Author: Richard Khalily

The Shadow Hero both engages and challenges Asian American stereotypes using parental relationships and symbolism. Hua embodies many of the “Asian mother” stereotypes, putting intense pressures and expectations on her son. Hua puts her son through physical pain and emotional stress to become a superhero, like the American “Anchor of Justice.” The superhero theme can be interpreted as education, fitting Hua to the stereotype of the tiger mom. This same theme challenges the stereotype of Asian Americans as naturally intelligent. Becoming a superhero is a seemingly impossible task for Hank, while for the “Anchor of Justice,” rumors suggest it simply happened by forces of nature. Hank suffers a great deal to earn the title of superhero—especially from his mother, who pushed him to become one in the first place—suggesting that assimilating while achieving academically is an arduous undertaking for Asian Americans. The superhero theme works with the parental stereotypes of Asian immigrants on education to demonstrate that Asian Americans assimilate and succeed despite overwhelming obstacles.

Living in New York City means interacting with a vast array of cultures because of the ubiquity of variety. Whether it be in food, music, dress, languages or religions, the youth absorb diversity and topple ethnic barriers. This interaction occurs at schools and within neighborhoods, developing a multifaceted, multicultural youth with a “cosmopolitan identity.” The removal of national origin quotas that limited immigration from 1920-1965 led to unprecedented diversity in New York’s population. Established populations, such as the Italians and Eastern European Jews, were moving out or up, and often being replaced by Asians, Russians, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans.

Asians long suffered exclusion from immigration waves. However, the massive reform in 1965 increased the 105-person annual quota to 20,000, increasing Chinatown’s population drastically. Under new laws, families could reunify. Immigrants from Southern China joined their Cantonese relatives in New York, and earned jobs in sweatshops to satisfy the demand for labor in the garment industry. These jobs were acquired through family networks and bosses who demanded compliance and hard work. Wealthier Chinese moved in uptown, and often looked down on the Cantonese who lived downtown. These “Uptown Chinese” bought real estate, raised rents, and financed small businesses. The arrival of banks in Chinatown signaled a movement to develop the area, and led to a gentrification that moved many Chinese into Brooklyn. Asian immigrants embraced the positive images of their stereotypes as smart, ambitious and industrious, emphasizing the importance of education. Among Korean immigrants, 67 percent of adults had college educations and 40 percent had professional or technical backgrounds. Poor English, however, limited their ambitions, leading them to transfer their hopes to their children. Koreans moved into midtown, replacing Jewish and Italian immigrants, and set up thriving business and restaurants.

“Nuyorican”, a term for a Puerto Rican in New York City, demonstrates the ambivalence of identity among Puerto Ricans in an ethnically diverse city. Music, language, and strong family traditions in Puerto Rican culture contributed to the urban environment. Economically, Puerto Ricans provided much of the labor force during the United States’ post-WWII growth. Involving themselves politically, Puerto Ricans were elected to congress, state senate, and borough councils. Puerto Rican migration declined in the 1960s, after a peak in the 1950s. Dominicans moved into the city at extraordinary rates, and by 2000 Dominicans outnumbered Puerto Ricans. Dominicans are transnational, and can hold dual citizenships. For this reason, Michael Bloomberg campaigned for mayor in the Dominican Republic to earn the vote of New York Dominicans abroad. Like Puerto Ricans, Dominicans elected many city and state legislators and officials. As old Jewish and Italian workers moved up and out, Dominican women replaced them in the factories; however, they often earned lower wages than their predecessors. Lack of unity and English speakers made it difficult to form union ties. Low rates of high school and college graduation tie Dominicans to the industrial sector, and have suffered economically as this sector continues to shrink. In non-Manhattan communities, such as Corona, Queens, Dominicans coexist with many other Latino groups, African Americans, and white ethnics. In serving in community positions, women from these groups often interact and form cultural bridges, transcending their traditional home-maker roles.

