ABIN

Today, Manhattan is one of the most coveted boroughs in the United States. It is the financial and economic center of the world as well as one of the most cultured and modern cities in the United States. Within all these landscapes and beautiful skylines, Manhattan has a beautiful history behind it.

Currently, the Upper East Side is one of the most affluent neighborhoods in New York City and Harlem is a center for African-American culture. This was not always so. There was a time when Manhattan was farms and rural neighborhoods. In You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan, Jeff Kisseloff explores the history of Manhattan from the 1890s to WWII.

Most history books have the same approach to story telling. The author goes in a chronological fashion and recounts facts about the event. This narrative is very plain, and unless genuinely interested in the topic, very hard to follow. Kisseloff writes an oral history of Manhattan that contains the voices of ordinary men and women that lived during 1890s to WWII. The book is broken into ten parts and each part represents an area in Manhattan (Harlem, Lower East Side, Chelsea, etc.).  He starts off every part with a brief history of the area and then provides narratives of different people that lived in the area.

The book is like a collection of tales. The main focus of the book is not to provide a history of Manhattan. Instead, Kisseloff wanted to preserve the tales of one of the most remembered generations of our time. This generation witnessed a cultural revolution in African American history and shaped the current layout of Manhattan. They lived in old tenements and low-rise apartments. As we lost this generation to time, Kisseloff wanted to capture the tales they had to tell. That’s the point of this book: preserve the tales told by ordinary men and women about one of the most defining times in the history of Manhattan.

In the Harlem section, Elton Fax talks about his first visit to Harlem and his encounter with the giant police man, Lacy, on 125 Street.  Lacy was a big black traffic cop that stopped blacks and whites alike. Seeing a black man in authority was one of the most memorable thoughts in the mind of Elton Fax. Anecdotes like that of Elton Fax create a sense of nostalgia in the book. It creates an imagery of some old timers sitting around a fireplace and recounting their favorite stories.

That is what I liked most about this book. There is no defined way the reader is supposed to feel. It is a very raw piece of work. He gives us a brief history and then some personal anecdotes about the place. After reading the tales, we can have our idea about the place. It is sort of like painting. In high school, I helped my fellow classmates in my art class. Even though we all had the same topic (which was the human skeleton) to draw, all of our drawings were completely different. The details and facts behind the topic were the same for everyone, but all of us had a different way of thinking about the human skeleton. Personal anecdotes and experience allow our brain to shape the world around us.

One of the negatives about the book is the constant change in perspectives. At times, within one page, there were almost three or four narratives. The sudden narrative changes make it very difficult to follow. The length of the book is also another concern. The numerous narrations resulted in a very long and lengthy book. The different narration is also the best of part of the book. The oral history provides a new way to look at history and a new way to learn.

The theory of constructivism calls for learning based on a leaner’s active participation in the learning process. Kisseloff wants the reader to learn about the rich history of Manhattan. In order to do that, he depends on third party narrations and personal anecdotes. These anecdotes incite the reader to formulate their own history of Manhattan.

In an Upper West Side story, Bullets Bressan talks about the Sheffield Farms. As a kid, Bressan went to the farm to get milk and he always loved the cream that collected at the top of the milk bottle. In the Northern Manhattan story, William Exton recounts his fight to preserve the Inwood Hill Park. Exton served as the trustee and treasurer of the Municipals Arts Society and fought to prevent a road through Inwood Hill Park. In the East Side story, Vinnie Caslan recounts playing stickball in the sidewalks. He was afraid to play in the sidewalks because of the police. The cop knew his parents and he would tell his parents if he did anything wrong.

These three stories are the best examples of how the book shapes the way the reader think. Bressan’s story reminded me of the farms that used to be in Manhattan. Exton’s story reminded me of the parks and nature that is so dear to Manhattan. Finally, Caslan’s story reminded me of the friendliness and closeness in our communities. Although these stories do not directly provide the history of Manhattan, they give us a quick look into how people lived once upon a time.

BRIAN

Joseph Berger, author of The World in a City, has seemingly always had affection for New York City culture and diversity. At the ripe young age of eight, Berger stumbled upon a guidebook of New York City and decided to take a day trip, walking ten miles back and forth across Manhattan. The memories of the city’s diversity, richness, and allure has never left Berger, who now works as a neighborhood correspondent for the New York Times. In fact, he spent three years trekking across New York City as an adult, interviewing people and gathering information on the post-1960s-immigration New York City for a book, A World in a City. By writing this book, Berger hoped to show the history of and capture the dynamic New York City landscape before it changes again.

When writing about dense topics such as history, immigration, and culture, it can be easy for an author to present his findings in a textbook or research paper-like manner. However, Berger writes out his work to be like a written documentary. Like a documentary, The World in a City follows a logical progression and presents an argument with supporting evidence from start to end. Berger started off with a neighborhood of interest – Astoria – and slowly got around to exploring and analyzing other areas in New York, ending with the Lower East Side. He also throws in a chart at the end of each chapter that gives the book a reference guide-like feel, listing important sites in each neighborhood and pointing out places of interest. However, he doesn’t write about every neighborhood in New York City; rather, he specifically chose neighborhoods with defining characteristics that became significantly altered by immigration starting in 1965.

By focusing on such neighborhoods, Berger was able to present his theory that neighborhoods in New York City are constantly changing with each new wave of immigrants in and migrations out, supporting his claims with evidence from interviews and observations (just like a documentary would). The evidence he uses doesn’t just support his argument, however; it often provides insight into what life is like for people living in neighborhoods during and after a time of drastic ethnical and cultural change.

As a documentary-style book, I found that The World in a City did a remarkable job of presenting a wealth of information in an engaging manner without being overwhelming. At no point did I feel lost or felt that too much information was being presented. Part of the reason I felt that way was because each chapter was almost an independent reading. If I had so desired, I could begin reading at any chapter in the book and not feel lost as long as I had read the introduction. Furthermore, Berger seamlessly integrated interviews, statistics, and observations in showing both how life have changed for neighborhoods after immigration as well as the different lifestyles people in each neighborhood take.

As Berger tours Ditmas Park, for example, he notes the diversity of the area after the immigration waves –Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Latinos living in the same area. Diversity is usually received in a positive light, but resident Paul Feldman complain that all the diversity leads to a lack of diversity; people only want to associate and socialize with people of their own race and background, leading to a lack of cultural integration. On the other hand, Afghans who settled in Flushing seem more willing to integrate American culture into their lifestyles and let their own culture seep into Flushing itself, building mosques and starting shish kebab stands. Coming from Afghanistan, most families stress the importance of women being married off at a young age and not seeking higher education. However, as they spent more time in America, they started to realize the importance of education in moving up in American society and have allowed daughters to attend college. Furthermore, women are starting to find their spouses on their own – through school or other means – and get their families to set up the marriage so that it looks like the marriage was arranged, showing an integration of American dating culture with their own culture. With so much firsthand information, Berger doesn’t need to state any of his claims that I mentioned before; it’s obvious how neighborhoods have changed from immigration.

As well as Berger manages to present his findings, however, I question whether presenting his findings in a single, 300-page book split into multiple chapters is the most effective way of getting his points across. Such a method of presentation has its upsides to causal readers and publishers – the book can be read in a single sitting or split across multiple readings since each chapter is almost self-sufficient and it is easier for publishers to print and sell at a reasonable price point. However, for people who may be interested in learning more about New York City’s immigration history, a series of books, each touching upon a selection of neighborhoods sharing similar characteristics, such as demographic profile, would have been more effective at presenting Berger’s argument. At many points while reading the book, I felt that Berger could have written more about a specific neighborhood. For example, he didn’t talk about Flushing’s largest population – Chinese-American immigrants! While this was a one-time occurrence (missing a part of a neighborhood), it led me to believe Berger had so much more to tell, especially since he spent three years researching New York City and interviewed dozens of people in each neighborhood he visited.

Weighing both the pros and cons of The World in a City, I would recommend anyone from a casual tourist to a New York City history buff to read the book (with a note to the latter audience to seek more detailed material). The book does a great job at it’s goal – showing how New York City has the diversity of the world after the immigration waves of the mid 1900s, and it’s especially a useful pick-up read for tourists looking to learn about a neighborhood before or after visiting one.

CHIDI

Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society by Gwen Kinkead tells the behind-the-scene story of Chinatown in the late 20^thcentury. Intrigued by the mystery surrounding Chinatown and its inhabitants, Kinkead embarked on a “detective story” journey to piece together the puzzle of what she calls “virtually a nation unto itself,” (Kinkead 3). She accomplished as much of her goal as possible through a series of interviews, recaps of the personal stories of some Chinatown residents, and using her own personal experience in Chinatown.

