Author: klaudiakapo

For me The Shadow Hero was the story of a boy who becomes a hero to defeat the stereotypes that surround the Asian American community. From the beginning, Hank’s life is depicted in a stereotypical manner. The first stereotype I noticed was that he has an American name, Hank, and he is the only one with such a normal name, he seems to be assimilated into American culture. Another stereotype is that his parents had an arranged marriage and were unhappy with each other. Hank’s mother also assumes the role of the stereotypical “tiger mom” who pushes her son to do what she thinks will make him a good man and successful. Later on in the story we see the stereotype that only a man can continue a dynasty that women aren’t fit to rule. And perhaps the most prominent stereotype in the story is that of corrupt Chinese rulers trying to control Chinatown as it’s own government.

Hank as a hero fights against all these racial stereotypes. When he chooses a name he doesn’t pick a common hero name which makes him seem strong and powerful, instead he picks the name Green Turtle which has meaning to him because it is named after his father’s store. In the beginning when his mom forces him to be a superhero he listens to her and tries to make her happy but  when she no longer approves of being a superhero he actually goes against his “tiger mom” showing that he wants to go fulfill his own dreams. When he meets Red Center he seems to fall in love with her and he goes out with her even though he doesn’t have his mother’s approval. He clearly doesn’t admire the miserable marriage his parent’s had because they were arranged. As the Green Turtle the most important stereotype he defeated was that of the unjust corruption the Chinese apparently had. They are stereotypically depicted as men who are trying to rule their own community their way despite being in America. The Green Turtle however doesn’t believe in it. When he has the chance to kill Mock Beak and become the leader of a dynasty that rules Chinatown, he does the just thing instead. Instead of killing Mock as a way to avenge his father’s death he arrests him and turns him over to the police showing that justice doesn’t have to be served through bloodshed. The Green Turtle isn’t a hero to his people just because he saves them the bad guys, he is a hero to his people because he shows them in a different light one that is clear of all the racial stereotypes.

The change of the century also brought along change in the Big Apple. Gotham, as Reitano refers to it, was accepting more immigrants than ever with 37.8% of the population foreign born. What was special about this new wave of immigration was that people were coming from all over the world. There were communities forming of people coming from the Carribean, East Asia, Central Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. With Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the 1990’s and early 2000’s consisted of turmoil regarding some of his civil and his education policies. But with the tragedy of 9/11, those seemed unimportant and Giuliani’s response to the attack over shadowed his harsh policies. It would take NY many years to recover from those unfortunate attacks.

One of the first groups of newcomers were the Russians. At the turn of the decade, Soviet Russia collapsed and many coming from Soviet ruled countries moved to America. Russian Jews came and settled in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. They were welcome here because the area was already occupied by Eastern European Jews but there were still culture and language barriers to face. However, coming from cities with skills and education, these immigrants were able to accommodate themselves easier than typical newcomers. They were able to become entrepreneurs and assimilate into the new culture while also maintaining the one from back home.

Other groups such as the Asians weren’t able to assimilate so easily, instead they isolated themselves in their neighborhoods. The Chinese were excluded for a very long time due to the Chinese Exclusion Acts therefore neighborhoods such as Chinatown remained as hubs for the Cantonese speaking Chinese who moved in the 90s. These Chinese didn’t have much education and settled for cheap industrial labor often run by their Mandarin speaking countrymen who considered themselves more superior. By raising the rents, the Chinese of Chinatown were forced to move and start neighborhoods in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Flushing, Queens. Other Asian groups also settled in Flushing, Queens such as the Koreans. Koreans came to America with education and success from their coutnries, but due to their language barrier they were forced to give up a lot and instead transferred their aspirations to their children. This idea that their children could get the education and resources necessary to become successful was known as the “model minority myth,” the Asian version of the American Dream.  By 2009, Taiwanese born Chinese American City Coucilman, John C. Liu was elected as comptroller.

At this time there were also immigrants coming from places not so far from America such as the Latinos. Puerto Ricans and Dominican immigrants are able to travel back and forth from their countries making them transnational. However, these groups both faced serious problems when it came to facing low poverty and the lowest education levels in the country. But working together with people of the same language they were able to overlook national differences and work together to form alliances dedicated to helping out other Latinos.

