Category: Uncategorized

Lucia Lopez

Moving from the twentieth to the twenty-first century, New York changed in many ways. Development, population growth, and financial crisis altered the description of the city of Gotham greatly. For one, immigration from other parts of the world rose greatly, making New York even more diverse than it already was. The two-term mayoralty of Rudolph Giuliani drastically changed what seemed to be permanent stances and policies on policing, civil liberties, and education. Events such as 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2008 tested the city’s character once again.

One of the largest groups to immigrate to the United States in the 21st century was Asians. They had long been isolated fro society due to the Chinese Exclusion Act that lasted from 1882 to 1943. Once policy shifted, the prior quota of 105 people annually rose to 20,000, revitalizing neighborhoods such as Chinatown, Sunset Park, and Flushing. The Chinese arrived at a time when cheap labor was needed which mean they would have jobs, unlike before. However, due to their limited English and skills, they were often exploited in sweatshops. By contrast, many urban, educated and wealthy people arrived from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taiwan, positively impacting the economy and helping the development of restaurants, stores, and sweatshops.

Class was a large reason as to why the “model minority” myth was placed on Asian immigrants. They were stereotyped as ambitious, hard working and smart, and although many Asians embraced this positive stereotype, they often transferred their ambitions to their children, holding them to very high standards. This pressure not only came from their families but from society’s view of Asian immigrants, which often put immense pressure on children to succeed and live up to the stereotype. American society also tended to lump all Asians together, but Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese immigrants recognized their differences in culture.

Another major group to move in to Gotham in the 21st century was Latinos. For a long time, Puerto Ricans made up the largest group of Latin American immigrants. Identifying themselves as Nuyorican, they balanced between their identities as both New Yorkers and Puerto Ricans, often not being able to settle on one side. They transformed the urban environment, bringing their own customs, music and language to the city. By 2000, however, Dominicans outnumbered Puerto Ricans, making up about 70 percent of the Washington Heights/Inwood area. Similar to Puerto Ricans, Dominicans are transnational and identify strongly with both their residency and nationality.

Like Asians, Dominicans were often exploited in factories due to their lack of English skills. However, by earning wages, Dominican women enhanced their household role, causing them to want to stay in New York as most Dominican men wanted to return to the island. In communities such as Corona, Queens, Dominicans coexist with other Latinos from countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Cuba. The women from these communities often built communities in churches, block associations, and apartment buildings, maintaining leadership in their communities.

The social contract of the city was altered when Giuliani served his two terms as mayor. One of his biggest policy changes had to do with social programs, which he called the “compassion industry.” He claimed that these programs enabled the lazy and undermined the hard-working, and many New Yorkers agreed and felt that change was needed. Giuliani requested that New York State reduce funding fro the city’s welfare and Medicaid programs and created new standards for those who wanted to receive welfare benefits. He successfully eliminated over 600,000 people from the welfare rolls, but the rising numbers of homeless people and people going to food kitchens suggested that eliminated social programs would not get rid of poverty. He then decided to alter the school system in New York City, implementing city-wide testing and advocating fro merit pay and uniforms for students to create standards in the system. He ended up making the most cuts to the education system than any other mayor and became the first mayor to support reduced school aid.

First-Amendment rights were also a focal point of Giuliani’s mayoralty. He often abused his power in order to allow what he felt appropriate and suppress the rights of those whose opinions he did not favor. One of the most famous cases was with a controversial art show in the Brooklyn Museum, which was the catalyst for his plan to stop funding the museum if its art would be as obscene as he believed it to be. In the case the Brooklyn Museum placed against the city, the institution won, reaffirming the First Amendment rights of the city’s people.

New York changed significantly with the turn of the millennium. Two-term Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was a Republican in a historically Democratic city who wanted to reform the city’s liberal social policies to coincide with the nation’s more conservative ones. He was successful despite leading the city into turmoil for eight years. He was still seen as a good mayor for his response to the fall of the Twin Towers and for keeping the crime rate down. New York became known as the Contentious City. New Yorkers were not prepared for the physical and psychological effects of 9/11, and labeled the city as the Wounded City. With the efforts of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city regained its title as the Resilient City as the economy started to work its way back up.

