New York City, home to nearly 3 million foreign-born residents, readily conjures up an image of a melting pot of different cultures and peoples from around the world. Indeed, New York City boasts a level of diversity that is unrivalled by any other American city. Immigrants from all over the world continue to contribute to the economic, social, and political vitality of the city and they have helped to make it the great place that it is today. Because the history of our city is so intimately tied to immigration, New York City is a great place to explore questions of immigration and immigrant integration.
This website showcases the research we have conducted in the course of the semester. Our research focused on questions related to immigration, or what is involved in the process of packing up and moving to another country, and immigrant integration, or what is involved in setting up a new life and making New York City one’s home.
The majority of students in our class are either first or second generation immigrants, and we each wrote an essay on our personal immigration and integration experiences in a first effort to think more critically about these issues. We next used statistical data from the U.S. Census Bureau to create demographic profiles of five of the largest immigrant groups in New York City today. This part of the research project gave us the opportunity to learn what qualitative data can (and cannot) tell us about immigrants in New York City. Finally, each student conducted an interview with an established immigrant to learn firsthand about the challenges and triumphs of being an immigrant in our city. On this website, you can learn more about each of these aspects of our research project. You will also find information on the authors of the website, as well as our reflections on the research process. Enjoy!