The West Indians also learned to overcome national differences in order to band together as one community. The West Indian Day Carnival for example joins Trinidadians, Jamaicans, and even French speaking Haitians. One struggle that these groups of people faced was racism due to their skin color. Though they aren’t African American their dark skin color grouped them as one, and coming from countries where racism was never a problem it was a learning experience for most. But coming from English speaking countries and better education they were able to move into professional sectors of the city. Overall by 2010, NYC will have 51 minority city council members.

During this time period the Mayor was Rudolph Giuliani, and he changed the social contract of the city. Giuliani had little regards for the poor lower class and instead focused on the middle class. He tried to pass many drastic policies such as privatization of public services, defunding of welfare and Medicaid. He thought people should rely less on welfare and more on finding jobs therefore he started a new workfare program to help this situation. To those who didn’t find jobs he would place them in Work Experience Programs but this caused more harm then god. More and more people were losing the ability to continue school and poverty was increasing.

Giuliani also brought a lot of change in the education system. He tried to regularize public schools and did some good by laying the groundwork to get rid of the Board of Education and incorporating citywide testing in the system in order to raise education standrds. Meanwhile, he cut any school constructing budgets and trying to change the CUNY system with his counterpart Herman Badillo.

On the civil aspect, Giuliani tried many times to deny the First Amendment to the citizens of the city. He tried to shut down the Sensation exhibit in Brooklyn Museum because it was offensive to the Catholic community. He abused his powers as Mayor several times by letting the front of City Hall get used for events he approved of rather than ones that were important to the city such as HIV AIDs activist activity. But once the tragedy of 9/11 hit it was Giuliani who stepped up and became the hero of the city. He addressed the nation and brought back hope into the city in the midst of chaos. And although his previous years didn’t hold a kind track record his response to 9/11 made him more popular and lovable than ever. And for that is what he is remembered for.

Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry tells us the story of a dark skinned African American girl who cannot seem to come to terms with the skin she was born with. Emma Lou the main character of the story grew up in a town where all the people in the black community praised being light skinned. Though having a light skin mother, Emma Lou gets her dark skin from her father’s side, and because of it she is told by her mother and grandmother that she will never make it anywhere in life. That her skin color defines her. Though the story is told through a third person narrator, just like in Passing with the story being told through Irene, the story is mainly told through the eyes and mind of Emma Lou. What makes Emma Lou so unreliable though is the fact that she always contradicts what she says.

Emma Lou has so much hatred for the lighter skin colored people that treat her differently due to her skin, yet she doesn’t like to be associated with any darker skinned people either. Take Hazel for example, she is a dark skinned girl just like Emma Lou, and just like Emma Lou she is starting college looking for friends. But Emma Lou doesn’t want to be Hazel’s friend because of her skin color, and the way she acts, because she doesn’t act “white.” She says, “No wonder people were prejudiced against dark-skin people when they were so ugly, so haphazard in their dress, and so boisterously mannered as was this present specimen,” (p. 17). Emma Lou is in no position to judge Hazel the way she does because she is no different than her.

Another example of Emma Lou being a hypocrite is her ending her relationship with John. When she first moves to Harlem, John is kind enough to help her find a home and show her around. She takes advantage of his kindness and uses him to her advantage. As soon as she finds herself a little more stable she ends their relationship because he is also dark skinned and not good enough for her. Once again she is treating someone unfairly just the way she doesn’t want anyone to treat her.

Furthermore, every time does get respected by someone who is lighter skinned, she believes that that person is just pitying her. With her there is no win win situation, and everything  that happens always comes back down to her skin color. To me she is selfish, contradictory, and a hypocrite and it makes her opinion hard to believe. That is is why she is certainly not a reliable narrator.

Passing by Nella Larsen is a novel that leaves the reader in conflict with his/herself by the end of the story. It introduces us to the life of two African American women who choose to represent their identities in two different ways. Both Irene and Clare have lighter skin so that they aren’t really always identifiable as colored women. Clare uses this physical characteristic of hers to “pass” as a white woman. This way she marries a rich man and lives the rich and lavish life she always dreamed of but through betraying her own people. Irene doesn’t choose to “pass” instead she lives life proud to be a colored woman and is able to marry a doctor and give herself a rich life living in a home with housekeeper and organizing social events with well known authors up in Harlem. By the end even though Irene kills Clare out of jealousy, we still can’t help but sympathize for her and respect her more.

