Peopling of NYC 2012

I found the readings about The Madonna of 115th Street and Race and Religion Among the Chosen People of Crown Heights particularly interesting because they were the ones that stressed religion the most this entire semester.  The two works’ discussions of religion, Catholicism and Judaism respectively, show how religion is a strong force and influence on people, who subsequently influence the cities and neighborhoods they live in.

It is truly a marker of NYC that it can hold both neighborhoods such as Italian Harlem and Jewish/black Crown Heights (and Chinatown, and Dominican Washington Heights, and the Mexican barrio, and…), and the religion and race of the people living in those areas affects each neighborhood; for example, the religion and race differences ware a major reason for the clash between the Jews and the blacks in Crown Heights.

The Catholic Italians of Italian Harlem created an entire culture where they lived, one of family, respect, unity–the domus.  Orsi argues that “in some way the Italian home and family, what I have been calling the domus, is the religion of Italian Americans.”  Here, he is arguing that religion does not necessarily have to mean the religious laws that one follows, but that the Italian home and family became the religion.  Furthermore, the festa is the ultimate display of the domus, and its grand presentation through the streets show the incredible impact this group of people have had on NYC.  It shows the significance of Italian values in American culture, and their commitment to these values, an admirable feature.

The Jews of Crown Heights also display this quality of commitment in their strong Orthodox practices.  Though their practices have caused multiple confrontations and some violence in their neighborhood of Crown Heights, they maintain their ties to Judaism, and the culture that comes with it.  Therefore, one’s religion affects his culture significantly, and the way a neighborhood develops subsequently.

The concept of segmented assimilation presented in the Zhou and Portes article as being shaped by systems of class and racial stratifications has several connections with Foner’s two chapters focusing on transnationalism and education for recent immigrants. Transnational immigrants are defined in the first chapter as individuals who sustain multi-stranded social relations that connect the societies of their place of origin and settlement. The second chapter explores the discrepancies and consistencies in education and schooling between the first great wave of immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century and the most recent wave of immigrants. Within this context, it is evident that education can severely constrain a recent immigrant in society as well as advance them significantly.

A transnational immigrant is fulfilling a greater purpose than just looking out for themselves when settling into the United States. They are concerned with the situation back home, whether it include their families, their work, or their government. Furthermore, they are pressured in one form or another to adapt to their new ‘home’ culture and to assimilate into the desired American culture that the Zhou and Portes article suggest is associated with the white middle class. With this in mind, they are likely to follow a path of assimilation unlike the traditional upward mobility path of severing ethnic ties and embracing white middle class culture as well as the downward mobility path that would include them adapting to native subcultures at the bottom tier of the social class structure. Instead they may be more selective about which aspects of the new culture they end up adapting to and intent on preserving immigrant behavior and values. Although transnational practices are generally seen in a positive light nowadays by keeping options open for migrants and allowing them to cope with the discrimination and prejudice they may face in their new societies, they also have some drawbacks. Financial obligations may drain resources essential for advancing in the new society, family separation may be a constant emotional burden, and the possibility of focusing more on the political landscape and its effect on the immigrant community in the new society than on the political needs back home.

An important socioeconomic indicator of the concept of segmented assimilation and the different paths an immigrant may take during the process of assimilation is educational attainment. In the chapter, Going to School, immigrants of the most recent wave tend to get seen in a negative light when the topic of education and schooling comes up, especially in comparison to their Jewish and Italian counterparts from a century ago. They are often seen as receiving special treatment and still not being able to excel academically. Moreover, the new institutions put in place to help immigrants adjust including ESL and Bilingual courses prevent immigrants from becoming real Americans. This may be the case for some immigrant individuals, but as education becomes the key to mobility in the United States, it is clear that most immigrants arrive to America with a positive attitude toward education and high hopes for their children. With that being said, some things are out of their control. One of them is overcrowding in public schools, especially on the grade school level where the chapter points out a significant problem in the immigrant neighborhood of Corona. Another problem is the public racial perceptions of new immigrants that can severely constrain their prospects. For instance, West Indians are commonly associated with native blacks and as a result find themselves in low-income neighborhoods without good schooling.

Whatever the case may be, education is essential for second generation immigrants and often determines their success and failure in their new society. It follows that an indicator of downward mobility is a child dropping out of school and in the process significantly lowering their occupational options. In response to education being so important, many Chinese and Korean children are driven by their parents to excel in school so that they can be successful as adults. By enrolling them in educational programs and study classes that come at no small cost financially, the hope is that they will be able to get ahead in the new society and experience upward mobility when they are of age.

An important myth about education that came up in Nancy Foner’s From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration was the myth that immigrants stressed their children to do well in school. Because of the stress that their parents put on them, these children do better in school and become excellent students. Although this myth may sound reasonable, the reality as elucidated by Foner was very different. Most of the children of Jewish and Italian immigrants of the last great wave received little education and faced racial barriers. Many teachers were not happy to teach these children due to racial assumptions. As time went on and social perspectives change, the immigrant children were not so different from any of the other children. It is important to understand the severity of the immigrant struggle even with students.

