Peopling of NYC 2012

While I myself do not fit the category or transmigrant or recent immigrant trying to cope with the advantages and disadvantages found in New York schools and culture, I can definitely relate today’s subject to many of my relatives’ and friends’ situations. My uncle lives in India but often comes to America for business- he holds only Indian citizenship and relates more to Indian culture, but he still knows the inner workings of American business quite well. One of my friends from high school lives here with here relatives while here parents, white-collar professionals, work in Taiwan, and does visit them from time to time- she arrived here when she was young and used to constantly think that her English was not up to par, though we completely believed that she spoke perfect English.  This situation shows how perspectives can differ- to some immigrants, the differences in speech and accents may appear too overwhelming to overcome, despite how well their progress may be coming along.

I don’t believe transmigration and transnationalism can hinder loyalty to a country. The only outcome of transnationalism may just be lack of extreme loyalty; transmigrants may be able to see the good and the bad in both or multiple countries- such nations such as the Dominican Republic seem to be taking full advantage of this fact, allowing for immigrants to America being allowed to hold seats in the Dominican Congress. Education may or may not provide an advantage unless one experiences the same grade or level of education (such as college) in both America and another country- even then, that may not give a thorough analysis of both countries. Still, the exposure helps, especially for those going into business or economics of some sort.

Though early 20^th century showed extreme levels of methods of assimilating students, we cannot argue that we do not have students assimilate today. Immigrant children are still required to learn English, regardless of the pace at which they learn, and learn American history and culture in depth. While we do celebrate diversity, I feel that we only make friends with people of different backgrounds as long as they have something in common, whether it be American music, movies, or activities (sports, games). Someone who harbors completely different and separate beliefs or interests will have a hard time getting by.

In this week’s readings of Nancy Foner’s From Ellis Island to JFK, the focus is on the development of education and transnationalism, whose changes mirror the changed nature of American society.

Both the system of education and it’s value have changed significantly. In the early 1900’s, most immigrant children received at eighth grade (at most). This was a result of a few factors. For one, education was not necessarily as important as it is nowadays. Today you need at least an undergraduate degree to get a high paying job, while a few decades ago you could more easily succeed with much less than that. In fact, Foner claims it’s a myth that early immigrants used education to rise to the middle class. Secondly, most immigrants could not afford to spend so much time learning; they had to work to help support their families and themselves. While the focus of educating immigrants tended to be aimed at assimilation, the focus is now on embracing multiculturalism and ethnic pride, with programs like “English as a Second Language.” It’s obvious our attitude towards education has changed, as well as our attitude towards immigration in general.

Transnational is the processes by which immigrants maintain links to both their societies of origin and settlement. These types of relations have, like education, significantly changed with time. Whereas it used to be much more difficult to communicate, travel, and conduct business with other nations overseas, technological advancements have progressed and intensified these processes. Dual citizenship opportunities have also allowed immigrants to retain stronger connections with their countries of origin. As America progressed, we become more tolerant, and embrace the idea of multiculturalism. Because diversity is now viewed in a more positive light, transnationalism is as well; it is accepted, and even encouraged, to retain multiple identities.

Personally, I understand the concept that new immigrants (nowadays) come to America with a higher level of education, technical, and language skills, as my family immigrated here about eight years ago. We do also retain transnational ties with both South Africa and Israel, made easy by phones and planes. I’m sure had we immigrated 70 years ago, our situation would have been significantly different.

