Reitano Chapter 10- A “New” New York
pp. 205-214
New York was going through some major changes at this time; changes in immigration, law, developments and even financial problems. Gotham’s population was steadily increasing after the 1965 immigration reform and by the 1990s, New York became more global than ever with communities from all over the world. By 2009, minorities were the majority of voters in Gotham. Soon after, the World Trade Center tragedy occurred and shook the entire world. However, New York defied the odds and rebuilt after this tragedy.
Residents were leaving New York but new immigrants were constantly taking their place reviving many cities. Russian immigrants moved in with difficulties but were welcome unlike the Chinese. The Chinese faced segregation from society. However, soon the Chinese began to dominate as thousands of Chinese came in, conquered businesses with their networks and impacted many communities. Koreans also came along and took places of other immigrants helping declining neighborhoods flourish again. Koreans dominated Flushing as the Chinese dominated other neighborhoods. Asians remained strong through tough circumstances and adapting quite well at the end.
Settling in new place is definitely not easy as we saw with the Asians and other European immigrants and it wasn’t any easier for Latinos. Like all immigrants, Puerto Ricans brought something to the table. Puerto Ricans enriched their communities through music, language, traditions and more.However, they still struggles financially as some moved up to the middle class but most remained at the bottom with lowest education levels and highest poverty in the nation. Puerto Rican immigration constantly fluctuated, going up and down as years went by. Soon, Dominicans outnumbered Puerto Ricans in New York and unlike some immigrants, Dominicans were able to go back home relatively easy and could even vote. This led to Dominicans seeking political power in New York. Dominicans also suffered economically as they got paid low wages due to their weak union ties. However, they got along pretty well with other minorities, women helped with this union.
West Indians were also a part of the newcomers coming into New York and they held many parades as well. Their first big immigration was during the 1920s amidst the renaissance. There were tensions between West Indians and African Americans but they soon diminished. West Indians adjusted quite well as they also had connections, they also spoke English so this led to them getting good educations.
pp. 221-226
The Social Contract was constantly changing in New York as some politicians favored helping he poor and other the middle class. Giuliani soon redefined New York’s social contract as he advocated the privatization of many facilities. Giuliani was not so concerned about the poor or helping them in any way and he even wanted them out of the city. Some of his decisions led to an increasing number of homeless and needy people. The lower class were treated extremely harsh while looking for jobs or even at their jobs as conditions were despicable. Giuliani continued to cute taxes that helped large wealthy corporations while hurting the poor. Giuliana also revolutionized school systems in terms of their security, education, and testing in some ways helping schools but on the other had, weakened them. He made many cuts to school funding and standards in schooling continued to be changed.
Another part of Gotham’s changing social contract was the support for the First Amendment rights of free expression and assembly. Giuliani also made cuts toward The Brooklyn Museum because of the “offensive art” which he called sick and disgusting. People began to accuse him of abusing his power and began to resist him because they believed that his views should not be allowed to limit creative institutions. However, Giuliani persisted because his strong tactics often worked. Giuliani and Laguardia were quite similar but also opposites, however Laguardia remained Gotham’s best mayor.
