Reading Frederick Binder and David Reimers’ All the Nations Under Heaven is a dive into the many-faceted past of New York City. This book offers a spread of history to prove that NYC was and is still a city of immigrants of diverse hopes and origins. More striking than the variety of the immigrant groups is the way their past prior to their life in NYC affected their acceptance into American society and their economic success.
Aside from the obvious categories of “Irish,” “Dutch,” and “German,” immigrants could also be seen in groups that fled poverty and famine, or sought refuge from political oppression. The forces that drove immigrants from their homeland determined who was immigrating, and therefore what sort of welcome they would receive. Germans, driven to the US by political repression in the 1840s were generally middle class, skilled workers fled for political, rather than economic reasons. The (“shanty”) Irish, on the other hand were fleeing potato blight famine, a catastrophe that affected mainly the lower classes. Therefore, they generally arrived with little or no skills or capital. Established New Yorkers viewed the Germans as valuable citizens, the Irish as a threat to public well-being.
However, I found it a testament to the possibility for success in NYC that the Irish as a group quickly moved up from tenement-crowding unskilled laborers to politically active engaged citizens who dominated many cultural and religious institutions. They exercised political clout in Tammany Hall, and came to be represented in the state government. They also formed unions to improve labor conditions for themselves. Their organization contrasts with the Jews who were, according to Binder, willing to take bad working conditions so they could rise too the position of boss and overseer as well. Both groups achieved success and economic stability, but in very different manners. This suggested to me that New Yorkers, whatever their differing backgrounds, are united by the common goal of economic success, which can be motivated by a variety of factors. Though New York experienced some racial violence, when we view it in proportion to the size of the city, we can see that it has been relatively insignificant in comparison with the coexistence that is now possible.
I think that this makes an important statement about opportunity in NYC. Personally I can relate to the immigrant story, as my mother’s parents arrived from South Korea with $300 and no home, and faced racist treatment and poverty to rise to the middle class within two decades. My dad’s grandmother was also an immigrant, from Ireland. Like previous immigrants, they had to live in crowded (not quite tenement) housing, and scrimp and save. They eventually realized their dream of education and financial success. New York, the amazing city that houses a patchwork of cultures and people, is sewn together by the ambition of its inhabitants. After reading All the Nations Under Heaven I would say this striving enables NYC to be a unique city and the home of much of the world’s excellence.