A city is a localization of the social contract, where people further individual interests in a collective society, intertwining the two through public policy. Rudy Giuliani’s mayoralty in the 1990’s contrasted with the agendas of previous mayors. Giuliani led an overhaul of New York’s liberal social policies, cracked down on crime, and decreased education funding, but not without controversy. Despite the conflicts under his mayoralty, Giuliani was championed for his reduction of crime and his response to the collapse of the Twin Towers. Giuliani’s conservative views reflected in his moves to reduce funding for welfare, Medicaid programs, and public education funding. He eliminated over 600,000 people from welfare rolls, but 90 percent of people who appealed their rejections were deemed eligible for aid. Giuliani’s scaling back of welfare programs increased the homeless population, suggesting that decreased welfare did not immediately transition to a rise from poverty. Giuliani used a private company to start job centers, and those who didn’t find jobs had to work in the public sector for 20 hours a week. Giuliani cut taxes, benefitting business, and often enacted policies that hurt departments where both workers and clients were minorities. These choices led many people to feel that Giuliani made his policies based on race. Giuliani regularized and controlled schools, disbanding the Board of Education and instituting citywide testing and standards. Giuliani often clashed with the teacher’s union and cut school’s operating and construction budgets. He was also the first mayor that supported a reduction in state aid for schools. Giuliani’s appointee to the position of special education monitor Herman Badillo became a chairperson of CUNY’s Board of Trustees, dismantling open admissions. Giuliani opposed the public display of a painting of the Virgin Mary that many deemed “offensive art”, cutting the public funds and lease to the Brooklyn Museum. Thus, in economic, educational, and social policies, Giuliani increased the presence of accountability in the social contract.

 

Emma Lou are similar in their insecurities, self-consciousness, and in their judgment of peers. In both Nella Larsen’s Passing and Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry, these insecurities manifest themselves in unreliable narration. Furthermore, both novels use the unreliable narrative despite the use of the third person. The factual occurrences of racism that Emma experiences are portrayed objectively; however, this places the focus more on how these occurrences change her perspective on race and cause internal conflict.

After hearing students make derogatory comments about her skin color at USC, Emma’s lack of comfort in her physical appearance turns into the root cause of anything in life not going her way. It consumes her as her relationship with Weldon Taylor ends because he relocates—as Emma immediately attributes the end of this relationship to the color of her skin. A lack of comfort can be clearly recognized as a crippling insecurity when Emma assumes that a joke made during a play about dark-skinned girls was directed at her. The choice to use the third person clearly separates fact from personal view, while providing a strong commentary on the psychological consequences of racial prejudices.

Clare and Irene act as foils to each other. While Clare is a pragmatist, who openly speaks of her desires and fears, Irene attempts to hide her desires and fears under noble positions on race that she often contradicts. In the opening of Passing, Irene sits at a table worrying that someone will realize she is black. However, when Clare later asks if she has ever thought of “passing” for white, Irene says, “No … I’ve everything I want.” While Clare’s actions and thoughts may not be likable, her honest acceptance of who she is and what she wants makes her a more admirable character.

Irene, however, fails to share her discontent with her husband’s affair. Her constant repression of her desires and fears directly results in the murder of Clare Kendry. Both Clare and Irene are victims of an unjust society; however, Irene’s fails to recognize it as unjust, resulting in her psychological downfall.

 

I have mostly enjoyed the journal entries that we have been assigned over the semester. I find it an opportunity to create a preliminary analysis of the topics of discussion for class. It allows for greater preparation and promotes discussion in the classroom. The summaries are beneficial because they imprint useful information into my memory; however, some have felt overlong and tedious. Still, its positives have outweighed the trouble. The coursework and general organization of assignments has been well spaced and has given me a strong knowledge of immigration history in New York.

I try to avoid getting in the habit of sloppy writing, so despite the informality of the journal entries, I focused on varying sentence structure and using verbals. However, I believe I could have used a more diverse vocabulary in all of my posts. In general, I am very satisfied with both the quality of my posts and the tasks we have been assigned.

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival uses whole pages to display visual media elements often seen in film, such as panning outward to expand the storyline of the main character to a whole generation of immigrants.
The opening sequence of Part II begins zoomed on a picture of the nameless protagonist’s family. The sequence continues with a frame by frame pan outwards. We see that the protagonist somberly sits in front of the picture while eating. As the image zooms outward, we realize that not only is our protagonist suffering this lonely journey, but also thousands of other immigrants have left behind their families to help them survive. In this sequence, Tan manages to enamor the reader with the personal story of the protagonist, while also connecting his story to the overarching history of immigration in the late-19th to early-20th Century. The outward pan sequence that begins Part II establishes the protagonist of Shaun Tan’s The Arrival as an Everyman in immigrant history.