As a West Indian woman experienced, New York is a place where one could meet and interact with people of many different cultures and take part in their cultural events. The population surged as a result from the 1965 immigration reform with an influx of more numerous immigrants from the Caribbean, East and Central Asia, Latin America, and Russia, making New York the Immigrant City. Anthropologist Nancy Foner notes that although Dominicans, Chinese, and Jamaicans make up most of New York’s immigration, combined they only comprise 30 percent of the total immigration. There are over 110 different languages spoken in Gotham.

Russian Jews found their way to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where many Eastern European Jews had settled, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Although they were met with some challenges, they were city dwellers who had the skills, education, and support from the community to overcome the difficulties.

The Chinese found their way to Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, where they were isolated for a long time. They were barred from most occupations and struggled to survive working in restaurants and laundries. After the immigration quota was increased, Chinatown’s population boomed. Fortunately, the garment industry needed workers, but unfortunately, the work exploited the Chinese, making them work in sweatshops for little pay. Wealthy, educated immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Shanghai chose not to live in Chinatown and were known as “Uptown Chinese” as opposed to the “Downtown Chinese.” These uptown dwellers still influenced Chinatown by buying up real estate and pushing out the Cantonese dialect and making room for Mandarin. Two other Chinatowns sprung up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Flushing, Queens. After being allowed to become citizens in 1943, the Chinese got involved with New York’s political life, electing City Councilman and comptroller John C. Liu.

Latinos were faced with the dilemma of mixed identity. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans found themselves torn between embracing their American side and maintaining their Latino sides. To combat this, they travelled frequently between the States and their home countries. Dominicans settled in Washington Heights and upper Manhattan and Corona, Queens.

West Indians embraced their different cultures and celebrated pan-ethnicity. While Haitians celebrated their French culture, most West Indians emphasized their British ties to distinguish themselves from African Americans. Unfortunately, West Indians found themselves tied to African Americans based off the darkness of their skin instead of their ethnicity.

The beginning of the twenty first century can be considered a new beginning for New York City: popular views changed, politics changed, the economy changed, the population grew (because of the 1965 immigration reform), developments were made, and new challenges emerged. The new, global New York population included people from the Caribbean, East Asia, Central Asia, Latin America and other foreign locations. The population shifted so much that in 2009 minorities became the majority of voters.

Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani served two terms working to strengthen New York conservative views which caused conflict over topics such as race, civil liberties, police, education, and more. During his mayoralty the World Trade Center tragedy occurred. Mayor Michael Bloomberg then worked in the resulting depression to restore New Yorker morale. Over the next decade New York and “its identity as a Resilient City” (206) would be tested time and again.

The Newcomers:

As previously stated, New York became a global city. There were Indian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Irish, Asian, African American, Russian, and so many more ethnic communities all within a few miles of each other. There was a mixing of cultures: music, cuisine, art, dance, languages (over 100 different languages), religions, etc. Many in the younger generation contributed to a ‘cosmopolitan identity’. There was no longer citywide domination of one ethnic group.

Many Russian Jewish immigrants settled in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn where they reinvigorated the economy and community by sharing their own capital and skills. That area of Brooklyn greeted them with open arms, as it was already mostly populated by Eastern European Jews.

Asians

Chinese New Yorkers maintained segregation and isolation in lower Manhattan (in Chinatown). For over 50 years, the Chinese were restricted. Denied citizenship, they were isolated to restaurant, laundry, tourist, and underground businesses. When laws changed in 1965, Chinese population started to grow exponentially. Many Chinese immigrants found exploitative employment in the garment industry. Wealthier Chinese immigrants, known as ‘Uptown Chinese’, brought about gentrification in Chinatown with the construction of larger apartment buildings. In 2009 City Councilman John C. Liu “became the first Chinese American citywide official” (209). Asian immigrants held high expectations for their children. Education was highly valued. They prided themselves in the positive stereotype of Asians being industrious, ambitious, and intelligent.

Latinos

Puerto Rican immigrants were in a unique situation. They were “torn between their country of origin and country of residence, Puerto Ricans travel back and forth both figuratively and literally” (210). This identity conflict has been coined in the term ‘Nuyorican’. Puerto Ricans were the dominant Latino group in New York City. They contributed music, language, and family values and traditions. Many of the labor workers after World War II were Puerto Ricans. In addition to economic influence, they became a political force in the 1960s. Examples of this would be Herman Badillo, a Borough President and congressman and Olga Mensez, a female legislator. While their population continues to be substantial, they have mostly remained in the lower class due to lower education levels and poverty.