In Nancy Foner’s From Ellis Island to JFK, she devotes an entire chapter to describing the education of immigrants and how it has changed since the turn of the twentieth century. She debunks the myth that the immigrants of today are doing much worse than the immigrants of the past.
The immigrants of the past came in different circumstances and to a different America than immigrants in the current times. In the past immigrant children had to help work to help out their family financially, the age for employment was lower and even if they were not of age papers could be falsified. Also, the standards of education today are much higher than the standards set in the beginning of the twentieth century. So while the programs developed to assimilate immigrants today are more helpful than the way immigrants were expected to assimilate before, the current wave of immigrants also have much more to learn. Education today also holds much more weight. Nowadays one cannot get a good job without a high school diploma, this was not the case in the past. Now education is a path to upward mobility more than ever, it is more of a necessity than it was back then.
What I found interesting was that some immigrant groups do better than others academically. Foner attributes social class, race, ethnicity, and the education of parents.
This seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. Asians are more likely to assimilate into middle class white neighborhoods whereas West Indians tend to assimilate in neighborhoods that are worse off. This fuels the stereotypes that Asians are intelligent, which aids them in climbing up the social ladder. Also, schools in Asian countries tend to be better which helps put the children ahead. Asian families tend to be better off financially as well, so they can afford send their children to extra classes to improve their scores. This creates a cycle in which Asians assimilate into better neighborhoods, go to better schools, and move upward whereas West Indians and immigrants of other ethnicities assimilate into lower class neighborhoods, attend worse schools and stay at the same level as their parents. This is partly why Asians continue to do better and other ethnicities stay the same: segmented assimilation.

In Nancy Foner’s “From Ellis Island to JFK,” she discusses transnationalism and compares the transnational migrants of 100 years ago to the ones of today.  Many aspects of immigration are different from back then, mainly technology and education.

Though I am not myself a transnational migrant, nor my parents, I agree with and understand everything that Foner was saying.  Being a transnational migrant today has a completely different meaning than it did a century ago.  Today, one can simply send an e-mail or use the telephone to keep in contact with their family in another country.  Back then, one would have to wait weeks, months, maybe even years at a time before being able to go back home or contact their family.

Education, or lack thereof, also played a major part of transnationalism, and still continues to today.  Asian families were generally more well-to-do back then, so had more money for education than families from other countries, such as Italy and Spain.  Asia also has better schools than we do in America, so they were already a step ahead when they came and migrated here.  However, the influx of immigrants leads to overcrowding of schools, which is a major problem today, especially as so many schools are being forced to close because of inadequate attendance.  Overcrowding eventually leads to lower grades, so the immigrants who came to America for a better life are not having as much of a better life as they had hoped for.  Immigrants who came to America did not expect this, so it is hard for them to adjust to doing worse in school than in their home country, in some cases.  It is hard to form a better life for yourself when you cannot even get a better education, which is one of the most important aspects of a “better life.”

Second generation immigrants are an interesting group of individuals who have tremendous opportunities in front of them.   In, The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants by Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, the authors detail the second generation as a new group, that has many chances and opportunities that their parents, and immigrants of the past did not have.

The poem that opens the passage is a good indication that the second generation of immigrants is a group who are going to attempt to rise to the top, and not be complacent with lower class.  As the poem describes, “like Pepsi/ a new generation/ of Haitian determination-/ I’m the Herbie that you’re looking for.” Children of immigrants, or children who moved her when they were little, are ambitious and are not satisfied with being marginalized.  As the article claims, the second generation are not satisfied with menial jobs like their parents had.  The second generation are asserting themselves as every bit American as someone who can no longer trace their roots back to another country.

In addition, the second generation today appears to be educating themselves to be equal to their non immigrant counterparts.  The average amount of schooling for someone with native born parents is 12.0 years.  The average amount of schooling for a person with Immigrant parents is 11.5 years.  The difference does not appear to be significant.  Also, the average high drop out rate for people with immigrant born is slightly less than the rate at which children of native born parents drop out of school.

With an eye at the top, this group of people seem as if they are ready to move upward along the economic ladder.  I believe this is purely do to their determination.  As the poem says, “new generation/ of Haitian determination…” This new immigrant is a source to be reckoned with!

This week I’m going to focus on the Nancy Foner reading on transnationalism. Foner compares transmigrants during the turn-of-the century to the transmigrants today, with respect to the extent of their relations back home, political ties, economic ties, cultural ties, and much more.