In his novel Ragged Dick, Horatio Alger wrote of the American Dream as if it was the country’s faith. Set in New York City, Alger championed the individuals and old values while ignoring the changes in society that made it increasingly “impersonal and immoral.” Alger’s presentation of New York, the “center of America’s late-nineteenth-century modernization,” as the height of social mobility due to the social conscience of the elite that allow for negotiation. Along with the 19^th-century newspapers, Ragged Dick promoted the Social Darwinism approach to capitalism that dictated that anyone of a certain grain of character can rise up, even in the worst conditions. This depiction of New York City was contrasted by Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age and his short story parody of Ragged Dick.

The myth of American opportunity was fed by New York’s monumental accomplishments that were far beyond its time. From Rockefeller’s domination of oil to Vanderbilt’s advancements in railroads to Carnegie’s steel trust, Wall Street became a promise of success and wealth to American businesses that came there. A farm boy, Rockefeller took a Darwinist approach to business competition and consolidated businesses to create trusts in oil; the same model was used to consolidate trusts in steel, lead, salt, sugar, tobacco, whiskey, and more. Trusts threatened the competition that motivated capitalism and prompted government regulation in business. However, the regulations were not accomplished before a third of America’s millionaires lived in New York City.

In addition to Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty was an urban icon of the late-nineteenth-century. Upon its completion in 1886, it became a symbol of welcoming to immigrants, as described in Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus.” The influx of immigration, the consolidation of businesses, and the political corruption that ruled the city shaped New York into an Empire in the late-nineteenth-century.

The political corruption is almost entirely attributed to Tammany Hall, run by “Boss” William Tweed. Tweed himself never held the position of mayor; rather, he amassed a great wealth and used his influence to rig elections. By naturalizing immigrants before elections, using repeaters, and dispatching gangs to keep opposing voters away from polls, Tweed had his cronies serve as governor, mayor, city comptroller, and city commissioner. Tweed used this power to complete Central Park, to build the Brooklyn Bridge, and to construct the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Despite his illegal activities he used to gain power, in many ways, he helped the city. That power, however, began to slip when violence erupted on the streets, seemingly at the hands of Tammany. In July of 1871, a conflict between Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics boiled over in July during a celebration of the Battlye of Boyne. The anti-Catholic songs resulted in a bloody two-day battle in Elm Park in which eight people died. The next July, Mayor A. Oakley Hall issued fifteen hundred policemen and over five thousand infantry and cavalry for the celebration. These soldiers responded to the skirmishes between Orangemen and Irish Catholics by targeting the Catholics. Newspapers responded by pinning the riot on Tammany, using the Tammany Ring bookkeeper’s replacement to infiltrate Tammany’s operations. They discovered that Tammany stole millions of dollars from the city for construction projects. After many trials and escape attempts, Tweed was finally arrested and the “Boss” era of the gilded age was put away.

The grandiose operations on Wall Street and massive industrialization of New York City not only outshined but also created the issue of immense poverty and class conflict. Jacob Riis played a central role in revealing these issues through the publication of How the Other Half Lives. Using a magnesium powder flash and a direct engagement of New York slums, Riis took striking pictures and gathered startling statistics that inspired “the discovery of poverty.” The author placed the children of the slums at the center of the discussion on poverty; to him, Ragged Dick lacked the reality of dirt, disease, and hunger that he observed in the slums. The realization that thousands of children lived on the streets led to the city’s focus on crime and education. Reformer William L. Strong was elected mayor and launched programs to fight disease, set up public baths, and created the city’s first effective street cleaning and sanitation removal systems. Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt improved the police department. Tammany saw the discussion on education as an opportunity; immigrants and teachers joined Tammany, viewing education as a ladder of social mobility. In 1901, New York became the first city to require all children under 12 to attend school. One year earlier, Governor Roosevelt signed a law desegregating schools in the state.