Although this myth that immigrants have high academic expectations for their children may be far-fetched or even stereotypical, I believe that it has some backing. My family has a history of immigration, and I think that with immigration comes a chance for a new beginning and new opportunities. There are more opportunities open to the children of immigrants than the immigrants themselves. When my parents decided to move to the United States they found more opportunity here for work and a decent lifestyle, but they also sought an opportunity for my brother and me to go to good schools. I think the same thing happens in many other families. When the parents do not have many opportunities they may look to their children to excel in education in ways that they could not. This may just be a type of parenting but I believe that the immigration is also a factor in how one perceives and stresses the pursuit of opportunity for one’s children.

From Nancy Foner’s “From Ellis Island to JFK” we can see how New York City has become a different place for the immigrants of today. Instead of trying to find jobs as soon as possible, many of the younger immigrants are faced with the grueling competition to get into good schools and get a good education. Whether it’s competing to get into a specialized high school or to get into a college, immigrants are finding themselves trying to get better jobs through higher education.

So why is this the case today? Even though it would be more convenient if every member of the family got a job to pay bills, the working age has become much higher than it was before. As a result, children end up going to school to get an education while the older members of immigrant families work. In addition to this, getting a job has become harder since a high school education is the minimum requirement for many decent paying jobs today. Overall, education has become of higher importance than it was before to get a job.

Since many of the younger immigrants are getting educations, it is easier to transcend the lower class and reach the middle and upper middle classes. It is even possible for an immigrant to reach the upper class by getting an education and taking up a high paying career such as a doctor or lawyer. However, for those immigrants that don’t go down that path, it is much harder to leave the lower classes.

In addition to education, race and ethnicity also plays a big role in social mobility. For example, from the book, one can see how those with an Asian background are able to move forward easier than some other groups. This can be attributed to the fact that some Asian immigrants come to America with a good education base. Nevertheless, in American society today, education is everything…Unless you win the lottery.

1)   How old are you?

2)   What is your ethnic background?

3)   Were you born in the United States?  If not, where?  When did you come here?

4)   What language(s) do you speak?

5)   What is your occupation?  Do you work in Jackson Heights?  If not, why?

6)   How has the neighborhood changed since you’ve lived here?  What changes have you observed?

7)   Do the various ethnicities intermingle?  Are there evident clashes?  Explain.

Henry Goldschmidt discusses the segregation, tension, and conflict between African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans and Lubavitch Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. He goes into the ongoing tension between the two groups that sometimes result in violence and later revenge. It’s important to understand the background of this conflict and how these two groups came to be where they are. “White flight” of white residents in East New York in the early 1960s, deliberately encouraged by the realtors and bankers, switched the demographics of neighborhoods like Crown Heights to be a primarily black neighborhood. The Lubavitch Hasidic Jews were a group that decided to stay during this transition and this resulted in an almost segregated community within this neighborhood.

Crown Heights consists of three primary groups. Lubavitch Hasidic Jews make up 6 to 8% of the community and up to 20% of the community in south Crown Heights where most of them live. Caribbean immigrants make up 65% of the population and African Americans make up 15% of the population. The Hasidic Jews stand out in this community as a primarily white community in this predominately black neighborhood. The difference that black residents see in the Jewish residents is primarily their race. The difference that Hasidic Jews see in black residents and everyone else is based on their religion.  Hasidic Jews in this neighborhood segregate themselves from non-jews or Gentiles. This difference in religion is more a difference in lineage due to the Jewish belief in their descent from the ancient Israelites. Their religion is mostly exclusive to those who were born into it and in this neighborhood it leads to conflict due to the segregation. Both sides of this conflict fail to cooperate and come to terms with their true differences and only rely on the prejudiced perception of each other.

In both Henry Goldschmidt’s Race and Religion Among the Chosen People of Crown Heights, and in Robert Orsi’s The Madonna of 115^th Street, there is a key idea that both of these books run by. It is the idea that religion and ethnicity are not things that “hide” themselves. Both books are based on the idea that religion in many cases is an idea that most people have a connection with. This special connection with your religion creates a strong bond which can either strengthen or deteriorate when coming to America as mentioned with the Italian American immigrants.

The Lubavitch Jewish people of Crown Heights have congregated because it is a place where most of them share the same religion and it is possible to practice their religion openly. Sometimes the problem with New York city, being so diverse, is that when your ethnicity and religion are so out in the open, you can be exposed to discrimination as seen with the Gavin Cato incident of the nineties. It is ironic that the principles in which this nation were founded upon, have led to so much strife and ethnic conflict.

The Italian American immigrants of a century ago were also like the Jewish community in Crown Heights and many other areas. They came together in one place because they had similar backgrounds. These people thought it was important to express their ethnic solidarity in the America that they immigrated to so that they could have a sense of pride within the cultural melting pot that is New York. Each year these Italians had a religious celebration which didn’t take place in their private houses, but on the streets of New York. While they were only displaying their devotion, they were still criticized by many.

All this makes us question if religion should be private or public? Should people be forced to keep their religions private, in the fear of creating more public discourse, or should people be able to practice their religion without discrimination?