Another ‘transnational’ group that is torn between its country of residence and of origin was the Dominican population. Many Dominicans maintained dual citizenship. They participate in politics in both countries. Dominicans, too, suffered from low wages in poor working conditions and little upward mobility.

West Indians

Reitano begins this section by noting the uniqueness of the West Indian American Day Carnival and how it celebrates pan-ethnicity. Now on this day multiple groups celebrate, such as Trinidadians, Caribbeans (Jamicans), and Haitians. During the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s West Indians first began migrating. Since West Indians were classified as racially black by the New York government, there was a lot of resentment, competition, and tension harbored between them and African Americans. West Indians worked to establish a firm separate identity.

… The Social Contract

Mayor Giuliani was unique in the fact that he focused on the middle classes while other mayors such as LaGuardia, Lindsay, and Dinkins focused on helping the poor. He wanted to make more public services, such as water, hospitals, education, and sanitation, private. He named his programs “compassion industry”. He wanted to remove the poor from the city… he saw them as lazy leeches. He was the first mayor to request a reduction in state funding for welfare and medicate program. Over 600,000 people were rejected from welfare roles (which only increased support for Giuliani). This resulted in an increase in the number of New York City homeless and not the expulsion of the poor from the city. He then turned the welfare centers into job centers. New requirements for welfare caused over 16,000 CUNY students to drop out of college (and, ironically, reduce the likelihood of them improving their circumstances).

The mayor offered tax cuts to businesses but this actually mainly helped large corporations and big business, while the working class and minorities were hurt. Other alterations he made affected the school system, police, and enforcement of protection of rights. He worked to bring about his agenda and improve standards through testing, reduce bureaucracy, and bring about uniformity. He enforced the censorship of art through public criticism and reduction of funds. When a controversial portrait of the Virgin Mary was put on display at the Brooklyn Museum, he called the show vulgar and threatened to cut public funds to the offensive museum. “Giuliani’s impact on the city was immense. For all the conflict he caused and the resistance he met, he revolutionized the city’s social contract” (225).

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.

Reitano Summary 205-214, 221-226

First Edition of Book

Pages 205-214:

New York’s mayor, Rudolph Giuliani was an international figure whose complexity and spirit mirrored those of the city. Still, Giuliani can also be seen contradicting basic New York values. Throughout his mayorship, Giuliani made several questionable moves which included a call to blow up the education system and attempting to sell off the city’s water. However, his leadership during the events of 9/11 earned him the respectable title of “America’s mayor.”

Giuliani was known to spark personal and public controversy about several issues including race, law enforcement officers, welfare, education, the arts, and civil liberties. His mayoral decisions clearly indicate that he opposed minorities, labor unions, small street businesses and affordable public services. In spite of all of his questionable choices and goals, Giuliani was often compared to Superman and seen by many New Yorkers as an effective leader who helped to reduce crime in the city. Giuliani’s mayorship was one of substantial rise, fall and resurrection.

Living up to his superhero title, Giuliani was known to promote law and order and fight crime in the city — especially crime surrounding the Mafia. However, he failed to understand the Gothamites and their cherished liberties. Giuliani believed that the authority is the driving force of freedom and this contradicted the traditional New York view of freedom.

Giuliani was strict in combating crime using the “broken windows” theory and creating a “zero tolerance” campaign. He worked to reduce public offenses and disturbances, but some thought that, in the process, he showed a blatant disregard for the city’s struggling communities. In the meantime, courts were being filled with cases for petty crimes, suspects were being strip-searched, street businesses were being targeted and people were being held in jail before later being free of all charges. Giuliani was beginning to see public opposition for violating New York’s free spirit.

Giuliani was still effectively fighting crime by increasing the size and resources of the police force. He created the Street Crime Unit of undercover cops and started the Compstat program. However, issues surrounding racial profiling arose when there was an increase in stop-and-frisks of minority men.

Despite the efforts of the public and his colored co-workers to bring to light the issues with law enforcement and people of color, Giuliani missed the message that something was wrong. As a result, several fatal confrontations between minorities and the police continued to occur. Giuliani made some effort to address the issues when running for reelection but after he won, the issues were once again dismissed.

New Yorkers were fearful and angry. Their feelings led to public protests led by activists like Al Sharpton. Together, New Yorkers urged for political action regarding police brutality and justice for the innocent minorities who suffered at the hands of the cops. Throughout this public outcry, Giuliani acted callously by claiming justice had been done when cops were cleared and releasing criminal records of the deceased.