Meanwhile, Josephine Shaw Lowell led women in the suffrage movement as well as social reform. While first a believer in Social Darwinism, Lowell modified her position after realizing the suffering the poor faced. Her leadership in the NYC Consumer’s League demanded acceptable working conditions, and stood against the exploitation of female workers. Similar movements in Chicago followed, as Florence Kelly led protests against child labor. New York’s embrace of settlement houses and the improvement of the Charity Organization Society led Jacob Riis to declare it “the most charitable city in the world.”

New York’s leadership in the development of labor unions captured the movement away from Alger’s individualism and pioneered collective action. Trusts and tenements threatened the American Dream with low wages and overworked laborers. The ignorance to laborer’s struggles resulted in a rally at Tompkins Square in 1874 of laborites and socialists. The rally was violently ended by the police. Many in the city, including the mayor and the police commissioner, rejoiced the silencing of the laborers. However, the media attacked the police for their brutality and urged self-control. History repeated itself at the same location in 1877. Moving forward, class antagonism had manifested itself in physical presences, as the wealthy paid for armories to built in response to labor uprisings. Samuel Gompers improved the labor movement with organized strikes. In 1877, he spearheaded the Cigarmakers’ Union efforts to remain on strike while providing for thousands of families. Furthermore, his work in the short-lived Central Labor Union brought lessons on embracing differences to achieve a common goal. Eventually, police brutality and judicial restraints in defending protestors pushed labor unions towards politics and backed Henry George for mayor, who rejected Tammany’s offer of election to Congress if he pulled out of the race. George’s central message remained in labor reform, while his rival Abram Hewitt embraced Alger’s Darwinist views. Hewitt won in November; some speculate that his victory was a result of a rigged counting by Tammany and the denunciation of labor unions by Catholic Priests. George amassed a great percentage of the vote, however, startling many and popularizing him in Ireland and England.

In 1899, the newsboys unionized and called a strike. This strike was well-organized and gained a lot of support, partially due to the appeal of the cause. It spread from Long Island City into Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Newark, and Yonkers. The message of this strike appealed to social consciences and bolstered the labor union’s efforts. As Riis predicted, children were central to New York’s social reform. The same children would grow up with these social values and shape the quality of life for their children. Riis believed this awakening to poverty would be the true measure of “metropolitan greatness.”

The ending scene of Godfather Part II uses still camera shots, panning, and flashback scenes to capture Michael’s regrets in taking over the family business. The scene opens with Sonny’s entrance to the dining room on Vito Corleone’s birthday, before the events of Godfather Part I. As the family discusses America’s entrance to World War II, tensions rise. This rising tension is accompanied by a change in camera angle from a side view of the table to shots of faces. The camera shifts back to this angle when Michael emphasizes that he “has [his] own plans for [his] future.” Again, close up shots are used to underscore the important historical and familial messages of the film.

As Fredo, Sonny and Tom rise to greet Vito on his birthday, the camera returns to the distant view of the family. However, as we wait to see Michael leave the room and the camera follow to Vito’s entrance, the camera stays on Michael, who remains seated. This choice explains that despite the attention given to Vito Corleone’s history, the film’s true focus is Michael. A three-second transition of Michael waving on the train intercalates Vito’s birthday scene and Michael’s brooding over the past. Michael lost Sonny, Fredo, and his father to the crime business he now leads-something we are reminded he never wanted a part of in the first place. The imagery of this transition accentuates the innocence Michael had failed to preserve, and his inevitable fall to the family business that cost him just that-his family.

While Italian immigrants came to New York for a better life, they differed greatly from the Jews and other immigrants of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Most Italian immigrants were illiterate Sicilian and South Italian peasants who believed public schools conflicted with parental authority rather than provided a route for upward mobility. Also, many Italians were men as opposed to entire families, who left to escape poverty rather than persecution or a famine. Many of these men came to America with the intention of earning enough money to return home and buy land; the rest saved money to bring their families to New York. From the 1880s until the early 1900s, these men were aided by the padroni, who took a fee from newcomers’ wages to help them find housing and jobs.