Clare’s character doesn’t show much substance like Irene’s does. She believes only in the superficial aspects in life, and uses her beauty and flirtation to get people to like her. Even people that know she’s lying to her family about being white, such as Brian, end up liking her. She seduces those around her and makes it seem as if she is a victim in her marriage, even though it was her choice to pass and lie about it. Irene on the other hand has made a life for herself while staying true to her identity. She has worked hard to keep her family together and has earned respect throughout her community. She doesn’t need to lie everyday about who she is, she doesn’t betray her own people like Clare. And even when she kills Clare in the end, part of us feels as though Clare had it coming, that Irene once again did what she had to in order to maintain her family. Even though in reality Irene acts selfish and jealous it’s easier to admire her character over Clare’s because we know her choices in the past are more respectable than Clare’s.

Just as we’ve seen in The Godfather, an author’s or director’s point of view really affects the way we interpret the characters. Even though the novel is written in third person, it follows the life of Irene as the main character. Clare is the one who manipulates Irene to enter her life and in a way secretly live the life Irene built for herself. We know that eventually Clare’s lies are going to get to her. We do not expect Irene to change so drastically but once again it is easily to put the blame on Clare. Larsen leaves me in conflict with myself over who deserves my sympathy, the girl who just died, the one who’s life was saved by this death, or neither?

By looking through my journals I can see the growth in my writing. In the beginning my journals were more focused on just answering the prompt. It felt more like essay writing than journal writing. As the semester has passed, I have learned that journal writing is meant for me to branch out my ideas on the topic, that it doesn’t have to be so focused on the prompt. I learned that the prompt is there to give me ideas on what to write about so that I can explore my interpretation of the reading or the film. I like that my writing really does show my flow of thoughts and I like that as I write my journals I figure out new meanings behind symbols and certain elements that I originally didn’t know or didn’t have the intention of writing about. What I don’t like about it is that to me it feels like its simple writing, I don’t necessarily support all my claims sufficiently, sometimes I just move on to another topic which is a bad habit for when it comes to formal essay writing.

Since journal writing is my only experience with informal writing for a class it has helped me become a better writer by making me more confident with my writing. Before, I viewed writing as something I had to do in order to get through the class, I only wrote to pass the assignments. This meant my writing was very focused. It was mainly planned out essays in which I put a lot of thought and took time writing and revising and editing. Because of the long process of writing I always dreaded doing it. However, writing journals has opened up a whole different side of writing for me. These journals aren’t simply assignments they’re expressions of my thoughts and opinions on what I just read or saw. They let me write more freely without the worry of structure, or answering a thesis. My ideas can flow between topics and this lets me understand the reading more or appreciate the film more. This is why I enjoy writing journals. I can write without the worry of a grade or of getting off topic. Writing is created to help us express our thoughts on paper and now I can truly appreciate that and my thoughts.

When I first picked up Shaun Tan’s The Arrival I was surprised to find it under the children’s picture book section at Barnes and Noble. I didn’t know what to expect from the book, I certainly didn’t expect to connect to it emotionally the way that I did. The first time I looked through the book, I just quickly skimmed through it, not paying attention to the details. By doing this, I was a little confused. Sure it is a story about a man who leaves home, goes to some new land, and then eventually brings his family over as well. But what exactly is this strange land? What are these animals, strange foods, and odd buildings? What is this language? After going through the book again paying more attention to the details I realized that being confused about this land is the whole purpose to the story. These surreal details are meant to make you feel as if you too are traveling to a different country where life is different than what you’re used to.

The one surreal element of the new world that interested me the most was the language. It is completely different than anything we are used to. It is clearly not a western language because it is not a modern western alphabet. This takes away the typical stereotype that immigrant stories about those who moved West typically to America. This land could be anywhere because in truth, people escaped to many places. Shaun Tan’s father for example didn’t emigrate to the United States, he went to Australia.

Another aspect of this brand new language that I connected to was the fact that no reader could understand it, just like the protagonist. With no words at all the reader is able to connect with the protagonist and still understand the story. We are put in this new country where we point to words we don’t understand, words we don’t know how to pronounce, or how to read. The only way to communicate is through signs and images. It helped me connect my own life to the protagonist’s. My parents moved here from Albania and they didn’t understand any English at all. I was still a toddler at that time so I don’t remember much, but they’re stories about how they struggled so much because of miscommunication always makes me so much more appreciative of how easy I have it now. Reading this picture book I finally was able to understand what my parent’s meant by looking at something and having no clue what it meant. Just like the strange language in the book, English too was once strange for my parents.

