On June 6, 1993, two hundred and eighty-six Chinese immigrants from Fujian Province, China landed on the coast of New York City. These illegal immigrants had sailed across the Pacific Ocean on a freighter named The Golden Venture for three years. The survivors of the voyage, after years of suffering, were immediately arrested and detained. The documentary, The Golden Venture, accurately depicts the persecution and financial hardships illegal immigrants had to go through in their home country and in the United States. The documentary, in many ways, also depicts the sufferings of many illegal immigrants (those not on The Golden Venture) in the United States about twenty years after the landing of the Golden Venture on the coast of New York City.

Like many of today’s immigrants, the Chinese immigrants on the Golden Venture had to take dangerous and unpredictable routes to get to the United States. The Snakeheads, the smugglers that operated and organized the Golden Venture, led the Chinese immigrants through mountains, opium fields in the Golden Triangle, and several countries before arriving in the United States. The journey took three years and many people were beaten, raped, and died along the way. According to a man who was on the Golden Venture, “[the conditions] were a living hell.” The sufferings the Chinese immigrants had to endure shown on The Golden Venture are similar to the sufferings many of today’s immigrants to have go through.

The Golden Venture also showed the lives of four of the survivors, Guilin Chen, Yan Li, Arming He, and Kaiqu Zheng. All these men had decided to board the freighter to avoid persecution, to make better money, or to find freedom. Guilin Chen and Kaiqu Zheng, for example, boarded the freighter because they were not able to earn enough money in China, whereas Arming He and Yan Li boarded the freighter to avoid persecution and find freedom. Out of these four men, three are still in the United States and happier here than they were in China. Still, they work difficult jobs and fear deportation everyday as immigration laws get stricter every years. Unlike some of these men, most people on The Golden Venture decided to return to China because they were detained for years in the United States even after they had survived the long voyage.

The Golden Venture accurately depicts the lives of Guilin Chen, Yan Li, Arming He, and Kaiqu Zheng, showing the persecution and sufferings they had to endure even 20 years after the landing of the freighter here in the United States. The men work endless hours and still fear deportation even after they have paid the price in jail. The Golden Venture, which depicts the lives of Chinese immigrants from years ago, also depicts the lives of illegal immigrants today. Like many of the Chinese immigrants from The Golden Venture, today’s immigrants work endless hours, fear deportation, and are persecuted. The Golden Venture is not only a depiction of the lives of immigrants a decade or so ago but also a depiction of the lives of immigrants today.

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.