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Welcome to “The Peopling of New York City,” the second Macaulay Honors College seminar.  This course is the second in the Honors College IDC seminar series. Taking an inter-disciplinary approach, we will examine the dynamics of immigration and immigrant communities in the life and history of New York City. We will focus on the two great waves of immigration into the city: approximately 1880-1920 and 1965-present, with an emphasis on the latter. The course will revolve around a discussion of policy issues that affect immigration in New York, among them: work, industry, prejudice, religion and religious freedom, education, immigration law, pluralism and assimilation. Students will conduct research using texts (books, articles, periodicals, internet sources, archives, film, TV), but also visits to city neighborhoods, interviews and their own personal experiences. In addition to non-fiction reading and research, we will read one novel and use other artistic sources. Students will participate in class discussions, write papers, make multi-media presentations, blog, take an in-class exam, and contribute to a class project – the creation of a website using our own research, writing and production. This project will build on and incorporate the work we have done throughout the semester.

 

Header Photograph: Mulberry, Street, NYC, c1900. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division via Wikipedia Commons.