This sense of attachment that I created with the protagonist is what made this book so meaningful for me, and what makes it so much more than any children’s picture book. It is a story that everyone lives through in one way or another, even moving to a new school, or town can leave you feeling confused and alone at first. You are able to live through the protagonist and see the story of the life of any immigrant unfold. We learn to get accustomed to this strange land and see that everyone has different experiences within it. Overall it’s not just one person’s or one ethnicity’s immigration story, it’s every human’s immigration story.

In chapter 5, “The Empire City,” Reitano goes over the social, political, and labor reform movements of the Gilded age. According to Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick, a rags to riches tory, New York City was depicted as the place of opportunities. However, this was not so much the case. The Empire City was home of the richest people in the nation, and the center of trade, finance, and industry, so incoming immigrants saw it as a land where they could rise in status. However, with the mass political corruption going on they came to realize that the riches of the city didn’t’ work so much in their favor. With the insane amount of wealth displayed on the upper east side, there was also insane amount of poverty on the lower east side. Late 19^th century New York was named The Gilded Age by Mark Twain because of the display of wealth that covered the time period in a later of gold, even though in reality there was immense poverty and wretchedness. Social Darwinism was the main social contract, and it led to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

The head of it all was William M. Tweed, the leader of New York’s largest political circle, Tammany Hall. Tweed was never mayor himself, but he helped nominees of the Democratic Party and Tammany Hall get their positions. Through his corrupt methods Tweed was able to appoint his choice of mayors, senators, congressmen, commissioners, etc. So essentially, he got to rule both the city and the state. And with businessmen in his favor, he was able to provide work for his supporters and earn money on his own. When Tweed’s bookkeeper died, the new one copied all of the Ring’s account books and exposed them, showing how Tweed was able to spend so much of the government’s money. Tweed had companies over charge the government for services for governmental projects, and then he would have them return 65% of the fee back to the Ring.

Many came onto Tweed and called him out in his corruption after a series of riots swept NYC. Tweed would give the immigrants money and services in order for them to vote Tammany, but he soon saw that he couldn’t control the growing working class with all the riots that were going on such as the 1871 Orange Riot. In 1870 during Boyne day, the Protestant Irish celebrated their Protestant Prince William of Orange defeating the Catholic King in the Battle of the Boyne. The Catholic Irish were offended and it all resulted in a bloody fight. The Protestant blamed Tweed. The following year, Tweed tried to stop it all from happening by bringing in policemen and militia. However, even more violence resulted and the riot got called, “the Tammany Riot.” Tammany went under investigation especially after the account books were exposed and Andrew Haswell Green along with Samuel J. Tilden were the lawyers who were able to get enough evidence to arrest Tweed. Tweed ended up dying in jail, in 1878 at the age of 55. Tweed’s exposure showed Americans that these Gilded Age bosses were corrupt individuals who were demoting democracy.

With the exposure of political corruption there was also an exposure of the level of poverty in New York City. The person who played the biggest role in it was Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark who was originally a police reporter for the New York Tribune when he visited the Five Points and decided to take pictures of the wretched conditions these people lived in. These pictures were published in his book How the Other Half Lives in 1890. The book provoked social reform by exposing the inequality that the poor faced. It showed that it wasn’t just prostitutes and criminals that lived in these areas, that there were hardworking men and women, and innocent young children that had to live in these horrible conditions. In 1894, William Strong was elected as mayor and was able to start some reform campaigns to improve living conditions in the slums, by building public baths and setting up sanitation systems. Riis contributed a big deal in the effort to build parks in the slums so that children had a clean place to play. Another major reform issue was education for the children. In 1900, schools in the state were desegregated, and by 1901, all kids under twelve were required to go to school.

Another issue that arose was women’s rights in these areas. Josephine Lowell who was devoted to charity changed her views from social Darwinism to seeing that it wasn’t the people’s fault that they were poor, it was the conditions they had to face that were inhumane. Lowell focused mainly on women’s leadership, she became the president of New York City’s Consumer League in 1891, and had upper class women boycott stores which treated their female workers unfairly. In 1896 they got New York to set a minimum standard for working conditions. There was an increase in settlement houses which offered meals, free kindergarten, health clinics, and language classes to immigrants. Eventually Riis called New York, “the most charitable city in the world.”