Kinkead’s book is divided into three sections: The Social Structure, The Chinese Connection, and Group Portrait, respectively. In the first section, The Social Structure, her main focus is on the circumstances surrounding life in Chinatown in the 20^thcentury that made “most of its inhabitants lead lives segregated from the rest of America,” (Kinkead 3). Kinkead discovers through her research that the isolation of Chinatown during its growth was strongly tied to its inhabitants’ ethnocentric history and centuries old mistrust and dislike of foreigners. She also uses section one to address the social hierarchy in Chinatown, the biases of and against its inhabitants, how foreign the concept of freedom is to Chinese immigrants, the importance of money to Chinese, the exploitation of labor in Chinatown, and the issue of Chinese organized crime. Moreover, Kinkead emphasizes in this section that many of the inhabitants of Chinatown, at the time her book was written, were little more than “prisoners of Chinatown,” (Kinkead 27).

In The Chinese Connection, Kinkead fleshes out the issue of Asian crime and the impact it had on American society. She brings to light a lot of controversial topics in this section and in the next——topics such as drugs, smuggling, and the keeping of concubines. In addition, section three—Group Portrait—focuses on the culture of Chinatown. Kinkead explains in detail about celebrations; academic, family, and social expectations of individuals; the long-standing practice of Chinese medicine; and the beginnings of assimilation. More interestingly, she highlights the art of eating.

One recurrent theme throughout Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society is revolution. Throughout the book, there are little side stories of individuals speaking out against mistreatment by the tongs (gangs) or seeking help from American authorities to control happenings within Chinatown. On page 56, Kinkead mentions the 1969 demonstration in Chinatown by a leftist group that “agitated for the establishment of diplomatic relations [of the US] with the People’s republic and the dropping of recognition of Taiwan as the sole legitimate government of China.” In chapter 20, she talks about democratic revolutionaries of China, such as “Wu’er Kaixi former chairman of the student leaders in Tiananmen square,” coming to America for hiding and then secretly starting up activism work again, (Kinkead 190).

I found Kinkead’s book mildly interesting. It was well put together and organized, and the structure was such that instead of sounding like a historical account of Chinatown, her book gave of the feeling of being the diary of someone recounting his or her experiences in Chinatown. While I did not feel any particularly strong emotions while engaging in the reading ofChinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society, I am sure that is not the case with Kinkead’s readers at the time of the book’s publishing. Rather than being a historical recounting, the issues in Kinkead’s book were very relevant at the time of publishing and Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society was sure to have gathered a massive reading audience interested in learning about a people and culture foreign to them. Even now, there are some who would feel strongly towards the information divulged in Kinkead’s book, though it is over two decades old. From what I gleaned in Kinkead’s book and from a friend of Chinese origins, certain parts of Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society may be viewed as an unwelcome exposure of aspects of Chinese culture meant to be kept secretive; for example, information about the Chinese mafia, concubines, and so on.

Overall, Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society was a good depiction of Chinatown from an outsider’s point of view. However, I feel that in order to accurately illustrate Chinatown, or any other ethnic group and culture, one has to be a denizen of Chinatown, or at least a part of the culture.

CHRISTIAN

From Ellis Island to JKF: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration by Nancy Foner
Book Review

If one looks at past immigration and immigration in the modern age, there are a multitude of differences in people immigrating, the process, and the intent.  Nancy Foner, a Sociology Professor at Hunter College as well as a writer, enjoys working with comparative immigration, which her book, From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration, contains a large amount of as the title suggests (“Nancy Foner”).  Foner mentions the differences in perception of immigration within the introduction of her work; that the immigrants of the 1800s tend to be viewed as the ones that did the really hard work to create a place for themselves in America and that immigrants in the 1900s had it easy in comparison.  Foner believes that this is simply due to the inevitable glorification of past events, which occurs in all parts of history, and in order to remedy this, a comprehensive comparison is required.  Filled with facts and figures, which is to be expected of a Ph.D and writer/editor of 16 books on immigration, Foner attempts to inform the masses of how immigration once was and how immigration is now to further define the differences and similarities of the two waves of immigration that have become mixed together over time.  I personally felt it was a bit bland but for those that find history exciting or are even just a little curious on their general roots in New York immigration, Foner succeeds in encompassing a large amount of data of different times and ethnicities in a style that is easy to digest for most readers.  The book itself seems tailored to answer the burning questions that come across a person’s (or at least my own) mind when faced with the topic of past immigration.

Immigration is a rather large concept to write on, which explains how Foner found enough content to write and edit 16 or so books on aspects of immigration.  Foner does a good job in fitting as much information on the immigrants of both eras into the chapters.  At times this can be somewhat of a disadvantage as the large amount of data that needs to be processed in a few sentences does require a few repeated readings (and in my case, lead one to an early slumber).  The large amount of information that is included under immigrant life is a disadvantage in itself as Foner mentions in her own introduction that she would not be able to focus on all the aspects of immigrant life within the book.  She may just be covering New York but she goes into great detail in comparison to other books that I have read before.  She goes into certain ethnicities and analyzes their education, status, reasons for immigration, areas of residence, and many more facts that I personally would not feel like researching or know all that much about.  It is a lot, but she does well in fitting as many facts that the overall chapter theme deals with. On that note, she does a good job in organizing the massive amount of information that she does manage to squeeze in and it feels easy enough to navigate.

The book is divided in several chapters that go in a logical order: the first chapter asks the questions “Who They Are and Why They Have Come”, the next chapter asks “Where They Live”, next covers “The Work They Do”, then it begins to go into certain issues such as “Immigrant Women and Work”, “Transnational Ties”, “Going to School”, and finally a “Look Backward-and Forward”.  Each part is straightforward in its direction (the title of the chapter literally tells you what it’s about to focus on) and if you have a question that falls under one of the categories, it’s easy to find.  For example, if one were curious about what ethnicities and people came over during a certain period, then one would merely have to look in the chapter that asks the question in its titles.  Foner does what she can in order to give readers a wider view of New York immigration; she describes that certain aspect of life as it was for immigrants in the 1800s and immigrants in the later half of the 1900s to cover both eras of immigration.  She even goes out of the way to piece together why they are similar/different and to what extent for the reader.

Just listing fact after fact wouldn’t be a very compelling read but Foner included little anecdotes of immigrants’ story to both strengthen her assertions on what immigrant life was like as well as give a break from facts and figures.  It ends up being reminiscent of being told of the old days by a grandparent.  In addition, the charts that she includes are on topic and formatted well.  As for the writing style, she chooses to use does not seem to be one that is too complicated which I personally enjoyed.  I recall reading papers that use terminology that left me completely clueless, but Foner, possibly taking her goal of giving New York immigration a wider understanding into account, uses terms that I feel would be able to be understood by most if not all readers.  As I stated before, I found certain areas to be bland; however, the fact that it was still generally easy to understand made it a lot more bearable than it would have been if she threw a load of complicated terms and concepts without explanation into the mix.

All in all, Nancy Foner’s From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration is a good book with plenty of information should you ever need to write a paper or research into New York immigration.  Foner sets out to inform people on New York immigration and there is plenty of information in the book that it is close to impossible to not learn something new about New York immigration from reading it.  Written in a somewhat personal yet professional lecture style, it draws in an interested reader in and throws information at the sleep deprived college student writing a paper.  The information is successfully presented in a writing style that does not confuse the reader with unnecessarily complicated terms and the anecdotes of actual immigrants of the era give a detailed mental picture.  I may find it a little cumbersome and boring at times but there is no ignoring that Foner does well in organizing and tailoring a topic that is sometimes difficult to follow for an audience that may not be as interested in immigration as she is.

CHRISTINA

Triangle The Fire that Changed America- Book review

By David Von Drehle

“Underpaid” and “overworked,” seemed to be the vast theme of the employees in the shirtwaist factory during the early 1900; hours were long, space was limited and air was anything but pure. David Von Drehle’s novel, Triangle the Fire that changed America gave the reader the unsugar-coated truth about the shirtwaist industry leading up to the largest New York City tragedy before September 11^th, 2001, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.  In about 15 minutes, killing 146 of these over labored workers, this fire truly “changed America.”

Located at 27 Washington Place, the workers at the time were
nearly all Jewish immigrants, called “greenhorns,” averaging 84 hours a week at the factory, Monday
through Saturday. The workers slaved on women’s clothing referred to as “shirtwaists,” or simply “blouses,” for $15 a week in wages. At the time, the factory was under the command of two men Max Blank and Isaac Harris, though they shared the same space, and toiled the same business, it was as if they lived in an entirely distinct world from their laborers. There was an overwhelming clash of priorities between the elite business owners and the poor immigrants of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. The novel provides a vivid memory of the day of this tragedy but also, a loud portrait of the entire age.

David Von Drehle primarily explains the political atmosphere at the time and how the trade unions had been working to organize the Triangle Factory. He goes on the describe how and why people immigrated to New York City, highlighting specific people like Clara Lemlich’s journey from the Ukraine. She was a leader of may uprisings, including the massive strike of the shirtwaist workers in 1909, which included more then 20,000 people. He successfully describes the fusion of the suffrage movement for women with the growing labor movement among women workers.

