hire only legal immigrants yet they  refused to give work to anyone foreign-looking or foreign-sounding since they were scared of legal repercussions. Not only did this cause unemployment to generally increase–especially among the Hispanic population–but legal immigrants also suffered from unemployment. The IRCA did, however, pardon illegal immigrants who entered the United States before 1982 and had become permanent residents.  These minority immigrants were then given all the rights that go with along with legality, including education and college.  Immigration to the United States was increasingly stunted starting in the 1990s by the Illegal Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act,  which reduced legal immigration from 800,000 people to 550,000 a year.

Front page of the New York Post during the Crown Heights Riots

These decades were also known for their massive minority and racial tensions.  Some of the major conflicts regarding racial/minority tension in the United States were the Tampa Riot of 1987, the Los Angeles riots of 1992, and the Crown Heights riot of 1991.  Eventually,very distinct minority groups began living side by side, although not always peacefully.  This caused for deepening racial and class divisions in the United States between the immigrants and natives. In the 1980s, Brooklyn was (and still is) the second most diverse borough in New York City with a population of 1,240,486 whites, 722,812 blacks, and 392,118 Hispanics.  The Crown Heights riot of 1991 occurred in an African-American and Jewish neighborhood of Brooklyn.  The three-day riot began with a car accident that killed seven-year-old Gavin Cato, a second-generation Guyanese immigrant by Yosef Lifsh, a Hasidic Jew.  Misunderstandings ensued from the handling of the accident and caused great upheaval by black youths against Jews.  For one, after the accident many blacks started assaulting Lifsh and when the cops removed Lifsh from the premises in for his safety, the black community believed it was a racially motivated decision.  The black community falsely believed that he was intoxicated, without license, on his cell phone, and that he intentionally killed the child. Moreover, African-Americans feared the growing Jewish population and housing expansion.  Along with favoritism towards Jewish community by law enforcement and government resources, African-Americans began rioting in Kingston. A group of black teenagers started vandalizing cars, homes, robbing stores, and injuring many Jewish residents. The riot reached its chaotic heights when twenty young black men beat twenty-nine-year-old Yankel Rosenbaum to death. 

Yankel Rosenbaum, stabbed to death on his way home from a haircut

Two weeks later, four black men fatally shot Anthony Grazios, an Italian with a long white beard dressed in a dark business suit, solely because he looked like a Jew.  In order to squelch the riot, over 2,000 police officers were sent to Crown Heights. The result: 152 police officers and 38 civilians were injured, 27 vehicles were destroyed, 7 stores were robs or damaged, and 225 house thefts, 129 arrests: 122 blacks and seven whites. Overall, one million dollars worth of property was damaged. 

Crown Heights during the riots

However, immediately after the riot, relations between the Jewish and black community quickly repaired.  The Crown Heights Coalition was created by the Borough President Howard Golden to resolve any neighborhood concerns and issues, and black and Jewish leaders successfully made an effort to work together and help one another.  Today, the two ethnic groups in Brooklyn have become tolerant and, perhaps, friendly toward each other.