My name is Pavel Shapturenko (although I usually go by Paul; pronunciation, go figure…). I’m a chemical engineering major here at City College, coming from Stuyvesant High School. I’m fluent in Russian and English, Spanish to a much lesser degree. My favorite sports are tennis and swimming, both of which I try to practice on regular basis. I read predominantly 18-19th c. and some contemporary literature, and keep up to date on research in biochemistry, physics, and nanotech. I enjoy traveling, and I’m often looking for new great places to visit around the city as well as some good fishing spots in the tri-state area.

I was born and raised in Minsk, Belarus, and moved to New York in ’99. At that point, I only knew the two most rudimentary words of the English language (or any language really): ‘yes’ and ‘no’! Unfortunately, there were no more spots in the ESL class at school. As a result, kindergarten amongst a room of kids speaking gibberish was….interesting. On the plus side, I learned to read in the first several months, and quickly picked up the slack.

Then came middle school, high school, et cetera. Now, at the crossroads of past and future, despite all odds (not really), here we all are, in this class…pleasure to meet you!

IMMIGRATION STORY

BLOG POSTS

Tenement Museum Reflection 

When first learning about immigration to NYC in my high school’s U.S. history course, I was particularly interested in the unflattering ways of life and housing of the majority of New York immigrants. Photographs from tenements and slums did little to portray the truly squalid conditions they endured. Poor ventilation, tight quarters, rampant sickness, and constant manual labor were collective grievances that no one cared to address, and the only choice was to persevere and hope for the best.

Evidently, the families displayed on the tour were slightly better-housed than most immigrant families, but this is by virtue of their six-person workforce, children included. I cannot even begin to imagine the sardine can that was the Levines’ apartment for a family of seven which they could barely call a home.

Despite the obvious plight of the families we learned of, what made the biggest immediate impression on me were the tear-off calendars on the walls. One was of October 1897, another of December 1894…these yellowed, fragile sheets of paper, as nearly everything else in the rooms, remained largely untarnished over an entire century. Of course, the room’s layout was reconstructed in the ’80s, and all of these antiques may only be approximations of what existed there. But as I looked through the window into 2013, people walking along the level concrete sidewalk, a yellow cab on Delancey, the fabric shop (coincidence?) across the street – all of it seemed far in the future. For a moment, I felt transported to that time of burning kerosene lamps and the foot-powered sewing machine.

My temporal solipsism quickly restored, we turned our attention to the Rogarshevsky apartment, where, on the kitchen bed, an infamous headline in thick, 100-point Hebrew stood out against the light room. It told of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the tragic loss of 148 young women caught between harsh conditions and plain reckless abandon. I recalled watching a documentary with numerous firsthand accounts, with eyewitnesses hearing the screeches and pleas of the women and the thud of fallen bodies.

I hate to leave this on a sad note, but perhaps it is appropriate for this dark time for many immigrants hoping for a better life. We could only hope that many, like the Levines, found success in their respective endeavors.

 BOOK REVIEW

Beyond the Melting Pot – A Review

This book profiles the five main demographic constituents of New York City from the mid-19^th to mid-20^th centuries. These groups, divided by chapter, are the African-Americans (still dubbed “Negroes”), Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish. The book addresses each group individually and thoroughly, describing factors such as main type of occupation, family size and structure, religious background, political involvement, and average economic status.

Beyond the Melting Pot is written by sociologists Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Glazer is also a Professor Emeritus at UC-Berkeley and Harvard University. Moynihan served as US Ambassador to India and the UN, and represented New York State in the Senate for four consecutive terms (1977-2001). He often collaborated with Glazer when publishing historical nonfiction and works of sociology. While the political views of each are not necessarily compatible or steadfast, their work remains transitionally smooth and unbiased, making for an easy read despite such a complex topic.

These distinguished authors’ choice to create an ethnographic profile of New York City in the 1960’s was an audacious one; the civil rights movement mingled with nativist and patriotic sentiment to obscure, derail, or simply dispirit the majority of such efforts at that time. Accordingly, this work is a worthy icebreaker on the subject, both in its thoroughness and contemporary relevance.

The style and tone employed throughout the book is mostly expositional and purely objective. Glazer and Moynihan provide ample numerical demographic data and proceed to explore the qualitative trends they represent, often in a narrative prose. For instance, the percentage by occupation of each ethnicity coupled with its historical background readily explains at least some of the economic stratification observed at the time. The startling amount of unskilled and manual workers among Puerto Rican immigrants indicates the unavailability of education for the group and the still poorer economic conditions at home. The authors take extra care to delve into the place of origin for the immigrants, describing the conditions there and the primary reasons for leaving in the first place.

Included in the back of the book are several appendices with additional data tables showing countries of origin, populations of certain ethnic groups over time, and labor breakdowns by ethnicity. These did not require much commentary on the part of the authors, as the numbers were quite telling. The occupational distributions for 1940 and 1960 show the decrease in service workers and jump in African-American clerks and salespersons, indicating significant upward mobility.

In Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot, protagonist David Quixano proclaims America to be the smelting furnace of all cultures and nationalities, and it has undoubtedly hosted such cultural mixing. However, more generally, the authors state, it has become a reluctant assembly of semi-isolated groups whose original culture and values have persisted beyond all expectations. The daily exposure to a multitude of other ethnicities seems to strengthen one’s own cultural identity, shielding one from the rest of the populace. Indeed, the assimilating nature of a “melting pot” has, in reality, likened to a salad bowl, with children and grandchildren of immigrants still culturally distinguishable across ancestries.

This is further accentuated by the format of the book. Glazer and Moynihan’s choice to divide ethnic groups by chapter creates an inherently sectionalized (and more realistic) view of the city. This stylistic choice fragments the city’s dynamic into a set of discrete trends and activities among ethnicities, emphasizing that, outside of absolute necessity, New York City’s ethnic groups have little to do with each other.

Personally, this book was an enjoyable read and one I would recommend to any New Yorker. The distinct handing-off of local political power, the dynamics and niches of each group, and the varied, vivid profiles of immigrant life greatly enhanced my understanding of the past century of New York’s history. While its nomenclature may be dated and its description of certain groups overly sweeping, it remains a popular and comprehensive account of the city’s immigrants through the mid-20^th century.

INWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD

I’ve never truly visited the streets of Manhattan above 140^th, perhaps only for the several hours of our high school’s graduation in United Palace Theater on Broadway. Thus, our class trip through Washington Heights and Inwood was a welcome introduction to the northernmost neighborhoods of Manhattan Island. Most memorable was the climb to Fort Tryon Park and the remarkable views of the city from its highest points.

As we walked north along Cabrini Boulevard, it reminded many of us of St. Nicholas Terrace near campus. I didn’t realize our proximity to the Hudson until it came directly into view; a steep hundred-foot drop to the highway below and another hundred to the water granted plenty of room for observation.

Coming from the hectic nature of downtown New York, Fort Tryon Park felt as close to wilderness as one could get in New York City, ever more so than Central Park. The abundance of rocky ledges, budding greenery, and exhilarating altitude is unmatched by any other park in the city, save for perhaps the neighboring Inwood Hill Park. While the park itself may not seem urban in the slightest, the cityscape below is very much alive; one can see for miles, as New York City pans out below and stretches beyond the horizon.

It is a pity that we could not visit The Cloisters, but that will simply have to be an excuse to go again.