According to Foner, many historians believe that transnationalism is a fairly new idea that just began to emerge. However, transmigrants have existed since the turn-of-the century and probably even beforehand. One major example of transmigrants during the end of the 19th century were the Italians. Due to the economic hardships in Italy, it was not uncommon for Italians to come to America to find work, accumulate a sum of wealth, and bring it back home to purchase land or support their family. Italians would travel back and forth by boat, and did so more often when prices became cheaper. The Italian government even condoned such transnationalism as they reaped the economic benefits, so they set laws that allowed immigrants to easily regain italian citizenship after becoming an American. Besides economic advantages, Italians returned back to Italy due to close family ties, similar to numerous other immigrants such as Jews. However Jews were not as likely to return home due to the vast amount of oppression they would receive in their homeland, but this did not stop them from forming organizations that sent money to Jews back home who suffered from the repercussions of war.

Despite common belief, transmigrants are not as common as they were in the past. Although there is now dual citizenship and interrelations between countries is encouraged for business, people are not as likely to return back to their country of origin as often as they did in the past. The change in this trend is greatly due to the advancements of technology. Today, it is much easier to communicate to people back at home over telephone, email, and, in emergencies, a cheap ride by plane can have someone back home in a matter of hours. This sort of technology is far less time consuming as sending letters over month’s time and taking long boat rides. People can now run businesses in their home country, mothers can send advice to those taking care of their children, and people can watch concerts from their home country without ever leaving America. Also, culture is far less suppressed America and actually encouraged to be displayed through festivals and celebrations so America can feel more like home. Nonetheless, there are still those who do return home to do great things. Some who went to school in America, went back home to become political leaders in their home country. Others come to America to open a business, and then return home to reap the benefits. And then there are those who simply miss their homeland.

As you can see, there are numerous differences between the transmigrants in the past as opposed to today. Technology is the greatest factor that distinguishes these people from two different time periods. In the future, people will only further utilize dual citizenship and transnationalism in order to gain political, economical, or social advantages.

Developments in both transnationalism and education for immigrants over the past hundred years almost perfectly embodies the changing nature of the terms “Americanization”–and, to some extent, the very nature of America itself. Where immigrants were once punished for speaking their native language in school, and thrust into English-speaking classes with inadequate preparation, many today are taught science, math and history in the same languages they speak at home. Where immigrants were once chastised for keeping ties to their countries of origin on the grounds that this represented a lack of identification with the United States, transnational ties are now thriving and are fully acknowledged by everyone from the politicians who campaign for their votes to the cable TV channels that set up programming designed to appeal to them. As I read about how the country had tried far harder in previous decades to get immigrants to assimilate, whether through social pressure or even force, my first reaction was that this country was never really designed to have a distinctive identity that everyone “must” assume. The country was founded on the principle of giving everyone the freedom to conduct their own lives more or less as they wished, and to practice their own culture and religion as they saw fit. If anything, then, our national identity should not be a mold which we try to force others to fit. Instead, to be true to the principles that the U.S. was designed for, it should be the wide gamut of ethnicities, languages, and ways of life that the America of today seems to encourage far more through its acceptance and assistance of immigrants and their ways of life.

Nancy Foner adequately summarizes many of the experiences held by immigrants in relation with schooling, and their connections to their homeland in these two chapters of the book. Foner mentions that transnational migrants of a hundred years ago, and those of today both still have the fundamentals of being transnational, but the means of doing so has changed vastly because of technological advances. These technological advances make it far easier to communicate; by the push of a few buttons on your telephone you can connect with your friends and family back home or even make “major decisions” in familial discussions. When I read this, I agreed 100% with everything that was being said. Although I am not a transnational immigrant, my parents definitely are, as they are always calling back home to see what is happening and to be updated on all of the current events. Even though transnationalism is still well alive today, and despite all the technological advances, it seems that people of today, have a less stronger sense of transnationalism of the Italians and Jews of a hundred years ago because of all the discrimination people faced back then.

