The Gold Venture brings up the issue of illegal immigration in a way that simple discussions could not. It’s too easy to forget or disregard the desires and struggles of people who want to come to America and this film pushes this aspect into our view. The terrible experience of the voyage alone demonstrates the determination and resolve of its passengers; once they reached the shore, many jumped and swam for their freedom.

. For the people already living in the United States, it shows just how much people would go through to reach what we already have, and not take it for granted. For those living comfortable lifestyles, it is likely thanks to at least one previous generation of hard work to establish themselves here.

At the same time, the film highlighted the flaws of the illegal immigration handling system since these individuals were coldly left in states of detention and illegal status over years without any specific face accountable to the decision. One side of the illegal immigration debate is fueled by the lack of compassion for foreign people trying to better themselves; it is easy for someone to shut the gates to outsiders once on the inside. There is a degree of selfishness in trying to look out for oneself at the expense of others. Opponents of illegal immigration should widen their perspective by seeing the struggles of these aliens before taking their stance.

On the other hand, I suppose the Golden Venture is among the most extreme cases of illegal immigration stories.

In Sentenced Home, we see more of the harsh laws that leave non-citizens in a state of incomplete safety. These laws deliver judgment without regard to circumstance, and are often harshly unrealistic in expecting assimilated American people to return to a land and culture with which they have no connection. Again, they seem to be the result of paranoia and anti-immigrant activism. Deportation as a solution to non-citizen felons is a hasty and occasionally ill-fitting solution at best. Ideally the government should take a more involved approach in attempting to prevent crime and reward those that return to society peacefully.

This film focused more on how each of the three Cambodian men dealt with their situation, and I didn’t like this as much. One thing that stood out for me was Many Uch’s uncertainty of his future. Being the only one of the three still in the U.S. at the conclusion of the film, he kept his lifestyle until the time of the filming, yet he can never firmly establish himself here while his future is uncertain because of the ever-present risk of deportation.

On a completely unrelated note, the Cambodian countryside is beautiful.

Overall the two films complement each other well- both show a side to the personal experiences behind immigration to the United States and their native countries. Of the two I prefer Golden Venture more, possibly because it had a more substantial plot and showed tougher circumstances.

Neither of us really know New York like the others in our class, so choosing a neighborhood was a little difficult for us. What we ended up doing was picking a fairly familiar area common to us, which is the area around City College. One thing we noticed that stood out was the amount of people asking us to help them out with some change. We decided to look into that aspect of the neighborhood. Here are our findings:

After years of cultural and economic success during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s and 30’s, Harlem and the general region surrounding Harlem hit rock bottom as crime rates, mortality rates, and poverty increased.

In the 1970’s, Harlem and the general region surrounding Harlem was in its worst condition ever. The last of those who were able to escape poverty moved out in search of safer and more economically-well homes and schools, making the already impoverished region even worse. Central Harlem lost a third of its total population in the 1970’s because of house abandonment. In the 1990’s, however, conditions started improving. National franchises such as The Body Shop, Ben and Jerry’s, Starbucks, etc. started opening stores in the area. Also, crime rates started decreasing as law enforcement improved.

Now, the percentage of families and people whose income in the past 12 months that is below the poverty line in Hamilton Heights, Central Harlem, and Washington Heights is now, 22.5%, 25%, and 20.9%, respectively. Although these numbers are higher than the average New York City’s average of 16.2%, they are an improvement from the late 1900’s. As expected because of the poverty rates, people in 20.2% in Hamilton Heights, 21.7% in Central Harlem, and 30.5% in Washington Heights have had food stamp/SNAP benefits in the past 12 months.

We suspect many people in Hamilton Heights, Central Harlem, and Washington Heights are living in poverty or are low-income families or people because of their educational attainments. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, those with college degrees earn $1.3 million more than those with high school diplomas. Also, according to a report called “The Big Payoff: Education Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings,” those with a bachelor’s degree earn $2.1 million in their lifetimes, and those with a master’s degree earn $2.5 million in their lifetimes.  

If we examine this table, Hamilton Heights has the largest composition of people with college education, followed by Central Harlem, and Washington Heights. Similarly, Hamilton Heights has the highest mean income, followed by the other two neighborhoods. The usage of foods stamps follows this trend by having the highest rate in Washington Heights, and being lowest in Hamilton Heights. While the true picture is much more complicated, these figures seem to give some credibility of the correlation between education and income levels in these neighborhoods.