The author gives a wholesome description of all the major people involved in the tragedy, including stories of the workers who jumped to their death, the owners of the factory, the troubled workers who survived and the people who tried to help others survive on that historic day. David Von Drehle gathered  the historical information of these workers from the “Report of the Joint Relief Committee”(Von Drehle, pg. 298). He was also able to read the one known remaining transcript of the trial of Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, the owners of the Triangle Factory (Von Drehle, pg. 290).

The book also investigates into the governmental actions after the horrific fire as some politicians worked after the fire to promote and increase the safety of workers. Frances Perkins, who worked under Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a eyewitness to the fire. She worked with Tammany Hall’s Al Smith, who grew into a dominant political figure in New York at the time. She carried the legacy of the Triangle fire, later to pass it onto Roosevelt himself as he rooted his “New Deal.” It was Roosevelt who brought the urban liberalism to its full powers as he refined the American government to become a protector of its people (Von Drehle, pg. 259-263). The novel is then concluded with a complete list of the Triangle fire victims.

This novel is not just one of history and information, but it is filled with a personal story line relatable to the reader. I think the author successfully gives the reader an informative and gratifying replay of the time period. One of the strongest outlets of the story is that the author takes the reader deep into the twentieth century, leaving no detail out, but by mesmerizing descriptions, the reader is left in awe. Besides detailing the extreme play by play of the fire, he successfully reestablishes the political fallout and a fascinating, thorough, description of the proceeding trial. I find the most intriguing and lasting imageries are those of the young casualties whose lives were quenched in only a few minutes. I have used this noteworthy technique of imagery in my own writings and teachings of events before and believe it is a great method to use to draw readers into the theme, and become personally involved in the plot. David Von Drehle also includes pictures of the background and building setup in the novel, which is also something I have incorporated before, and was great for the reader to weave both the imagery with the actual photos. One aspect of the novel that may have been more interesting was the predictability of the novel. If Von Drehle began his novel with the intense scene of the fire, it may have been interesting to see the novel work rearward as opposed to his style choice.

The theory identified in this book is most relatable to the concept of corruption. As pictorial and remarkable the book portrays the history, it is hard to remember that these harsh realities were brought by unjust powers, leading to events bound to happen. A part of this theory noteworthy is that situations must get worse before improving, as America, sadly, needing this event to jumpstart reform. Examples of this concept would be the fire itself, the corruption of government and the portrayal of a business owner. The fire caused much distress to families, as they lost loved ones. This corrupt and preventable event was pivotal for better conditions in the future. The fraudulent government polices and powers were uncovered, leading to a new type of progressivism. The inhuman character of business owners was exposed, turning a new page on what it entailed to operate a successful business. These atrocious events caused much mayhem and wretched stories, but in turn, we are able to see the veracity that disastrous situations may bring .

CHRIS

From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration

About The Author:

Nancy Foner is a distinguished professor of sociology at Hunter College whose main area of interest is immigration. Foner is the author and/or editor of sixteen books, several of which, including the book which will be discussed in the following section, focus on the comparative study of immigration, that is, comparing the immigration stories of different groups of people. Foner is also a member of several immigrant-centric committees and is on the editorial board of several different journals on immigration.

Book Review:

In her book From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration, Nancy Foner compares the two biggest waves of immigration to New York, the first of which lasted from 1880-1920 and the second of which began in the 1960s and has continued up to the present day. The first wave of immigrants consisted of mostly people of Italian and Russian Jewish descent, while the second wave of immigrants includes Dominicans, Mexicans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, and Jamaicans. The first group of immigrants came to New York by boat through Ellis Island, while the second group has been and will continue to be arriving by plane at JFK Airport, hence the title of the book, which in itself insinuates the comparative nature of the book. It is ultimately Foner’s goal to draw out the similarities and differences between the two groups of immigrants as well as eliminate some of the stereotypes that we often associate with each group.

One of the first topics that Foner discusses is why the immigrants came to New York. Many southern Italians came to New York as a result of a changing agricultural economy in Italy, while Jews who were faced with religious persecution in their home countries came to New York seeking religious freedom. Second wave immigrants are primarily coming here for better economic opportunities. For example, a lack of technical jobs in India and Taiwan has caused an immigration of relatively skilled workers to New York. Also citing how inflation in Brazil has caused a lot of middle class people to immigrate to the United States, Foner debunks the myth that all of today’s immigrants are poor and attempting to escape poverty in their home countries. In fact, in contrast to the first wave of immigration in which most immigrants lived in ethnically segregated ghettos, many modern immigrants can afford to move straight to the suburbs and buy their own home. However, Foner points out that the common theme among immigrants is and will always be to improve their lives in some respect so that their children and their future generations of offspring will have more opportunities to succeed.

Foner also discusses the work that immigrants engaged in upon coming to New York. There was little diversity in the jobs that first wave immigrants took. For example, Italians mostly worked as factory workers and laborers, and Jewish people mostly worked in garment factories. While there are still some of these ethnic concentrations in particular fields (such as Jamaicans in nursing), on the whole modern day immigrants are a part of a much more diverse field of employment, especially considering their diverse financial backgrounds upon arrival in the United States. With regard to education, Foner claims that despite modern day perceptions, first wave immigrant parents did not place a strong emphasis on educating their children. Jewish children actually received very little education, and Italian immigrant children were looked down upon by teachers, while modern day immigrants are actually doing better in school than the public often believes.

Another heavily thematic element in the book is about racism towards immigrants and anti-immigrant sentiments. She poses interesting questions about the notions of what it means to be “white” in American culture. Originally, Italian and Jewish immigrants were not considered to be white, but rather a kind of inferior race that other white Americans did not want to associate with. This leads Foner to contemplate discrimination against immigrants and re-think the notion of what is means to be “white” from an immigrant’s perspective. For example, she presents the reader with a rather controversial statement that Asian Americans have become almost white in that they have been successful both academically and economically and have risen up the social ladder. In this case, white has become almost synonymous with successful. Other less white ethnic groups who have been taking on lower income jobs are often met with some degree of discrimination because they have been stereotyped in a particular way. Therefore, it is often the goal of many immigrants to become white in this way because it has become synonymous with ascending the social ladder. In keeping with this topic, Foner also speculates that the future generations of these newer immigrants will also become less tied to their home countries and become similar to the current generations of the descendants of European immigrants from the first wave of immigration and look back upon their own immigrant ancestors in a very romanticized way.

I felt that structurally this book was accessible and easy to read. Foner writes in a way so that all people with various degree of education would be able to understand the points she is trying to make. Rather than using all facts and charts, she describes it in a storybook kind of way that makes the reader engaged and turns the lives of immigrants over a century ago into something that we can relate to. In addition I felt that the book was very organized. Each chapter was dedicated to one particular topic that relates to the lives of immigrants, whether it be job placement, education, or discrimination. Each chapter was able to build upon the ideas discussed in each of the previous chapters, and therefore by the end of the book a holistic picture of the two different immigrant groups was painted quite nicely. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn more about the two largest waves of immigration. I would also recommend having an open mind to confronting many of the predetermined stereotypes that we have often associated with each group, for this book really breaks down these stereotypes yet does not try to remain politically correct.

DASHIELL

Beyond the Melting Pot

Beyond the Melting Pot addresses the importance of race and the fundamental way in which ethnicity shaped the culture and identity of New York City.  The book is divided into five parts that highlight the importance of the Puerto Rican, Jewish, Black, Irish, and Italian immigrant populations. In doing so, the author dissects and classifies the political and socioeconomic factors that help to distinguish and individualize the different groups. Author Nathan Glazer challenges the notion that the various races of America successfully integrated, and instead holds firm to the belief that the formations of ethnic-exclusive subcultures dominate the cultural make-up of New York City. In support of this theory, Glazer states religious, cultural and political institutions as being vital in maintaining the homogenous ethnic make-up of New York City.

New York City has long been home to powerful religious institutions, the Roman Catholic Church chief amongst them. The social/political fate of the Irish in particular was heavily intertwined with the doings of the Catholic Church. “The future of the Irish in New York politics will be profoundly affected by events within the Catholic Church, which is, and for a generation at the very least, will remain, essentially an Irish Catholic Church” (Glazer 274). What Glazer means by this is that the Irish are so heavily associated with the Catholic Church that an event such as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade isn’t even an Irish affair anymore, but rather a show of force by the Catholic Church, whose leaders are mostly Irish anyway. The dominant presence of so many Irish in the Church suggests that they (the Irish) have gathered and organized around this single, powerful entity, which is succinct evidence of homogeneity within a single ethnic group. In stating this, I believe Glazer offers solid concrete evidence as to the isolation of the Irish from the rest of the major ethnic groups in New York City.

The Irish have even developed a sophisticated educational system centered around Catholicism, which implies that even their cultural institutions are centered, isolated systems, separate from the rest of New York City. Glazer goes on to say “There is nothing in the history of organized religion comparable with the effort of the American Catholic Church to maintain a complete, comprehensive educational system ranging from the most elementary tutelage to the most advanced discipline” (Glazer 276). This is perhaps a unique case amongst immigrant groups, none of the other ethnic groups had such self-sufficient communities by which even education was used to distinguish. Glazer makes a solid point by bringing up the Catholic educational system, but I believe his prediction might have been somewhat off only because Catholic schools are not necessarily exclusive to Irish communities anymore.

