What’s up y’all, my full legal name is Mena-George Ramsis Basaly, and at my high school graduation ceremony, I had the longest name announced (fun fact). But everyone calls me George. I was raised in a very suburban town called Setauket in Eastern Long Island, New York. I currently live in the CCNY dorms, but I normally live with my family–my mom, dad, and two older sisters, one is 23 and the other is 22. My parents were both born and raised in Egypt, but my sisters and I were all born and raised here in America.
I am a biomedical engineering major, but I’m currently on the premed track, yet I am also considering a career in finance, particularly investment banking (I’m a confused student).
My hobbies include, but are most certainly not limited to, soccer, football, personal fitness, and the stock market. For about 3 years, I have been a soccer referee and I also work at my parents’ 7-Eleven stores.
I recently went to Kenya this past summer, and it was one of the most life changing trips of my life. I really got to see a different culture outside of America, and admire the beauty of their culture. It was a mission trip with my church and from this experience, I learned quite a lot.

IMMIGRATION STORY

BOOK REVIEW

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle

With the turn of the 20th century, New York’s industrialization was well under way, not only in the financial district, but also in manufacturing and factories that dominated the present day downtown NYU area. The 10-story Asch Building, just off Washington Square, a new type of skyscraper neighbored many tenement sweatshops that had dominated the clothing industry. This supposedly fireproof skyscraper, the top three floors belonged to the Triangle Waist Company. These modern factories were supposed to replace the traditional sweatshops, yet the hundreds of women and children employed sweat their way through work each day. When women tried striking, the big companies such as Triangle hired people to beat them and paid off police and judges, so they reluctantly returned to work.

Around 4:30PM on March 25, 1911, the top three floors of the ten-story building in New York City began to burn. Close to 500 women, mostly teenagers and young adults occupied those floors, and the doors were locked to keep the workers from taking “unnecessary” cigarette breaks. When the fire broke out, Von Dehle delves into a detailed description of highlights of people and significant events that happened immediately following the tragedy, which comprises of stories of the workers who jumped to their death, the owners of the factory, the troubled workers who survived and the people who tried to help others survive on that tragic and historic day.

Von Drehle’s novel also explores the government’s reaction to this tragic event. As people were outraged from the tragedy, politicians began drafting labor laws and regulations for a safer and healthier work environment. Frances Perkins was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, and happened to witness the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. She worked with a big time progressive politician of the time, Al Smith, who was a four-term governor of New York State. Perkins eventually influenced Roosevelt to incorporate labor justice and regulation in his New Deal, as a result of the Triangle Fire. Roosevelt then brought progressivism and reform to advance the labor condition in the United States (Von Drehle, pg. 259-263). At the end of the novel, each victim of the Triangle Fire is listed to note the scapegoats that helped change America for the better.

What Von Drehle does successfully in Triangle: The Fire That Changed America is that he not only recounts what happened in this tragic event, but he portrays the working conditions, and the imagery that Von Drehle uses to depict the tragedy leaves the reader in awe. Von Drehle not only uses imagery, but incorporates actual photography in his novel, which allows the reader to jump into the story and relive the tragedy as if they were there themselves. I believe this technique is useful in my own writing because it would allow for me to get my point across.

What is interesting about Von Drehle and his novel is that while he was drafting, the 9/11 collapse of the World Trade Center happened, which horrified Von Drehle. According to the NY Times, the horrible sight of trapped workers inside the building as well as people jumping to their deaths was uncannily similar to the tragedy of the Triangle fire in the sense of people trapped to death as well as the women that jumped out of fear and restlessness.  The theory of dealing and coping with tragedy is what stuck out to me. In both cases, a tragedy involving many deaths and casualties affected not only the families of the victims, but left an impact on the nation. The triangle fire resulted in a lot of reform involving work conditions and labor laws, and I think Von Drehle focuses a lot on the reconstruction of the disaster because 9/11 happened and Von Drehle was horrified since he was in New York at the time, so he really focused on detailing the tragedy of the Triangle fire in order to recapture the moment for readers. Moreover, post 9/11, a lot of security reform swept the nation. In my opinion, I feel that it’s almost sad that we have to wait for tragedies to call for fair labor laws or tight security.

Overall, the novel wouldn’t necessarily be classified as a “fun” read, but it definitely is a good read. With the capture of the tragedy and the portrayal of the aftermath, I’d recommend this historical novel to anyone because the reader practically jumps into the pages and partakes in the tragic event of the early 20^th century.