Foner compares the immigrants of the turn of the century with the current immigrants in means of their class and jobs they took on. The difference between education and skills that the majority of the immigrants brought from each wave is linked, by Foner, with the social and economic state that New York City was in at the time. With New York City at the peak of industrialization it provided the job opportunities for the poor, mostly illiterate and uneducated immigrants of the 1880s-1910s. However, post-industrialized New York City was a new center that focus less on manufacturing and more on personal and informational serves by the 1990s.

This explanation hit home because my parents came to America as 1st generation immigrants and fall under the category that Foner describes. Both of my parents immigrate from the Philippines educated and my Mom came as a professional nurse. I was even told that becoming a nurse was a way for them and my other family members to immigrate to America. “Alongside the unlettered and unskilled are immigrant doctors, nurses, engineers, and Ph.Ds” (Page 73, Foner)

In fact, what interested me the most was the fact that so many of my relatives immigrated to America as nurses as well as other Filipinos that today, a stereotype has been developed. The stereotype being that “all Filipinos are nurses” and for many 2nd generation children this is true, where at least one or several family member is a nurse who immigrated to America around the 1990s. Because I also have a number of 2nd generation friends as well, I’ve witnessed and experienced how the current economic state of New York has influenced the new wave of immigrants without realizing. The similarities that Foner brings up about the two waves of immigrants are too general compared to the vast differences in the state of New York and the immigrants themselves. You could say that timing really had an influence on the social and economic statuses of immigrants and the way they chose to live in New York city, as a result, unconsciously creating different stereotypes and classifications in a changing urban setting.