Nothing was set in stone when cities were created. So, New York City wasn’t planned to be a city where immigrants would travel to. It is particularly interesting that immigrants in fact, did come to New York City. An interesting part of Foner’s article is that when Foner stated how politicians started appealing to the other ethnic groups in order to gain a favorable impression of themselves, it clicked in my brain that that meant that immigrants were truly there to stay. That meant that there were enough of the immigrants to make that much of an impact on New York City, and that there were that many immigrants who had the decision to change or improve what they could of New York City because politicians like Bloomberg tried to appeal to them. It meant that they were actually important and not people that could be used and then tossed away.

I agree with Foner’s statement that “the city is not, of course, a racial paradise”. Even though New York City is commended for being so racially diverse, it doesn’t mean that people of different races can get along well with one another. Even out on the streets, you can see, more often than not, people of the same race together rather than mixed race groups. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have friends of different races. For example, in my high school, although most people were friendly with everyone, you could still see clear racial groups. This is however, probably different from the reason that Foner states in the reasons following the statement. Foner states that it is because of discrimination and prejudice that people of different races stray away from one another and although that might still be happening these days, it’s not as drastic as it was back then when immigrants first came.