Giuliani made big strides to reduce crime by increasing policing but his excess pride and power abuse, along with the power abuse of the police force, eventually led to his transformation from a mayoral superhero to a mayoral supervillain.

Giuliani sought to make changes to public services by privatizing them. In the end, he hoped to reduce the role of the government in public service and increase its role in businesses. Giuliani opposed the welfare system because he believed such a system would encourage lazy dependents to live at the expense of the hard-working. He even urged for the poor to be moved elsewhere.

Giuliani encouraged other efforts. He created job centers and allowed welfare qualifiers to work for their stipends. He wanted the people to work for their privilege.

Second Edition of Book

Pages 221-226:

New York attracted many diverse peoples and was often the stage for conflict. The city was constantly changing and many people admired that trait of the city.

Giuliani worked toward his efforts and on the way, many people qualifying for welfare were denied aid until they got jobs. In addition, many of the workers had to work in unsanitary conditions without proper protection and safety equipment.

*The rest of this section in the second edition was a repetition from the first edition.

Second Edition of Book

Pages 205-214

In the 1990s, New York was changing as there was a large number of immigrants. In fact, at the time, approximately 37.8% of the population were made up of immigrants from all around the world. Small ethnic communities were popping up in New York and included people from the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, and parts of Europe. These “minorities” had a large political impact.

Gotham was diversified. It had many different peoples and as a result brought together many different cultures, each with their own food, music, language and religion.

Among the new immigrant population were Russians who arrived in two consecutive waves. Many of the Russian immigrants who came to America at the time settled in Brooklyn. They didn’t face many issues that other poor, uneducated immigrants faced because they were educated and migrated from large cities. As a result, they became successful entrepreneurs in the United States.

Unlike the Russians, other immigrant groups had a difficult time assimilating into American culture. They settled and stayed within their ethnic neighborhoods. The Chinese immigrant population from Asia exemplified this because they lacked proper education and as a result, were forced to work in the industrial labor sector for cheap wages. Wealthier, more educated “uptown” Chinese separated themselves from their poor, uneducated “downtown” Chinese counterparts. They ended up settling in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

Another Asian population that came to the United States was the Korean population. Although they were more educated than their Chinese counterparts, they still lacked the language skills needed to rise in New York. As a result, they projected their dreams onto their children who were more easily absorbed into American culture and had a better chance of becoming successful. They were still able to take control of previously owned Jewish and Italian businesses.

People were also coming from places near the United States. Immigrants from Latin America included Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. The Puerto Ricans came to join the industrial workforce after World War II. The Puerto Rican and Dominican population faced many challenges because they struggled financially and has poor educational backgrounds. Despite these challenges, immigrant Latinos, with the help of the women in their respective ethnicities, were able to create a sense of community and help other members of the Latino community.

West Indians were also a large immigrant group during the time. Like the Latinos, they strived to create an ethnic community. They joined together in social events and celebrations like the West Indian Day Carnival. However, the West Indian immigrant group faced many racial issues. They had dark skin colors and as a result, many people considered them to be blacks. Still, because they mostly spoke English and had a strong educational background, they were able to get respected jobs in the city.

The undeniably large immigrant population during this time period made changes in the New York; by 2010, minorities were beginning to play a large role in the politics of the city.

The Newcomers

The first part of Reitano’s Chapter 10 details New York City as “both changeless and changing” in many ways including immigration policies. Due to the 1965 immigration reform, people from the Caribbean, East Asia, Central Asia, Latin America and Russia flocked to New York and greatly changed the population of the city. In New York alone, over 110 different languages are spoken. Although many of these newcomers self-segregate in certain neighborhoods, they are able to interact with new kinds of cultures in New York creating a multicultural “cosmopolitan identity.”

As older residents were moving out of the city to the suburbs, the new immigrants came into these city neighborhoods and revived them. For example, the Russian Jewish émigrés brought Brighton Beach, Brooklyn back from it’s decaying state by living there and creating new businesses.