Political institutions, on the other hand, serve a wide-ranging socioeconomic group of people, or at least in theory. In practice, as is evident in New York City, political leaders will often reward or take care of the ethnic groups and socioeconomic groups that helped to get them elected. Such is the case in low-income neighborhoods, usually inhabited by Puerto Rican immigrants and blacks (Negroes as Glazer says). What Glazer says about blacks in particular is actually quite interesting, in that a black church will sometimes have to welcome Puerto Ricans through its doors. Like most ethnic groups (aforementioned Irish) politics and religion often go hand in hand, so the church catering to the needs of Puerto Ricans essentially translates to a black political institution fulfilling the needs of its non-black members. Glazer does not offer an explanation for this, but it is quite obviously because the socioeconomic position of Puerto Ricans and Blacks is at times so similar and easily comparable. This portion of the book is perhaps the only segment that does suggest homogeneity, as evidence is provided that the needs of low-class Puerto Ricans and Blacks are akin.

Overall, Nathan Glazer provides a compelling argument as to why New York City is more then just a melting pot by analyzing the successes of religious, political and social institutions. I found that the theory was quite interesting, and some of the various predictions that he makes at the end of each segment turned out to be quite accurate for 1963. The book does a solid job of explaining why social and political institutions exist for the purpose of serving ethnic interests, and how New York City seems to encourage isolated ethnic groups and homogeneity.

GEORGE

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle

With the turn of the 20th century, New York’s industrialization was well under way, not only in the financial district, but also in manufacturing and factories that dominated the present day downtown NYU area. The 10-story Asch Building, just off Washington Square, a new type of skyscraper neighbored many tenement sweatshops that had dominated the clothing industry. This supposedly fireproof skyscraper, the top three floors belonged to the Triangle Waist Company. These modern factories were supposed to replace the traditional sweatshops, yet the hundreds of women and children employed sweat their way through work each day. When women tried striking, the big companies such as Triangle hired people to beat them and paid off police and judges, so they reluctantly returned to work.

Around 4:30PM on March 25, 1911, the top three floors of the ten-story building in New York City began to burn. Close to 500 women, mostly teenagers and young adults occupied those floors, and the doors were locked to keep the workers from taking “unnecessary” cigarette breaks. When the fire broke out, Von Dehle delves into a detailed description of highlights of people and significant events that happened immediately following the tragedy, which comprises of stories of the workers who jumped to their death, the owners of the factory, the troubled workers who survived and the people who tried to help others survive on that tragic and historic day.

Von Drehle’s novel also explores the government’s reaction to this tragic event. As people were outraged from the tragedy, politicians began drafting labor laws and regulations for a safer and healthier work environment. Frances Perkins was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, and happened to witness the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. She worked with a big time progressive politician of the time, Al Smith, who was a four-term governor of New York State. Perkins eventually influenced Roosevelt to incorporate labor justice and regulation in his New Deal, as a result of the Triangle Fire. Roosevelt then brought progressivism and reform to advance the labor condition in the United States (Von Drehle, pg. 259-263). At the end of the novel, each victim of the Triangle Fire is listed to note the scapegoats that helped change America for the better.

What Von Drehle does successfully in Triangle: The Fire That Changed America is that he not only recounts what happened in this tragic event, but he portrays the working conditions, and the imagery that Von Drehle uses to depict the tragedy leaves the reader in awe. Von Drehle not only uses imagery, but incorporates actual photography in his novel, which allows the reader to jump into the story and relive the tragedy as if they were there themselves. I believe this technique is useful in my own writing because it would allow for me to get my point across.

What is interesting about Von Drehle and his novel is that while he was drafting, the 9/11 collapse of the World Trade Center happened, which horrified Von Drehle. According to the NY Times, the horrible sight of trapped workers inside the building as well as people jumping to their deaths was uncannily similar to the tragedy of the Triangle fire in the sense of people trapped to death as well as the women that jumped out of fear and restlessness.  The theory of dealing and coping with tragedy is what stuck out to me. In both cases, a tragedy involving many deaths and casualties affected not only the families of the victims, but left an impact on the nation. The triangle fire resulted in a lot of reform involving work conditions and labor laws, and I think Von Drehle focuses a lot on the reconstruction of the disaster because 9/11 happened and Von Drehle was horrified since he was in New York at the time, so he really focused on detailing the tragedy of the Triangle fire in order to recapture the moment for readers. Moreover, post 9/11, a lot of security reform swept the nation. In my opinion, I feel that it’s almost sad that we have to wait for tragedies to call for fair labor laws or tight security.

Overall, the novel wouldn’t necessarily be classified as a “fun” read, but it definitely is a good read. With the capture of the tragedy and the portrayal of the aftermath, I’d recommend this historical novel to anyone because the reader practically jumps into the pages and partakes in the tragic event of the early 20^th century.

JASON

Beyond the Melting Pot

by Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Introduction

The book, Beyond the Melting Pot, is a unique exploration of the role ethnicity plays in shaping life in New York City and American as a whole. The book serves as an in depth response to the commonly held belief that New York is a melting pot of cultures. The authors challenge this notion using a thorough analysis of five major groups comprising the city. By analyzing the unique social, economic and political dimensions of the immigrants of the aforementioned groups, the authors explore the impact their respective origins have had on the group identity. The book has five sections focusing on the five major migrations pre-1960, that of the Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish.  In each the author seeks to show how “integration” into the American culture never fully takes place, as ethnic consciousness remains very strong. While much of the information gathered is based on extensive research, a great deal of the information is also unverifiable and subjective data.

About the Authors

This book is co-authored by Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Nathan Glazer is a prominent American sociologist who has authored numerous works on issues of ethnicity and immigration. As the son of Jewish immigrants he has taken on the serious task of understanding the role of immigration in New York. He served as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as at Harvard University. Glazer has also served as a consultant on a number of governmental organizations, such as the Housing and Home Finance Agency, predecessor to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition, he was involved in the founding and editing of a public policy journal The Public Interest. Glazer is often labeled a neoconservative, though he considers himself a loyal democrat. Glazer is the primary author of most of the material in this book.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an American sociologist and politician. He received an MA and PhD in sociology from Tufts University. He served as the Ambassador to the United Nations for the United States and India. He was elected Senator four times and served on numerous presidential administrations ranging from John F Kennedy’s to Gerald Ford’s. As the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Moynihan was a major figure on the War on Poverty in the 1960’s. Moynihan is said to have written the piece on the Irish, and the conclusion of this book.

Book Analysis

There is no question that Beyond the Melting Pot is a work of tremendous historical import. It gives us deep insights into the unique challenges and developments that these immigrant groups experienced up until the 1960’s. One can open up to any chapter of this book, and find a multitude of interesting, sometimes surprising, facts about a particular group. For instance, the strong split, socio-economically/politically, between Northern and Southern (Sicilian) Italian immigrants, which led to major animosity between the groups and very different sort of integration into American culture. This is an enlightening compendium of information that one does not necessarily think about when one’s knowledge of Italian culture is largely based on a film like the Godfather. From this perspective, Beyond the Melting Pot is certainly a worthy read specifically as a compendium of information on immigration. Further, a study of the authors thought on these subjects can be telling of the thought and sentiments of thinkers of the 1960’s, both towards immigration and New York as a whole. The question remains, however, whether this book’s larger theme, namely ethnic consciousness, is still relevant to contemporary thought on the subject. To answer this question let us evaluate more closely the authors’ thesis through a few examples.

Jews in the 1960’s, the authors’ note, no longer had a unified commitment toward their tradition, which has been the source of a strong Jewish identity. Nor can we point to a common national origin or common commitment to the state of Israel, for no such commonalities exist. “And yet despite the difficulty of finding the common denominator, there is really no ambiguity about being Jewish, even though people are Jewish in different ways” (Glazer, p141). What accounts for the continued maintenance of their identity? Glazer points to a number of factors such as, religion, anti-Semitism, and economics, which remain as unifying forces. What is important here is that Glazer is pointing out how strong an impact this ethnicity continues to have on shaping the economic, political, and social nature of the group. By examining this we see that the idea of immigrant assimilation into larger American society, the melting pot if you will, is not so accurate. Identity, even in later generations continues to be shaped by ethnic backgrounds.

The authors’, however, seek to show more then just that. They seek to demonstrate that not only are ethnic groups still very much interlinked,but also that these ethnic impacts continue to guide how the group develops. On another piece on the Jews, Glazer discusses why Jews seem to have continued economic success above many other immigrant groups. Glazer mentions a number of possibilities and asserts the following, “Perhaps, then, there is among Jews an acculturation of business acumen, supported by a relatively strong family system that permits mobilization of capital, and that makes it possible to move into new areas with opportunities for great growth and high profits”(Glazer 154). Here we are identifying certain genera characteristics that help explain Jewish progress in America, particularly their apt for small business and up and coming markets. Later, we see a similar trend in highlighting the general Jewish passion for education. In these instances studying the ethnic background can help explain how the group functions, and can improve in New York.