Schooling was also a central aspect of many of these transnational immigrants who believed that in order to move up the social ladder, you need to move on to higher levels of education. The major difference between schooling for immigrants today and schooling for immigrants of a century ago, was that today there are many more opportunities for immigrants to gain education. The overall availability of higher levels of education has increased along with various programs intended to help immigrants learn English. New schools are even being implemented in order to aid these immigrants in this process of assimilating themselves into American culture. Unfortunately, with the influx of immigrants, came overcrowding of public schools which is becoming a huge problem. As a result of overcrowding of public schools, many immigrants are dropping out because they aren’t getting enough attention, which leads to poor grades. Education is many times the key to success, and without education, many immigrants will find it difficult to move up socially as Tyler said. Continuing transnational ties is made more meaningless without an education because you come to America to make progress, but without an education, it is hard to do so.

I was totally able to relate to this week’s chapters in Foner’s  From Ellis Island to JFK because they really read like the story of my immigrant life in New York City.  I came here and maintained my ties with Israel, and as technology progressed this became easier and more viable.  I still remember my uncle sending my family fax messages of drawings with writing such as “We miss you, we love you. Come visit soon.”  And we tried to visit, although it was hard.  Ticket prices are up in the sky, never mind for a family of five.

In the NYC public school system I learned English through the ESL program.  I still remember my first day of first grade and the first time I ever wrote my name in English; the dot above the i in my last name came out enormous!  Looking back on it now, where I was enrolled in school really made a difference in my learning.  Had I been enrolled in the other local elementary school, I would have been around very different people who are not as motivated to learn, and I believe that that would have affected my learning.  Therefore, I don’t believe geography and its effect on students was given enough emphasis in the chapters we read.  Just in my neighborhood of Fresh Meadows there were several elementary school choices, each with a different set of students, and those students affect the new immigrants coming into the schools.

While it is wonderful that the NYC public school system has improved in graduation rates, programs, and opportunities, I agree with Foner that it’s got a long way to go.  Again, in terms of geography, I know that my school had pretty solid graduation rates, but go to the high school just five minutes away and that number changes drastically.  Our dropouts rates are one of the highest in the country!  Is that because of the high immigrant numbers that we have, as suggested?  Maybe, but a lot of it is about motivation.  I, along with a lot of people in our class, graduated from high school as immigrants to this country.  The fact that we’ve made it to Macaulay Honors College just shows that immigrants today can (and should!) thrive, especially because of the increased number of opportunities available today that their grandparents never had.

When I came across Nancy Foner’s discussion about the transnational patterns of Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I was quite surprised. Everything I had learned about Jewry in Eastern Europe (my ancestry) told me that pervasive anti-Semitism and the difficulty of Jews to work and integrate into Eastern European society (particularly Russia) made it a very undesirable place to live. Many Jews felt their predicament could be remedied if they emigrated to America where the streets are “paved with gold” and move permanently along with their families and sever their ties to a country of origin that has treated them badly. It is therefore surprising to me that such a high percentage as 15 to 20% of Jewish immigrants between 1880-1900 went back.

The Jews are the classic and oldest example of a diasporic people. They have experienced exile from Israel for nearly 2,000 years and throughout history
have gone from country to country getting kicked out due almost exclusively to anti-Semitism. Because of this, I never believed it possible that Jews could ever be transmigrants to any Eastern European country, since our psychological and physical attachment to our host countries from the times of the Crusades (11th century) all the way to 19th century Europe has never been a truly permanent phenomenon where we feel totally attached culturally and politically since we’ve always had that feeling that we may get kicked out again. So I don’t really think that “transmigrants” might be the best word to use for the Jews in 19th and 20th century Eastern Europe.

If anything, it is far more appropriate to label modern American Jews who move to Israel and Israeli Jews who move to America as transmigrants. My knowledge of both these types of people (such as Zohar) shows that these people forge deep connections to both countries and frequently visit the other country they are not living in permanently to visit family. I would also say that both countries treat Jews much more nicely than the European countries of old did and thus allow for greater cultural, political, and familial ties that are necessary for transnationalism to take place. As Zohar has said numerous times in seminar, she visits her relatives in Israel from time to time despite her having moved to America, which makes her an excellent example of a transmigrant. I would argue this is not the case with the Jews of Eastern Europe.