Chapter 10 discusses how from the twentieth century to the twenty-first, New York refined and reevaluated. Because of the 1965 immigration reform, New York became even more a “city of immigrants” than ever, welcoming hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Caribbean, East and Central Asia, and Russia, among other places. Politically, Rudolph Giuliani made significant changes to New York as a Republican in a Democratic city. Because of his policies regarding the working class and education, he stirred up conflicts in regards to race, although he was commended for his handling of the September 11th tragedy.
One of the most prominent groups of new immigrants Reitano describes are Asians. The Chinese, who had been in America in groups since the 1800’s, were the first ethnicity to experience legal exclusion, forcing them to remain outside of the American political sphere until the policy’s end in 1943. After 1965, Chinatown was able to expand its numbers, and New York welcomed in Chinese immigrants from Southern China who entered sweatshops, and even more from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Shanghai, speaking Mandarin instead of Cantonese. After 1943, Chinese Americans were able to organize politically, electing the first Chinese American citywide official (John Liu), among several others. The increase in economic prosperity in this community led to several stereotypes of asians being the “model minority” which leads to parents putting excessive pressure on their children.
Another Asian community, Koreans, helped regenerate their communities, establishing small businesses, causing some inter-community conflicts with other ethnic communities.
The next major immigrant group Reitano mentions are Latinos. The first major wave were the Puerto Ricans. Able to travel back and forth between America and Puerto Rico, this community created a multifaceted identity as well as the term to describe this identity, “Nuyorican”. Puerto Ricans contributed a lot to the cultural landscape of the city through things like music, language and longstanding family traditions. Politically, they were influential in the 1960s, electing Puerto Rican legislators and congressmen. Unfortunately, Puerto Ricans characteristically experienced economic disparity throughout their time in New York City.
After Puerto Ricans came Dominicans who had a lot of the same experiences and impacts in the city. Dominicans were also able to travel back and forth, many of them becoming transnational dual citizens, which caused some of them to limit their involvement with American politics. Currently, Latino groups have found ways to prosper in tandem with other ethnic groups, especially through women in the communities.
Reitano closes the chapter by describing The Social Contract. This is the idea that since cities are places where people live and work together, they also form issues of general and personal interest among themselves that the government must respond to. In these passages, she details the changes made to the City through Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani believed that the welfare system allowed the poor to be “lazy” and waste the money of the hard-working middle class. Consequently, he pulled more than 600,000 people from welfare rolls, and established systems where the homeless had to work daily for their food and shelter. In addition to this, Giuliani transferred money into private institutions and established tax breaks for corporations, among other things. Giuliani also rebuilt the public school system, buffing up security and reducing bureaucracy, while also battling the teacher’s union and cutting aid for many public schools. These are but some of the positive and negative changes he created while altering the city’s social contract. Despite the many conflicts and controversial ideas, he is remembered best for his stoic and intelligent handling of the tragedy of September 11th.