Yet another example of this can be scene in the chapter on Italian immigrants. In, a somewhat brilliant analysis, Glazer speaks of the unique character if the Italian community. While they are often distinguished by their ambition and individuality the outlook of the family culture limits these potentials. Success, for many Italians, is defined not as independent material success, but mainly successes that are admired by one’s family. This tight knit family unit has numerous ramifications as it isolates them from the values of American culture. One example of this concept is the familial amoralism that is often prevalent. Glazer points, also, to the corrupt and barbaric politics in Southern Italy, which influenced the negative attitude of many Italians toward the U.S. government and its assumed corruption. Here to, Glazer is demonstrating his thesis that ethnicity continues to be an important factor in societal development. Integration and adjustments to the larger society no doubt occurred within all these groups. The crucial point is that even while these changes occurred, ethnic identity changed with it rather then washed away. In pointing us in this direction, the authors’ are indicating that multiculturalism, not assimilation, is really the order of the day.

In demonstrating this thesis I believe there is no doubt that Beyond the Melting Pot has played an important role in a shift of perspective on New York, and America as a whole. It is true that the importance of multiculturalism has been taken much more seriously since the time that this book was written. There is also no question that this book is also full of over generalizations, stereotypical observations, and speculative theories, some of which have been proven false. Nevertheless, the importance of its main thesis makes this a vital starting point for those interested in understanding the uniqueness of American culture.

KATIE

Beyond the Melting Pot: A Book Review

Introduction:

At a first glance the book, Beyond the Melting Pot is a work that supplies its readers with a compilation of analyses on US Census data specifically geared towards examining several distinct ethnic groups living within New York City. These groups include the Negroes, the Puerto Ricans, the Jews, the Italians, and the Irish. The writers have outlined each group’s historical background in the city, covering areas such as arrival to the city and reasons for leaving their home country, as well as statistical trends that can be used to describe characteristics specific to these distinct populations, such as occupation, community, and education. Each chapter focuses on one ethnic group. The last chapter, however, focuses on the future implications of the information presented in the previous chapters.

Author Background:           

In 1963, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan published this book.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was Senator of New York for 24 years (since 1977). His Alma matter includes City College of New York ’43, Tufts ’48, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and London School of Economics and Political Science ’51. His vast involvement in New York City politics ranged from collaboration in campaigning with Robert F. Wagner Jr., Averall Harriman, and the Kennedy Presidential campaign (1960). He was a professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School 2001. In 2003, he passed away due to complications from a ruptured appendix[1].

Nathan Glazer is a sociologist and educator. His Alma matter includes City College ’44, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Harvard University. Working positions include professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, assistant-editor of “Commentary” magazine, contributing editor to “The New Republic,” and co-editor of “The Public Interest.” He has served on Presidential task forces on education and urban policy. He has also worked with the National Academy of Science committees on urban policy and minority issues (“New York Intellectuals”).

Book Analysis:

Moynihan and Glazer paint a picture for its readers as it begins to answer the question – What does New York City look like? Through careful and thorough analysis of US Census data along with sociological research of New York City population, the writers present the readers with an in-depth examination into the make-up of a city that has become known to many as the “melting pot.” But what is the melting pot? The writers do a good job at attempting to answer this by outlining the “ingredients” to this “stew.” Individual groups are described separately, in-depth, as different sections in the book. Thus, the work, if viewed through the lens of a cookbook, would be analogous to only the beginning of such a book. The Negroes, the Puerto Ricans, the Italians, the Jews, and the Irish are the ingredients to the “stew.”  

Now that we know what the ingredients are, we may be able to anticipate what the “stew” that will be “cooked” in the “melting pot” will turn out to be. But have the ingredients “melted” together yet? The end of the book leaves us with a sense that this “melting” process remains, to this day, incomplete. In the book, Glazer and Moynihan write that “[they] have tried to show how deeply the pattern of ethnicity is impressed on the life of the city” (310). Ethnic neighborhoods are but one example of this phenomenon. Other instances involve social and political institutions that “exist for the specific purpose of serving ethnic groupings” which, in turn, preserves them; they are recognized, rewarded and therefore, encouraged (310).  Moynihan and Glazer are not suggesting that in order for this “melting” to occur that these institutions and neighborhoods have to be demolished but rather that a sort of catalyst is needed for the “melting pot” to work. As of yet, New York City resembles more of a “salad[2]” rather than a “melting pot.” Its “ingredients” can easily be picked out.

Now, we are left with the question – what kind of catalyst is needed for this reaction to occur? How does one honor his/her ancestry and take part in American culture at the same time? Do you have to give up one or the other? This of course brings up another defining question – what is American culture? Some may say it is a conglomeration of all the parts that make up the whole. It is like a conglomerate of rocks. In this context, it is a conglomeration of the Irish, Jewish, Italian, Puerto Rican, and Negro populations. However, it has not been “metamorphosed.

Conclusion:

If we approach this work as an examination into an expanded metaphor – hence, the title “Beyond the Melting Pot” – we can see that the image that has for so long been attributed to NYC remains a work-in-progress. New York City, a dense microcosm of America, can serve as an indicator of the future image of our country. This book is an outline of the situation as the writers saw it and even though it was written 50 years ago, the information presented, as well as the interpretation of that information, is still relevant today. In the words of Moynihan and Glazer, “the American nationality is still forming; its processes are mysterious, and the final form, if there ever is to be a final form, is as yet unknown” (315). It is a “stew” that still needs time to prep and simmer.

[1] Refer to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for more information: “Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, (1927 – 2003).” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2013. <http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=m001054>.

[2] The idea that resembles more of a “salad bowl” was discussed briefly in an interview with Moynihan as part of a PBS program. A transcript can be found here:

“Daniel Patrick Moynihan Interview.” Pbs.org. n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2013. Transcript. <http://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/moynihan.htm>.

LIUDI

Joseph Berger in his novel, The World in a City, aims to give the readers a multifaceted view of New York City through the voices of the city-dwellers, focusing mainly on interviews, but also including his own experiences and insight. He states the purpose in the preface, telling the readers, “I’ll take you to some of…the city’s most beguiling neighborhoods, and chat with some of their most emblematic and charming inhabitants” (Berger x).

Joseph Berger is a long time journalist who has worked for two publishing newspapers: New York Times and Newsday. Focusing on culture of the city, education, and religion in most of his articles, Berger shows those influences in this novel.The World in a City is his most recent of three published novels. The first explored high performing schools in the US and the second followed the life of his own family as refugees, who came to the US after the holocaust.

With a lightweight focus, Berger did not want to overwhelm his readers with a ton of statistics, but rather let the stories show the changes in numbers.  His novel gives a fresh approach to a city novel because each chapter focuses on a new neighborhood and a new topic. Some will be about actual shifts in the cultures of that area, and some will focus on a special characteristic of the neighborhood, such as the number of fur coats seen in Brighton Beach in chapter 6. Moreover, he wants to show the readers what he talks about by encouraging them to visit the areas with a list of “where to go” and “where to eat” at the end of each chapter.

Berger sees NYC as a constantly shifting city, fueled by immigration. This immigration flow is important not only in bringing in diverse people, but changing the way New Yorkers see themselves and others. Because of the fast speed at which New York City is changing, Berger wants to capture the current moment to show the people it will soon fade away and enter another phase of change. With scatterings of Berger’s own experiences growing up amongst the interviews, the readers can’t help but think that this was also a road to self-discovery, to bring back forgotten memory.

Even though the bulk of the text is the interviews, Berger never lets himself be forgotten and asserts his role as author when he brings up personal encounters and childhood memories. The style and word choice are both very reader-friendly. Commonly known words are used and syntax is simple, so people can enjoy the essence of the book. As mentioned, Berger’s novel is very lightweight but it does not mean that the information presented is any less reliable. He consults various museums and organizations in addition to the interviews and includes many census and statistical references. To lessen the bias in each chapter, Berger always focuses on two sides of the argument. If one old inhabitant disapproves of the recent influx of immigrants, he will present a different side, an old inhabitant accepting the change and embracing it. He also loves to personalize each chapter by steering away from readers’ expectations. As someone who grew up in Flushing, I expected him to focus on the influx of Asian immigrants and how it has shaped the area. Surprisingly, he decided to focus on the Afghan population and the shift in culture that causes them to question their family’s tradition.  This novel would be great for someone who wants to learn about NYC but has never visited the area, but it would also provide New Yorkers with a fresh look at the home they thought they recognized. I, for one, did not even realize there was a large Afghan population in my hometown.

Berger shines the spotlight mainly on the interviewees but his positive view of immigration is still prevalent based on how he chose to incorporate the interviews. He attempts to show how immigration is the key to the mesmerizing diversity of cultures seen in New York City. Berger and his parents were immigrants from Russia, which is a possible reason for why he presents immigration in such a positive light.