Labor reform and unionization was another rising concern of the gilded age. Workers realized they had to group together, find power in their masses, in order to get what they wanted done concerning their working conditions. One of the main organizers which came out of the area was Samuel Gompers. Gompers realized the power of striking and he formed the Cigarmakers’ Union in 1877 to strike for better for better conditions for cigar factory workers. Unfortunately, the union didn’t have much success and taught Gompers the importance in having economic stability before striking. After, Gompers was a leader in the Central Labor Union (CLU). The CLU was a collaboration of twelve unions including variety of workers. The CLU learned the power of state was too strong. The state was able to send police to brutally attack arrest picketers and boycotters. The next step the CLU took was politics. They nominated Henry George to run for mayor, and while George didn’t win due to Tammany’s backing of Abram Hewitt he was able to win a reasonable amount of votes (1/3 of the total votes) which was surprising. It made politicians that labor was an important topic of discussion that future candidates couldn’t ignore.

By 1886, Gompers formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL was the nation’s most important labor organization, but organizing strikes was still a struggle. In 1895, the Brooklyn Trolley workers decided to strike against wage cuts. But the combined efforts of scabs and the military and their overcome hunger and cold forced the strikers to quit. Even young kids participated in union organization. One of the most common jobs for young boys was selling newspapers in the streets. They were able to successfully strike with the backing of the community and the adults. These kids proved that the children shape future of the state.

 

In the last scene (although it fades from a flashback to the present day), we see the story come around a full circle. Throughout the entire movie there are random flashbacks of Vito, and how he built his mafia empire. It shows his humble beginnings and then his ruthless acts that earned him the respect that Michael now receives from everyone. The flashbacks don’t seem to relate to Michael as much until the very last scene. In this scene Francis Coppola does an excellent job at closing the movie with Michael realizing he has not fulfilled his dreams instead he has lived his father’s life.

In the opening of the scene we see Sonny, who is the oldest of the Corleone boys. This is the only time we see him so we can assume he has passed away already. He seems to be the one that’s in charge of the family even though Vito is still alive since the family is gathered to celebrate his birthday.  There’s an introduction of all the brothers including Connie and Tom. Tom is part of the family as is called a step brother. The camera is placed towards the back of the dining room so that it can show the entire table and the living room in the back where there seem to be children playing but they aren’t heard. All that is heard is the clattering of kitchen utensils and the dialogue that Sonny leads. While the brothers play around with each other Michael is quiet and it is also important to note that he sits on the other side of the table alone. While all his siblings are next to each other with Sonny at the head, Coppola has Michael on his own. He is different from the others.

When Sonny talks about soldiers risking their lives for strangers as a foolish act, the camera finally shows a close up of him, it is the first close up of the scene. The camera goes back and forth from Sonny to Michael as he argues with Sonny. Michael calls it “pop talk.” It is clear that him and his father don’t have the same views. Kind of ironic because Michael ends up taking over his father’s role. That is when Michael tells Sonny he enlisted to be in the marines. He does this all while still smoking as if to show he is not scared to stand up to his older brother. He wants to fight for his country not his family. It is his way of escaping the family business. When Michael makes this statement the camera pans back out to its original view of the dinner table. It lets the viewer see the reactions of the other family members. After Sonny gets heated at Michael we automatically hear children’s voices in the background and this calms Sonny down, it grounds him. The two girls actually say, “Mommy, Daddy is fighting again.” It shows how important it was for the kids to not know that there was fighting in the family. They had to put up a front for the kids to prove that family means everything. After Connie is sent by Sonny to calm the children we see just the brothers in the room , and Fredo leans to shake Michael’s hand and congratulate him but their handshake gets ripped apart by Sonny. This part is also ironic because their broken handshake turns into a broken relationship in the future even though it seems as though Fredo had been the only supporting brother. Tom although he isn’t their blood brother also seems to have this role of the older brother, he is the one who talks to “Pops” about Michael’s future. He tries to look out for Michael in that way. The camera goes back and forth from Tom to Michael and shows their looks in one another’s eyes as they are conversing. It’s a look we have seen throughout the movie, it’s a look of loyalty towards one another even though words don’t necessarily express it.

After Vito comes home, the other boys leave but Michael stays behind once again remaining alone. The camera is back to its original position showing Michael thinking in an empty room with no one in the background, while the noise in the background is everyone singing to Vito for his birthday. Michael is unaffected by it all he doesn’t even want to go sing with his family. This scene fades back while an even earlier flashback of child Michael saying goodbye to Sicily from the moving train fades in. This transitions to Michael sitting by the lake. The transitioning makes it seem like these flashbacks are of Michael’s, that these are the moments he is thinking about. The moment where he decided to go against his family, and the moment where he says bye. It is sort of like he is saying bye to himself because he is no longer the same man. He not only turned into the type of man he didn’t want to become, but he also lost his family along the way. The camera slowly zooms into Michael’s face and he is covering the bottom half of his face. The lighting darkens the right half of his face and draws emphasis to Michael’s eyes which are circled with wrinkles. He is in deep thought about what his life turned out to really be. Coppola does a really nice job at showing how this life has aged him, stressed him, and not given him any happiness. The mafia life is not all the glory that it is made out to be.