The Chinese immigrants faced problems of isolation upon coming to New York City. From 1882 to 1943, many Chinese people were barred from coming to the US. If they were able to come to America, they were excluded from most occupations and were left to work in restaurants, laundries, and in underground business. The Chinese were even kept out of American politics as they were controlled by the Chinatown Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA). When the Chinese immigration quota was raised in 1965, the population of Chinatown drastically rose. Most of the new Cantonese speaking immigrants were used as cheap labor in sweatshops with exploiting bosses while others immigrating from Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taiwan who were more educated and wealthy bought real estate and developed restaurants, stores, and sweatshops. When the Chinese were granted citizenship in 1943, they began to organize politically. The Flushing community elected John C. Liu as the first Chinese American City Councilman in 2001 and the comptroller in 2009 while two other immigrants from Hong Kong were elected to the City Council as well.

Although the city’s Chinese American community has grown politically and economically, there are still internal tensions along regional and class lines. The “model minority myth” stereotypes Asians as industrious, ambitious, and smart. Many accepted this image but the working class Chinese and Korean immigrants often felt ashamed if they could not live up to the standard due to economic issues. These immigrants later pushed the model minority myth on to their children so they can live the American Dream.

Due to the given American citizenship of many Puerto Ricans in 1917, they never became fully settled in either Puerto Rico or America. The Puerto Ricans were the first dominant Latino group in New York City. They enriched the urban environment with their culture and provided a large labor force for the post World War II industrial growth. They even became a political force in the 1960s when Herman Badillo was elected as Borough President and congressman. By 2000, Dominicans outnumbered Puerto Ricans in population. Since many Dominicans had dual citizenship, they returned to the Dominican Republic frequently and even voted in the elections there. Although much of their focus was split between the two countries, Dominicans did seek local political power and elected their first city councilman in 1991. The Dominican women also raised their role in the family by earning wages in America and developing leadership skills.

Another predominant immigrant group to New York City was from the West Indies. The first large migration to New York happened during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. While many West Indians used their British ties and British accents in order to distinguish themselves from African Americans, other figures such as Marcus Garvey and Claude McKay combatted historic American racism by emphasizing racial pride. During the civil rights era, tensions between West Indians and African Americans decreased as West Indian people won elective office in African American communities and their goals started to align more. Even though West Indians fates have aligned with the fates of African Americans, they did separately create a political identity and still continue to not be absorbed in African American politics.

The Social Contract

New York City’s political agenda has drastically changed with the turn of mayors. While LaGuardia, Lindsay, and Dinkins focused on serving the public and the poor, past Mayor Rudy Giuliani focused on the middle class and greatly defunded social programs. He believed that the “lazy” should not live at the expense of the hardworking. With new qualifying standards for welfare, Giuliani eliminated over 600,000 people from the program and was highly regarded for doing so. With a sudden increase in homeless people and attendance increase to food kitchens, it was proven that leaving welfare did not mean leaving poverty. To change the program for the better, Giuliani turned welfare centers into job centers to hopefully raise the people out of poverty. In addition, his tax cuts ultimately hurt minorities and the poor while helping wealthy private institutions and big business. He fought for control over New York City’s public schools and implemented citywide testing to raise standards and bring uniformity. Together, Giuliani and Badillo advocated the “standards movement” and drastically changed the education system of NYC.

After hearing of an art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum called “Sensation,” Giuliani stepped up his fight to censor art at any and all costs. He threatened to cut public funding to the museum due to its “offensive” nature. Giuliani continued to use his mayoral powers to threaten different groups that were criticizing him and protesting against him. It wasn’t until the tragedy of 9/11 that he was able to be seen as a figure of strength and democracy during the aftermath. Throughout his term, he immensely changed the social contract of New York City.

 

Before identifying the influences of new ethnic groups into the New York City melting pot today, Reitano draws our attention to the overall picture immigration in New York City paints. Since the removal of national origin quotas with 1965 immigration reform, the city’s population soared, and by the early 2000s, 37.8% of the city’s population was foreign born. Minorities even comprised the majority of New York voters in the 2009 elections. Although Dominicans, Chinese and Jamaicans are the city’s largest immigrant groups, they only make up 30% of the total immigrant population. In fact, in New York City there are 110 different languages spoken. Such a culturally cosmopolitan and amalgamated city yields cosmopolitan identities among the youth of the large foreign born population and contributes to the “New” New York Reitano refers to in the title of Chapter 10.

With these final new waves of immigration that will define New York City, leadership is held by two distinct mayors. First, the Republican in the historically Democratic city, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani attempted and succeeded in implementing conservative reform and was praised for his crack down on urban crime and response to the September 11^th attacks on the World Trade Center. Mayor Michael Bloomberg succeeded Giuliani and restored the city’s self-confidence after 9/11 and helped the economy rebound.