This trip of discovery was spurred by Berger’s background in journalism. It’s a collection of all the bits and pieces he has picked up from his encounters with city dwellers and their habitats. Berger ends his journey with the realization that the world can be seen not only in New York, but also in the entire country. Like streams converging to form a large river, immigrants are the sources of the mighty river, one that is ever-changing.

MICHELLE

Book Review on Essays in the History of New York City As a New Yorker, one tends to feel great pride in the city that they live in; it’s one of the major world cities of the world, the real estate is highly sought after, and there’s a plethora of activities and places to eat; however, many New Yorkers, despite being filled to the brim with pride, don’t know much about the history of New York. Essays in the History of New York, a collection of six essays gathered and edited by Irwin Yellowitz, is a short, quick read about various times the history of New York. From the movement from a Dutch leadership to an English one to the career of Richard Croker, there is a bit of variety in the book. The six essays are titled, “New York Mayors: The Initial Generation,” Political Democracy and the Distribution of Power in Antebellum New York City,” Who Went to School in Mid-Nineteenth Century New York? An Essay in the New Urban History,” “Green-Wood Cemetery and the American Park Movement,” Eight Hours and the Bricklayers’ Strike of 1868 in New York City,” and lastly, “Richard Croker: An Interim Report on the Early Career of a ‘Boss’ of Tammany Hall.” These essays leave very little to the imagination; the authors simply expanded upon their respective essay’s title but overall. What you see in the title is what you get, there’s no mystery to what the essay is about. Although each essay focused on different subjects, the common trend was the focus on explaining various periods of New York City’s history when it was undergoing some form of a change, whether it is sociopolitical or environmental. Since there were multiple authors, it’s hard to say what they were all trying to say as “one,” especially since these essays were most probably written during different times. Looking at each essay individually, one could generally say that each author was writing about how changes in history led to the New York becoming what we know and love today. While each of the essays achieves this goal, all of the authors managed to do this with one surprisingly similar characteristic for their writing styles: a tendency to write circumlocutorily. Rather than giving the information in a straightforward and succinct manner, the authors insisted upon giving lengthy explanations for everything, which took away from the essays. That being said, some essays were guiltier of this quality than others. This benefited the authors since it enables them to make their piece lengthier and have a more academic feel to it. Sadly, this form of writing comes with the price of possibly boring the reader or even confusing them. Though each essay is about a different subject, five of the six deal with the classism that existed in New York City’s past. (The sixth and last essay is a biography of some sort of Richard Croker’s political career, thus it’s hard to connect this essay to the others. Though it could be argued that one could connect the essay to the others because of the fact that it discusses Croker’s rise to power from his less than humble beginnings, the essay itself remains arbitrary—a problem that could have possibly been avoided by the addition of an essay that would give a smoother transition between the fifth and sixth essays.) This classist element can be seen within the first five essays because they discuss certain classes having a benefit over the others because of some quality the group possesses, more often than not the quality being their wealth. This can first be seen Edward Pessen’s essay “Political Democracy and the Distribution of Power in Antebellum New York City” when he writes, “In 1828 the wealthiest 1 percent of the city’s adults owned about 40 percent of the city’s wealth… [Those] who composed the mass of the city’s population owned a miniscule proportion of its wealth” (35). The quote is very straightforward and there aren’t any other conclusions that can be drawn from it; there was a great wealth gap that existed in New York City that ironically is very similar to what New York City has today. The wealthiest individuals in society also tended to have more access to opportunities, which segues into Selma Berrol’s essay “Who Went to School in the Mid-Nineteenth Century?” Berrol writes that less than twenty percent of eligible boys were enlisted in primary school. This is because there were no mandatory education laws, which lead to many boys being forced to go into child labor. (40). If you were a child from a wealthy family, you could afford to be sent to school because you wouldn’t need to worry about working support your family. This isn’t saying that many children from poor families didn’t attend school. In fact, “New York parents had some special reasons to hold formal education in some high regard… so many of the sons of laborers and the foreign-born were in enrolled” (57). Though the children from lower social classes did attend schools, it was easier for children from upper classes to attend because of the reason stated earlier. Lastly, the upper classes even had an advantage over the lower classes when it came to accessing the countryside and recreation. This is seen when Donald Simon writes, “It was the poorest workingmen to whom recreational places were increasingly unavailable because they lacked the means of transportation to outlying open space” (63). The rich were able to afford transportation to get outside of the city and during that time, the early to mid nineteenth century, the wealthy also tended to live outside of the cities, which were becoming more crowded as people moved in looking for job opportunities. Nevertheless, even though these essays deal with the classist elements of the previous New York City society, they also discussed how many of the problems were resolved, which began the transition to New York City we know today.

MORGAN

Book in Review: You Must Remember This by Jeff Kisseloff

You Must Remember This by Jeff Kisseloff provides an in depth look into the lives if various New Yorkers through their oral retelling of their lives during the 1890’s up until World War II. This book gives the audience first hand accounts of how life really was like in Manhattan during this time period, from the Lower East Side to Harlem, while important changes were taking place all over the city. Each voice has a different story to tell, however, the voices mold together in each chapter to make a coherent story among strangers about life in Manhattan. You Must Remember This is truly a masterpiece that captures Manhattan during a time period that has remained a mystery to many for years.

The key elements that are addressed in the book stem from the individual stories that each person tells. Kisseloff frames these stories in a way that each person for each chapter does not story tell for an extended period of time. More effectively, he breaks up the dialog to two-three sentences per person, each “character” randomly contributing a sentence of their story when it is relevant. This element helps to create contrasting point of views as different events are discussed, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, thus highlighting the ever differentiating views that the characters have from their own experiences, even if they experienced the same event. For each chapter in You Must Remember This, a new section of Manhattan is introduced along with a new set of characters to impart firsthand point of views, keeping the narrative fresh and entertaining.

From these different narratives, the overall focus of the book is to provide different viewpoints on key events that happened in Manhattan from the 1890’s until World War II. Instead of revisiting these events like a history textbook, however, Kisseloff takes a refreshing approach by including actual people’s stories, from their perspective, on what happened during those times. This gives the book a sense of credibility since the “characters” the audience are introduced to are real, live people and creates a kinship between the readers and the characters that are opening up their lives to the audience. This focus is what separates this book from a historical review of Manhattan because of the personal touches given by these characters.

When thinking about You Must Remember This, I do not believe that Jeff Kisseloff is the sole author of the book. I believe that the people that were willing to share their stories so willingly to the public played a huge part in creating the impact that this book has, and consequently, deserve to hold the title of author as well. I think that the stories told by these New Yorkers gave a very personal, and sometimes shocking, outlook onto what significant events were like in Manhattan during this time period. Their stories went beyond what any facts could do; they made the event relatable to the reader, which is the most effective way to gain and hold a reader’s attention. In this aspect, I believe that I have employed this technique in my studies. When giving a speech or presentation, I always know who my audience is and aim to make an introduction that will not only capture their attention, but relate to them as well. I feel as though that this is incredibly important when trying to establish credibility with an audience, because without that personal touch the connection between the speaker and listener is lost, and so is the meaning behind the words that are said.

The obvious pro in You Must Remember This is that there are many different speakers that are able to give varying viewpoints from chapter to chapter. This keeps the material fresh and exciting, because the dialog is constantly changing with each sentence. Another pro that stems from this is the variety of events that the book covers. In one hundred pages, Kisseloff was able to breeze through years of history because of the numerous stories that were available to him. This also aids in keeping the book entertaining to the readers and stop it from becoming mundane, because the main event is constantly changing, even within the chapters. One con that I pointed out while reading the book was that keeping track of all of the speakers became difficult. While it is valuable and definitely worthwhile to have so many varying viewpoints, I feel as though some of the meanings were muddled because there were too many names being shown right after the other. This can become confusing to the reader, which does not help when Kisseloff is trying to hit on so many different events in one chapter.

The theory of constructivism generally known as how a person learns when they are forced to interact head to head with existing experiences that helps them gain knowledge, is reflected in You Must Remember This. In regards to the book, this theory is most effect because the reader is given a firsthand account of the events told from the person that actually experienced the events themselves. This helps to create a deep personal understanding within the reader, rather than just a general understanding of events that they would get if their were simply reading a history textbook.

Examples of the theory of constructivism are shown all throughout the book. In Chapter One, where the focus lies on the Lower East Side, each speaker revisits their own experience with boarders, who are people who pay separate rent in an apartment with a family as a means to make the family money. A majority of the speakers reexamines having to sleep on floors, with little to no blankets and most definitely no heat. In today’s society, most children and teenagers could not fathom the thought of having to share their home with a stranger, much less give their bed up for them, so this section offers a new perspective for the reader. Following along the same lines in Chapter Four, where the focus is on Northern Manhattan, some of the speakers remember experiences of their families owning farms that were as a big as one block. Certainly a person living in Manhattan today could not even imagine a farm being in the middle of 145^th Street This example, again, gives the reader new knowledge from a personal remembrance that establishes a connection. And finally in Chapter Eight, where the focus is on Greenwich Village, gave an in depth view to the “promiscuous” nature of the Village in the 1890’s. This may be a fact that is not popularly advertised, but because of the personal retellings of these events, the reader gains new knowledge that they would not have had before reading the book.

