East Harlem is a culturally diverse neighborhood, which is what New York City in general is known for. East Harlem contains many different groups of people, to name the ones that we had read, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, African Americans, West Africans, and so on. From Tenants of East Harlem, it seems that the immigrants came to East Harlem to have a better life for their families, which is a similar story that many immigrants generally share. They call this place home, even Maria and Mohamed, who had no intention of staying in New York for long but still live here. Jose and Lucille had lived in Harlem for so long that they couldn’t imagine themselves anywhere else and became heavily involved in their community. Even Piri Thomas’ experiences could not change the fact that he loved his Spanish Harlem.
They felt a connection to Harlem partly because they thought back to their childhood with nostalgia. Jose always thought fondly of the DeWitt Clinton Houses and wishes that he was still living there. Lucille goes down the streets of her old block and is able to identify important places for her, such as where she lived, even though they may have torn down the building. Piri Thomas is attached to Spanish Harlem and always returned there whenever he could. It was also a central place of political and social change. Like Shirley mentions, thinking about changes in my own neighborhood can bring apprehension, I guess because of uncertainty. I have lived in my neighborhood my entire life and thinking about more changes can be unsettling because of how familar I am with the environment.
One detail that I noticed throughout the readings, especially in The Tenants of East Harlem, was that there was a division between nationalities and ethnic groups in East Harlem. Most of the people were able to identify where their neighborhood began and eneded. Lucille remembered how, when she walked to the Jefferson Park pool, she noticed that the neighborhood changed. They were concerned when they crossed the threshold of their areas, like Jose’s mother, who was fretting about this. Why were there divisions? Probably because, like mentioned previously, the immigrants clustered together with people that they were familiar with. There were clashes, like those between the Puerto Ricans and the Italians. I thought that Maryam’s poem was awesome and addressed the fact of how different cultures met. While both Orsi and Thomas were talking about the same neighborhood, they had different views of it.