Starting in the late twentieth century, Reitano points first to the Russian-Jewish immigration that transformed Brighton Beach, Brooklyn into a thriving community. Like many communities in New York City, the residents leaving for the suburbs or retiring gave immigrants a space to move into. 30% of Brighton Beach was vacant when Russian Jews filled in with their first wave of immigration in 1979 and their second wave ten years later after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Asians, on the other hand, as opposed to being absorbed into an area were excluded to one—Chinatown in Lower Manhattan. The Chinese were the first group to suffer exclusion as immigrants from 1882 to 1943. Not only were they prohibited from most occupations and the prospects of citizenship but were controlled by the Chinatown Consolidated Benevolent Association. After the repeal of immigrant quotas, Chinatown’s population exploded and Chinatown became the place where immigrants reunited with their families but was equally a trap with the exploitation of sweatshop labor for those that settled. In addition to these poorer, mostly Chinese immigrants that settled in Chinatown, there were “Uptown Chinese” immigrants that hailed from Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Geographically separating themselves from their poorer counterparts, the “Uptown Chinese” may have lived outside of Chinatown but they did invest and buy up real estate in Lower Manhattan. In 1943, the Chinese were granted the ability to become citizens and the Chinese American community flourished politically. Among the Asian migrants, Korean immigrants entered New York City very often with professional backgrounds. Similar to the Russian Jews in Brooklyn, Korean immigrants replaced retiring Jewish and Italian markets and groceries. Mid-Manhattan, with thriving Korean businesses and restaurants, would serve as Koreatown but in a commercial as opposed to residential sense.

The Latino presence in New York City was originally characterized by Puerto Rican immigration. Puerto Ricans proved to be the dominant Latino group in New York City since their major migration to New York to join the post World War II industrial labor force. However, Puerto Ricans live in constant conflict with their Latino culture and American identity. While their migration peaked in the 1950s, it has been on the decline as other Latino groups challenge their dominance, particularly Dominicans. Dominicans, like Puerto Ricans, are relatively close to their native land but do participate in New York politics and contribute to the economy. In the factory, with the upward mobility or departure of Jewish and Italian immigrants, Dominican women filled in; although exploited, factory work was still a means of social mobility for them. Dominican women preferred to stay in New York City while most Dominican men dreamed of one day returning permanently back to the Dominican Republic. It was the women who united the Latino identity by building cultural bridges between groups like the Dominicans and Puerto Ricans through involvement and interactions in public locations like church or community board meetings. The result is locations like Corona, Queens where an amalgamation of ethnicities unite to represent a single Latino community.

Like the united Latino identity, the West Indian American Day Carnival promotes a pan-ethnicity among West Indians and more. West Indian immigrants tend to be classified as Black although they come from nations and communities where color was never a defining feature. West Indians have been “learning race” since their first migration to New York City in the 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance. Often, they would embrace their British ties in order to elevate themselves above the status of African Americans. They quickly learned that race trumps ethnicity with police brutality under Mayor Giuliani due to racial profiling. In 1977, West Africans attempted to politically separate themselves from the African American identity with the first cross-Caribbean club in support of a political candidate.

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Giuliani, contrary to previous New York City mayors, reflected conservative values and focused his efforts on the middle class. He emphasized “individual initiative and private enterprise” over public activism and even advocated for the privatization of public services (221). Giuliani referred to the social programs promoted by mayors before him as the “compassion industry” that only served to increase laziness at the expense of the hardworking. He was the first mayor to actually propose that New York State reduce funding for the city’s welfare and Medicaid programs. In 1995, Giuliani reduced the welfare roles, rejecting scores of applicants and eliminating over 600,000 people already on welfare. In addition, he turned the welfare centers into job centers as all able-bodied adult welfare recipients were now required to work for their stipends—an approach long overdue.

Inevitably, these reforms were criticized for being heartless with welfare recipients not being properly protected on job sites where they were working for their stipends and welfare recipients in college having to drop out of school in order to put in hours to receive their stipend. Giuliani’s many tax cuts helped businesses and wealthy private institutions but destroyed groups like the Human Resources Administration and the Health and Hospitals Corporation where the main benefactors were minorities.