Schools and older generations have repeatedly told us about the tough lives of immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Cramped apartments, shortage of money, child labor, disease, and long hours defined immigrant life. Until our visit to the Tenement Museum, we relied on our imaginations and textbook photographs to “see” what life for immigrants was like. Our visit to the Tenement Museum showed us that the lives of immigrants back then were quite different than the lives of immigrants today.

Stepping into the preserved tenement on 97 Orchard Street, we first saw the banister stairway to the rest of the apartments. A trip up the stairs brought us to the apartments of the Levine and Rogarshevsky families. The insides of these apartments mingled with our expectations, both surprising and conforming with them. The rooms were indeed small and cramped. It is hard to imagine people living as they did.  We saw how the rooms were cramped, and each room had to serve at least two purposes–a workplace and kitchen. Children also slept four to one couch. Though they had gas and lighting, the modern concept of a bathroom didn’t exist back then, and even cold running water was a luxury. The immigrants lived rather densely, 7,000 to a block; the photograph of the busy market square was rather alarming. At the same time, the apartments had their own distinct human elements such as books, a hat rack, dolls, and a Sabbath table.

The immigrants’ work was just as inconvenient as their home. Without knowing English and having desirable skills, they had to work long hours just to get by. What surprised us in the Levine household’s case was that he worked in his crowded home, under horrible lighting. Mr. Levine had to work by piece. Children too, were not exempt from work. Contributing as much as 30% of the family’s wages, their effort was necessary for the family’s survival. Often this work was at factories, crowded with other workers without the chance for negotiating better conditions. The Triangle Factory fire best demonstrates the extremes of their working conditions.

Today though, the lives of immigrants are not as unbearably challenging. They still live in neighborhoods among their own people, however their standards of living have improved. Modern apartments have adequate living space as well as both electricity and running water. No longer do they work sixty hour weeks in unhealthy or dangerous conditions. They are have less hours per day and are protected by minimum wage. Children are free to pursue their education without being pressured into the conditions of their parents.

The comfort and economic mobility we experience is unique to our time and we should not take for granted what we have now. At the same time, these immigrants should be admired for being about to make their lot in life seem live-able and homely in spite of their condition.

Over years, many ethnic groups  traveled to the United States, settled, worked, and gradually assimilated to be called “American”. In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, an uncommon ethnic group to the United States, the Italians, immigrated to the United States in masses. The Italians brought with them their family-centered peasant cultures and settled in their own localized groups, maintaining whatever Italian culture and traditions they bought with them. However, with time, the Italians and Americans started interacting more often and an exchange of cultures began. The Italians eventually assimilated into American culture and became “American.”

The foreign-born Italian population in the United States’ prior to the 1880s was small. The majority of Italian immigration to the United States occurred between 1880 and 1920 when the Italian unification posed economic hardship (mainly due to the feudal system prior to the 1800s, in which Northern Italians were the land-owners) on Southern Italian farmers. Between 1876 and 1924, 4.5 million Italians immigrated to the United States. However, the mass Italian immigration was put to an end by the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, which put severe quotas on the number of immigrants allowed to enter. Therefore, the foreign-born Italian population stopped growing. Accordingly, Italian cultures and traditions of today and the decades prior can be traced to the cultures and traditions of the  Italians who came to the United States between the 1880s and 1920s.

Newly arrived  Italians settled in groups within their densely Italian populated communities in the Northeast. For example, Sicilians settled with Sicilians, and Neapolitans settled with Neapolitans. Each cluster  was surrounded by other ethnic groups, who the Italians eventually assimilated with. The Italian immigrants were able to maintain their culture in these communities. Italians maintained use of their own language through newspapers and entertainments such as theater. Also, each cluster of Italians maintained their own family and cultural values. Despite such attempts to preserve their culture, with every generation onwards, the Italians made strides towards becoming assimilated.

Second generation Italians followed in their parents’ footsteps by working menial jobs, living in their segregated communities, and marrying amongst each other. The foreign-born Italian parents did not value education because time spent in school was time spent away from work. In the 1920’s and 30’s, however, the next generation valued education more and often attended vocational schools. Second-generation Italians still continued working in the factories, and in the 1930s, the second-generation Italians joined hands with Americans in labor unions and lobbied for benefits, a step closer to becoming one with the Americans. Following World War II, through their proximity to urban centers or economic growth and rising levels of education, Italians reached managerial positions and attain other white-collar jobs. By 1991, Italians had on average, met or exceeded the average national wage, which proved that they established a solid foothold in America.

We can thank the courageous first generation Italians for laying the groundwork for the development of pizzerias, pasta restaurants, and Little Italys we see today.