Jeff Kisseloff does a brilliant job in You Must Remember This of intermingling historical facts of Manhattan with personal touches of human experience. This personal touch is key to the success of the book, because it allow the reader to make connections with all of the speakers as they tell their stories, which in turn gives the reader a deeper understanding of what happened during this time period in Manhattan, which is the goal of the book itself. I believe that everyone who lives in Manhattan should read You Must Remember This, in order to gain a sense of knowledge and respect for the city that they live in, and how far it has come from the trials and tribulations from the 1890’s to World War II.

PAUL

Beyond the Melting Pot – A Review

This book profiles the five main demographic constituents of New York City from the mid-19^th to mid-20^th centuries. These groups, divided by chapter, are the African-Americans (still dubbed “Negroes”), Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish. The book addresses each group individually and thoroughly, describing factors such as main type of occupation, family size and structure, religious background, political involvement, and average economic status.

Beyond the Melting Pot is written by sociologists Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Glazer is also a Professor Emeritus at UC-Berkeley and Harvard University. Moynihan served as US Ambassador to India and the UN, and represented New York State in the Senate for four consecutive terms (1977-2001). He often collaborated with Glazer when publishing historical nonfiction and works of sociology. While the political views of each are not necessarily compatible or steadfast, their work remains transitionally smooth and unbiased, making for an easy read despite such a complex topic.

These distinguished authors’ choice to create an ethnographic profile of New York City in the 1960’s was an audacious one; the civil rights movement mingled with nativist and patriotic sentiment to obscure, derail, or simply dispirit the majority of such efforts at that time. Accordingly, this work is a worthy icebreaker on the subject, both in its thoroughness and contemporary relevance.

The style and tone employed throughout the book is mostly expositional and purely objective. Glazer and Moynihan provide ample numerical demographic data and proceed to explore the qualitative trends they represent, often in a narrative prose. For instance, the percentage by occupation of each ethnicity coupled with its historical background readily explains at least some of the economic stratification observed at the time. The startling amount of unskilled and manual workers among Puerto Rican immigrants indicates the unavailability of education for the group and the still poorer economic conditions at home. The authors take extra care to delve into the place of origin for the immigrants, describing the conditions there and the primary reasons for leaving in the first place.

Included in the back of the book are several appendices with additional data tables showing countries of origin, populations of certain ethnic groups over time, and labor breakdowns by ethnicity. These did not require much commentary on the part of the authors, as the numbers were quite telling. The occupational distributions for 1940 and 1960 show the decrease in service workers and jump in African-American clerks and salespersons, indicating significant upward mobility.

In Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot, protagonist David Quixano proclaims America to be the smelting furnace of all cultures and nationalities, and it has undoubtedly hosted such cultural mixing. However, more generally, the authors state, it has become a reluctant assembly of semi-isolated groups whose original culture and values have persisted beyond all expectations. The daily exposure to a multitude of other ethnicities seems to strengthen one’s own cultural identity, shielding one from the rest of the populace. Indeed, the assimilating nature of a “melting pot” has, in reality, likened to a salad bowl, with children and grandchildren of immigrants still culturally distinguishable across ancestries.

This is further accentuated by the format of the book. Glazer and Moynihan’s choice to divide ethnic groups by chapter creates an inherently sectionalized (and more realistic) view of the city. This stylistic choice fragments the city’s dynamic into a set of discrete trends and activities among ethnicities, emphasizing that, outside of absolute necessity, New York City’s ethnic groups have little to do with each other.

Personally, this book was an enjoyable read and one I would recommend to any New Yorker. The distinct handing-off of local political power, the dynamics and niches of each group, and the varied, vivid profiles of immigrant life greatly enhanced my understanding of the past century of New York’s history. While its nomenclature may be dated and its description of certain groups overly sweeping, it remains a popular and comprehensive account of the city’s immigrants through the mid-20^thcentury.

SUNNY

From Ellis Island to JFK:

New York`s Two Great Waves of Immigration

Textbook Info: Foner, Nancy. From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Print.

Introduction

This book contextualizes the very foundation of immigration that has occurred in the United States for many years. A detailed insight of the various races and their impact on the rulings of immigration is shown through a comparison of today’s immigrants’ comings versus the influx of immigrants that came from the 19^th to the 20^th century. By elaborating on the specific aspects or values such as: education, race, Americanization, etc., America’s “attitude” toward them are radically different than from any of the mistreatments that occurred even in the 1930s. This grandeur difference brings forth much innovative and horror facts/statistics about the growth in the lives of immigrants and their changes in social lifestyles!

Author’s Background

Nancy Foner, the author of this book, is a distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Interested in the idea of immigration, she explores Jamaicans in their predominant areas such as: their home places, New York, and others. Her particular area of study revolves around the comparative immigration movements in New York City today versus those in the past. Also, Professor Foner places many immigrant experiences in her works to convey a true meaning behind the radical change that immigration has had over the years. Such a theme is investigated in many of her novels –including From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration.

Many of her collaborative works have received worldwide recognition and various specialized awards for their meaning and elaborate, depth of study. Exemplifying an award, this book was the winner of the 2000 Theodore Saloutos Award of the Immigration and Ethnic Historic Society. Other notable works of hers include: In a New Land: A Comparative View of Immigration (received Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2006), Race, and Ethnicity in the United States  (recipient of an Honorable Mention), and others. In addition to all of her writing activities, she has testified in several immigration conflicts and an editor of a plethora of immigration journals. Nancy has membership in several committees: Russell Sage Foundation Immigration Research Advisory Committee, the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island History Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Group of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Due to her active participation of immigration throughout society, Nancy Foner received a Distinguished Career Award in 2010 and even gained acceptance to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences![1]

Book Analysis

Since a common theme in the novel revolves around the comparison of immigration in two waves (history versus today), a lot of research was involved in producing most of the information presented in the text! Breakdowns of shocking statistical data and immigrant experiences are conveyed for the reader to realize this impactful change that immigration has turned for our society! Therefore, as a preface of the text, Foner introduces profiles of the majority of immigrants that even stepped foot into the USA such as the Italians and Jews who coped with many acceptance problems in History. By exploring immigrants’ purpose in even entering (i.e. escaping from political oppression and seeking freedom), many unforeseen issues took place for them and some of these conflicts were even enforced by governmental laws!

One type of problem that occurred from this huge influx of immigration was “American Fever” and Foner connects this dynamic plague into the idea of “stings of prejudice.” The main reason for these issues were the mixtures of races entering America aside from the white skinned people. A source of data that Foner even provides to support her reasoning is that since many of the Italians spoke different languages and had different skin colors, they were discriminated against heavily including their physical characteristics and zealous need for money! Hence, their migration patterns in living in NYC varied greatly. In fact, she emphasizes on how immigrants could adopt to healthful and more modern apartments only after the 1900!

By using these comparisons between today’s immigrants’ living styles versus History’s immigrants’ living styles (i.e. ethnic enclosures/discourse communities), the readers realize the radical changes that actually occurred throughout time. Additionally, Foner provides various immigrant experiences (and giving credit to them in the “notes” section). Though this idea was portrayed in the beginning of the book (Chapter 2), it was again tied to the end of the book in “A Look Backward-and Forward.” The concept of introducing the change in the beginning and looking it as a whole in the end really captivated me in especially seeing the connections of the varying themes (i.e. Education, Living, Prejudice, etc.). Not only was the comparison of the two immigrant waves was provided but also variations in living between the immigrant groups (i.e. Jews, Asians, Italians, and others) were conveyed.

Exemplified in Chapters 2 and 7 of the novel, throughout most of the 20th century and continuing on today, Asians were generally much more educated than those of the other immigrant groups and even the white natives (who were considered at the time to be racially superior) since they were better financially off through businesses and physical work forces. Though Foner describes these job benefits that they received, her continued emphasis on adapting to a multicultural metropolis made me realize the adverse obstacles that had to be overcame to get at where they are today!

Conclusion

In more specific detail, all of these adverse difficulties are described throughout the book in order to focus on it one at a time. As a major point, one specific issue that came about for these Russian Jews immigrants and/or inferior races was maintenance of transnational ties to their countries; they had to utilize fundamental forms of technology to keep the relations going on in both countries. However, a rapid, modernization of communication forms allows immigrants to keep such contact easier like: video chats (popular among Asian families), quick airplane trips, and etc. These types of changes are portrayed throughout the book. Therefore, personally, my views of immigration have changed and became more insightful especially in relation to the plethora of racial barriers that immigrants had to endure even to settle in the entry point of JFK airport! Overall, this book would bring a lot of enjoy to the readers and be enthralling to read since they would enjoy seeing the major reshape and turning that immigration has done for our society!