Giuliani also targeted schools in his efforts to reform New York City through regularization and control. His major achievements included shifting the supervision of school security to the police department and implementing city wide testing to institute a sense of uniformity to the public school system and raise student standards. However, Giuliani also weakened the school system by drastically cutting schools’ operating and construction budgets while increasing disbursements for books and computers. In areas like Brooklyn and the Bronx where he was confronted with fierce opposition, Giuliani shifted school construction funds to areas where he was supported like Queens and Staten Island. Giuliani appointed Bronx Borough President and congressman Herman Badillo as special education monitor in the hopes of implementing a “standards movement” to routinize teaching and standardize the public school system. Opponents of this “standards movement” believed that implementing standards were restricting opportunities, especially for minorities and the poor in the wake of Badillo’s targeting of CUNY’s open admissions policy.

Giuliani overstepped his boundaries on several occasions when it came to his position as mayor. In 1999, Giuliani threatened to cut the Brooklyn Museum’s funds and end its lease after it mounted a portrait of the Virgin Mary that used dried elephant dung and pornographic cutouts. Giuliani’s defense was that the government should not be patronizing “offensive art,” but his attempt at cultural domineering was confronted with resentful backlash. While Giuliani’s First Amendment initiatives were reversed by the courts, controversy surrounding any of his proposals and movements were overshadowed by 9/11. The mayor, in a time of utter chaos, remained calm, toured Ground Zero, attended funerals and served as the face and father of New York City during this crisis which defined his mayoralty.

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.

Lucia Lopez

Is the protagonist, Emma Lou- like Irene- unreliable? (Choose 1 or 2 passages as evidence, if so)

In, “The Blacker the Berry,” Emma Lou describes her struggle as a very dark skinned African American woman living in a society where the lighter one’s skin is, the more value they have. However, as the novel progresses, one might begin to wonder whether Emma Lou is a reliable narrator, similar to Irene in the novel “Passing”. Her vision of what it means to have worth and her view of who the “right kind of people” are warped and cause her to have many moments in which she has hypocritical thoughts. In the beginning of the novel, Thurman describes the sorrow that came with being very dark at the time and the multitude of “solutions” Emma and her family would try.

“She wasn’t the only person who regretted her darkness either. It was an acquired family characteristic, this moaning and grieving over the color of her skin. Everything possible had been done to alleviate the unhappy condition, every suggested agent had been employed, but her skin, despite bleachings, scourg-ings, and powderings, had remained black—fast black—as nature had planned and effected.”

From this quote we can see that Emma Lou goes through a lot of  misery due to the color of her skin and it is implied that she wishes it wasn’t that way. However, as the novel progresses, we see another more critical side of Emma Lou. When she starts college at the University of South Carolina, she meets another very dark girl named Hazel. Although they go through similar struggles, Hazel is a much more jovial character, causing Emma Lou to reject her. Upon meeting her, Emma Lou reacted as such: “She resented being approached by any one so flagrantly inferior, any one so noticeably a typical southern darky, who had no business obtruding into the more refined scheme of things.”

Emma Lou, despite knowing the grievances that came with having very dark skin in a world where whiteness was worth, rejected Hazel because of her stereotypical behavior as a “southern darky.” Emma Lou had always purposely tried to prove that despite her skin color, she wasn’t really black in the sense that she was uneducated, jovial, etc. This is precisely what makes Emma Lou unreliable- she tries too much to prove herself to be different rather than criticize the stereotypes themselves.

I don’t know if I would exactly deem Emma Lou unreliable, but she certainly demonstrates a lot of ambiguities in her attitudes towards race that paint her as a pretty hypocritical and confused character.

For instance, she resents her dark skin and pure black features, yet she seeks black solidarity. While she hates being a dark-skinned girl herself, she has a strong desire to belong in the larger black community, which becomes clear when she goes to California to attend college. She expresses a strong interest in the black people living in California and really seeks out other black students at her university to befriend, yet when Hazel Mason befriends her, Emma Lou feels actual revulsion at her ‘vulgarity’ (Hazel says and does nothing vulgar, unless you classify imperfect English grammar and speaking loudly as particularly vulgar behavior) and does not want to be friends with her. Also, for someone who seems to care so much about establishing herself in and belonging to the black community, Emma Lou cares a lot about what the white students think of her, which can be seen in the way she monitors her speaking while talking to Hazel at the registrar’s office.