Unlike Jewish immigrants, Italians primarily sought manual labor jobs and organized geographically near workplaces; thus, certain portions of New York became highly concentrated Italian neighborhoods. Living in old, dirty, and crammed tenements, Italian immigrants lived in poor conditions and often took in boarders to increase income. To make matters worse, Sicilian criminals earned pay from small businesses with Black Hand threats that demanded money in return for protection, prompting the NYPD’s launch of an Italian crime division in 1904; the murder of Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino of this division in 1909 contributed to the anti-immigrant laws passed in the 1920s.

Italians grew to find employment under the government in municipal jobs, under the NYPD and sanitation department. They also became musicians, barbers, and merchants. Furthermore, Italians served as strikebreakers and buffers to the Jewish workers who were unionizing in the garment industry and the striking longshoremen. Because they were quick to take these jobs during a strike or unionization, and held the approach that they were in America temporarily, employers sought to use Italians as threats against workers on strike. Because Italian men struggled with the seasonal unemployment that comes with manual labor jobs, many daughters took advantage of the rapidly expanding New York garment industry and found jobs in sweatshops and clothing factories. Most of the Italian women in New York were with families, so this income was supplementary to the male’s wages.

It was not until late in the first decade of the 1900s that Italians began to join the Jewish workers in unionizing in the garment industry. While support for strikes was slow at first, by 1913 many Italians supported strikes in the garment industry. However, longshoremen and construction workers who replaced the Irish remained lethargic in unionizing. The slow process of growing Italian involvement in American life included participation in politics. Many Italian immigrants rejected the Tammany Party and elected the first Italian Fiorello La Guardia, a Republican, to the House of Representatives. Many Italians found both parties too unresponsive to the needs of the poor and threw their support behind Socialist organizations. While the Jewish immigrants remained in control of the most prominent socialist clubs in New York, Italian clubs grew and were effective in spreading Socialism amongst Italians.

In the practice of religion, Italian Catholicism clashed with Irish Catholicism across New York City in the 19^th Century. Irish Catholics believed the Italians to be anti-institutional and ignorant in their observance. Consequently, Italians were not embraced in the Irish Catholic churches, and the dislike was mutual. Italians were already distrustful of the church at home, believing it did not serve the people’s needs. Therefore, they were predisposed to dislike the churches in America under Irish control, especially because Catholicism was a minority religion in the U.S. Because of the Italians lack of religious embrace, Protestants attempted to convert them. However, Irish Catholics encouraged activities to counter these attempts, such as installing Catholic charities and requesting more Italian priests and expanded parish activities in Italian sectors of New York. While Church leaders encouraged Italians to start parochial schools, the men already distrustful of education were not willing to pay for schools when public schools were free. Therefore, while the movement achieved some degree of success, Italian parochial schools were not popular in the early 20^th century among Italian immigrants. Central to Italian religious practices were the festa, parish-organized celebrations of a particular saint that drew thousands.

Italians underwent a process of Americanization that involved growing political activity, economic upward mobility, and the growing accommodation of the Roman Catholic Church. However, Italian immigrants mainly achieved stronger ethnic ties in their settlement in America; they abandoned their provincial identities and truly began to create a self-image as Italians, rather than Sicilians or Southern Italians. While World War I and the restriction acts of the 1920s catalyzed the later generation’s assimilation, the transition to Americanism remained gradual and ethnic ties remained strong.

 

The title of Anza Yezierska’s novel captures the starvation and subjugation forced on the female characters by the culturally sexist influences in their family. Bread symbolized money in the 20^th Century. As Reb Smolinsky remained at home studying Torah, the daughters of the house worked to provide money for the family, all of which was given to Reb Smolinsky. Reb focuses his efforts solely on the objective of going to heaven and often gives alms to others, neglecting his own family. His overzealousness blinds him to his family’s needs, and thus he forces his daughters to be bread givers, rather than breadwinners.

Furthermore, the title highlights Sara’s struggle between her personal search for independence and her cultural and familial duties to her family. As a bread giver in her home, Sara cannot pursue her quest for knowledge. While attending college, she rarely visits her family unless there is a threat to her continuing her education. After Sara’s mother passes away, however, she comes full circle and brings her father back into her home. Her father’s return symbolizes the reconciling of her conflict; she learns to remain independent while still fulfilling her cultural duty as a bread giver.