How Far We’ve Come

In this second chapter, Where They Live, one of the things that stood out the most was obviously the terrible condition that immigrants were forced to live in just a little over a hundred years ago. A hundred years is a very long time, but in this chapter, it is quite amazing to see how much has improved over the last century. As an immigrant myself, I could not imagine living in the conditions that Foner described. As Foner said, things that we expect to have like a warm bath or even a working toilet seemed like a treasure to those immigrants who lived in tenements. Some people complain about having to share a room with their sibling or not having a big enough bed, but some immigrants didn’t even have a bed, let alone their own room. When I compare the living conditions of those immigrants and living conditions of immigrants today, I feel very glad to not have to live through that. Although not everything is perfect for current immigrants, I’d say that anyone would agree things have most definitely improved. We take so many things for granted, that we don’t even realize how lucky we truly are until we see the absolute terror that some people lived through.

Another interesting thing that was in this chapter was the ethnic enclaves. Foner describe many changes that New York City went through, but even now immigrants still move into neighborhoods with people of their own ethnicity. One of the examples that Foner uses is Flushing. Sometimes when I walk around in Flushing and see all the signs in Chinese and mostly Asians walking around the streets, it almost feels like stepping into China for a moment. Not only with Flushing, many other neighborhood also gives off the same feeling of being in another country for even just a moment. However, Foner points out that in modern society, there are immigrants who chooses not to live within the ethnic enclave, that is definitely a change from before.

This chapter demonstrate the changes and the similarities of immigrants back then and now. Foner provided great details and examples for her message to get across. How much immigration has truly changed and how much has remained the same.