Chapter 5 of Binder’s  All Nations Under Heaven. An Ethnic and Racial History of New York City analyzed the aspects of Eastern European Jewish culture that was introduced to NYC in the 1880s. Though New York City had seen Jewish immigration since colonial times the most massive period of Jewish immigration that it experienced was from 1881-1914. During this time, around two million Jews immigrated from eastern Europe, with a majority coming from Russia. They primarily came from small towns as many rejected emigration because they viewed the United states as an unreligious land. Eventually, due to worsening economic conditions, more and more were forced to emigrate. A bulk of them were urban dwellers and were skilled workers, educated, and politically and culturally active. They lived in the lower east side tenements, and while there were other ethnic groups in the area, Yiddish was the dominant language. According to one historian it was, “the focus of intellectual, cultural, and political life of American Jewry,” (p 118). Eventually that area became the most populated area of the city, known as the Tenth Ward. With the turn of the century came new bridges and subways which presented opportunities for the Jews to move into Brooklyn and Queens in places such as Williamsburg and Rego Park. Although they would move out of the crowded tenements, they still lived in slum conditions in these new neighborhoods as well.

Earlier German- Jewish immigrants who were more Americanized weren’t accepting of the new Jewish immigrants. They didn’t want to be associated with them so they established an Educational Alliance in order to offer training to the new Jews on how to act more Americanized. Though these classes were first resented by the new Jews, eventually the alliance’s cooperation by offering classes in Yiddish, and other useful facilities such as a library and gym, increased the participation. And if new problems aroused from the new Jews, other organizations were started by the German Jews to help. One major problem that the immigrant Jews faced in their community was crime. While it wasn’t violent, there was crimes such as stealing, arson, as well as prostitution, present within these poor Jewish communities. In order to counter this embarrassing issue, the German- Jewish leaders created the New York City Kehillah. The Kehllah brought together smaller organizations to deal with Jewish relationships and mainly crime. Unfortunately, it lost popularity as many didn’t trust the organization.

Another aspect of the eastern European Jews was their respect of the community. Coming into a foreign land, they really respected meeting others from their place of origin. This sense of nationality led to the creations of landsmanshaft organizations. These were organizations of aid which linked fellow countrymen together, offering social services such as synagogues, trade unions, and hospitals such as Beth Israel. Another aspect of Eastern European Jewish culture was their experience in commerce and manufacturing. Jewish immigrants in America would likely be involved in peddling, push carting, or owning their own shops. Other skills Jewish workers possessed was tailoring and factory work. Jewish women especially were the main source of work for garment factories, usually owned by the German Jews. Unfortunately, they experienced bad working conditions such as long hours, low salaries, and even seasonal layoffs. This poor treatment led to new labor union organizations for needle workers. By 1914, Jews dominated garment factory unions.

The socialists who organized these unions were respected individuals who brought together 1/3 of Jews in the Workmen’s Circle unions to join the Socialist party. But clearly, a majority of the Jewish population chose not to. The Jews weren’t very political, and those that decided to vote would just vote for the candidate who supported Jews the most. Usually this meant the Republicans. The most progress politics made amongst the lower East siders was the win of Ukrainian born Meyer London who won a seat in Congress on his third attempt. Socialism and Zionism wasn’t appealing to the mass of Jews anymore.

Likewise, Orthodox Judaism lost its popularity as well. More and more Jews were becoming secular, and realizing that they needed to work in order to live rather than spend that time being faithful to their religion. Many would work during Sabbath and only hold their sense of Jewish identity by attending synagogues for religious holidays. Children grew more and more unattracted to the religion because they were attending school where no religious instructions were taught. Schools gave them other things to get excited about, and parents accepted it because an education was the only way to economic success in the future. Schools meant Americanizing the kids so that they could speak better English, have proper manners and hygiene, and this would effectively produce better citizens. This hype over education and school was more popular among Jews than any other immigrant group. By 1910, 80% of CCNY’s graduating class was Jewish. Education was the ladder of success.