[1] “Nancy Foner.” (Sociology Faculty)

SURSEHAJ

Textbook Citation:

Foner, Nancy. From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Print

Introduction:

From Ellis Island to JFK focuses on the two main waves of immigration that happen in New York. These two movements solidified New York by bring more and more people to the city.  The first is of Jews and Italians from 1880 to 1920, and the other of post- l965 Mexicans, Asians, Latin Americans, and Caribbean Islanders. Immigration peaked in the first decade of the 20^th century and Foner compares the different waves of immigration. She gives the immigrants the quintessential depiction as hardworking laborer who is striving for the better. Foner distinguishes between the two major waves of immigration through education, occupation, and their overall social status. These differences between the immigrants led to many changes in New York and in the life of the immigrants. Further she evaluates the myths involved with immigration as we see New York developing into a multi-cultural throughout the century.

Authors Background:

Nancy Foner, the author of From Ellis Island to JFK, is a sociology professor at Hunter College who received her B.A. from Brandeis University and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Her main focus of study is immigration, which she explains thoroughly through her representation of immigration in New York City. She has a keen interest in focusing on past immigration with modern immigration.in the United States. From Ellis Island to JFK ideally represents her comparative analysis and differences of immigration. Foner is the author or editor of 16 books and her book From Ellis Island to JFKwinner of the 2000 Theodore Saloutos Award of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.

Besides her career as a author and editor, Foner the Russell Sage Foundation Immigration Research Advisory Committee, the Social Science Research Council Committee on International Migration, and the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island History Advisory Committee. Her active approach on immigration allowed her   to be the chair-elect of the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association and the president of the Society for the Anthropology.

Book Analysis:

New York has been subjected to very different waves of immigration. Foner exemplifies statistics and social roles to differentiate between the two groups of immigration. She explains how each immigration group differed by incorporating education, race, and various other social roles. During the early immigration movement, there weren’t as many illegal immigrants as there are today. The early immigrants arrived were primarily laborers and lacked every as aspect of professionalism; Furthermore, this represents the dynamic from modern times as most modern immigrants have a college degree or specialize in a particular field. She also describes that the reason for the plethora of immigrants arriving in New York was due to the increased production and innovation of steamed ships. Primary, Foner focused her interest on Italians and Russian Jews in the early 1900s and Dominicans, Chinese and Jamaicans in the late 1900s. The first group, especially the Russian Jews, immigrated to escape political oppression. The first immigration wave exemplified the representation of tenement life in lower east side where most of them were laborers and often their homes were their work place. On the contrary, the second wave of immigration, which, focused on the Chinese, had more of a social class, as most of them were educated and financially capable to live a complete lifestyle. This is still the trend as Foner describes the immigration as “Ethnic Succession” (chapter 2); as immigrants are reentering new areas, social and economic mobility are increasing. Throughout the book, Foner reiterates the importance on old vs. new immigration and how they differ.  Also, it’s important on who is immigrating because in may cases race, appearance, and gender caused imitations in society.

An important concept that Nancy Foner emphasizes regarding immigration is race. Through the norm social behavior in society, many people believed that race was an important defining characteristic. This led to severe consequences for the different immigrants any whom from West Indians to the Hispanics that came to America for the benefits of freedom. Foner details by category the different discriminations that the races endured when they arrived in America. For example, Jews were criticized by society for having an innate love for money and Italians were condemned on their physical characteristics (low foreheads, open mouths,) and their volatile demeanor. Though they both were white by color, such distinction was pervasive in history and was deemed as proper thoughts for these races. In fact, statistics and data convey that the segregation facing the lighter colored people was far less than that of the darker skinned. This belief of black people being parsimonious and more inclined to crimes in society was widely accepted.

Foner also compares how immigrants kept their ties with their homes and uses the phrase transnationalism to compare how immigrants tie up their bonds with their countries. Primarily, Foner discusses that U.S citizens have close economical, cultural, and political ties with their country.  These types of connections have been discussed by immigration with respect to the fact that they have distinctly changed from the past than those of the present. Such a dramatic transformation was astonishing to notice and can be denoted by several, important parameters: relatives from European countries who would come to U.S for working opportunities keep close ties by sending letters or any other forms of basic communication. Additionally, at a relatively medium return rate, immigrants would go back to their own country for several major reasons: prevention of economic losses during boom-bust times and painful stings of prejudices.

Though there was mutual abhorrence toward this idea transnationalism, many reformers writers believed this policy fosters globalization of America by their important political connections and offering of labor services. Such benefit is emphasized to be a critical favor and can be readily recognized through the advances in technology and communication that has happened over the years. For example, this advance helps immigrants keep their ethnic ties through an effective and cheap method of usage of telephones. Asian Indians were studied to be one of the largest immigrant groups that believed in keeping these ties with their family. Hence, forms of modern communication and technology allowed for more transnationalism and even more racial acceptance by the Americans since there was more commitment to cultural diversity. Overall, this idea brings a whole new realism side to this immigration of the advanced education, strong labor force, dual nationality, and professional financial support. The spread of the benefits allows for transnationalism to grow and celebrated among today’s society.

Foner also proclaims that race helps convey to the reader the varying standpoints that education had on society. Primarily, she references the educational distinctions between Jews and Italians due to the pervasion of prejudice for these two particular immigrant groups in the 20^th century.  For example, her descriptive studies show that Jews barely finished past high school due to the low age requirement for the labor force. In particular, Jews received an inadequate amount of education in America due to the low age requirements, prejudice of race, overflowing of immigrants in the crowded schools, and the crowding of these ethnic groups in NYC. However, Italian parents neglected formal education for their children and wished for them to learn the ways of the labor force.

Differences between the two waves of immigration are clearly evident as the primary goal for early immigrants was to work in factories, which were often located in their homes. The reiteration of this point with the usage of statistical data of the amount of Jews and Italians that were presented in the cramped classes allows for the reader to realize the huge changes that education had back then compared to today. One of them included that the job workforce didn’t have a diploma requirement and the entire college tuition was covered through scholarships and the thought this type of education for immigrant families conveyed a beneficial education standpoint.

Foner discusses several other barriers in order to help explain the loss of education for newcomers. Such examples included: language, poor teaching methods, and others. Hence, proven by these factors, the native whites were always on top of the educational hierarchy who had better graduation rates. However, this distinction of whites versus Jewish immigrants is apparent as Jews continued to dominate higher education opportunities.

By analyzing this historic-based immigration with the contemporary immigrants that come with the shared goal of attaining a better education, a radical education change is shown. Several reasons are demonstrated: higher education requirements for acceptances into better colleges, broader range of education opportunities, toughening of entrance exam requirements into select institutions. The drastic improvements astonishes me as, however, at the same time with analyzing this transition, Professor Foner discusses the plethora of improvements that the government must perform to correct all of the social flaws that came along with these educational reforms. Though these problems may seem apparent, they bring major attention in order to form a better system balance. Such conflicts involve several key factors: overcrowding of schools, budget cuts, immigrants with poor education, inadequate amount of ESL classes needed to provide the students with a sturdy base in the English language, and many others. Exemplifying this mishap, studies were done to show the differing education levels that immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia have compared to ones over here. The results convey that Asians over represent the city’s public high schools and do well on difficult standardized entrance exams. However, Foner, again, references to the same issue of race that causes various concerns for researchers. Accommodating to the lifestyle in America may cause immigrants to adapt to the teenage schedule of a greater degree of freedom and the rejection to academic efforts. Also, immigrants in New York may face assimilation by their high-crime neighborhoods, which causes them to attain low academic standards by focusing on dangerous actions in order to be more accepted by them.

Ultimately, Immigrants were Americanized in history based on skin color. Since most of the Jews and Italian immigrants were white skinned they would blend in to the society well. Other black Americans and Hispanics who were dark skinned were looked down up and had to adapt to the American lifestyles. Most of them would assimilate to their lifestyles but this black-white division existed throughout the 20th century. However, a upward of socioeconomic status in the U.S would allow second generation Jewish and Italian immigrants to adapt to the lifestyles of America and move up on the social ladder. The differences in gender were another factor that influenced the types of workplaces that they worked in. Though discrimination existed during those times, there was still a force of the large numbers that crowded.  This compared to today’s acceptance towards immigration conveys a radical and society change.

Conclusion:

Nancy Foner corrects the representation of the different immigration groups. She emphasizes minuet details and statistics that can affect the life of a immigrant. The most important aspect Foner claims is the racial barrier that separates the immigrants. Many had language problems, which prohibited them from opportunities other educated immigrants had. The book overall brought up retrospective views and compared them to modern views. We see the dynamic and radical changes in immigrants of New York. Modern immigrants are able to sustain a middle-class lifestyle. This was unheard of during the 1920s. It amazing how nearly 60 years can affect the lifestyles of immigrants in numerous ways. This is an amazing book if one wants to learn the dynamics in immigration. It gives an interesting aspect into the lives of the people who came to America and I would highly recommend this book to anyone trying to seek knowledge on immigration.