To answer Eden’s question if the differences outweigh the similarities, I would probably side with Foner in saying yes, that the more recent immigrants have more variety in skills, and higher education. They have held higher status jobs, and gotten higher level education in their home counries before coming to America. Old immigrants did not have these opportunities in their home countries, pushing them to America. Like Praveena says in her post, the world moves forward, and there are always going to be changes occuring as we move on in time.

As time goes on, immigrants move up on the social ladder, creating what Chin calls a “social network” of immigrants. The very first people to migrate to America in search of better opportunities didn’t know anyone here, and were therefore forced into a new world, to suffer alone, to search for work alone, and to build a status for themselves alone. These immigrants didn’t expect any help from anyone who lived here, wanting only to provide for themselves and for their families back home. However, as time went on and more people migrated here, families branched out, friends met up, people connected. Newer immigrants came and met up with a mother, a sister, a brother, an uncle, a distant friend…anyone. And these already situated immigrants would get their daughter, sister, brother, nephew, friend a job-through reccomendations.

Some already employed immigrants would bring their relatives/friends to work and find them an open seat, or they would take them and reccomend them to their employers. However, some were too afraid of this because of the reflection it would have upon them(if the person they suggested was not good enough). So they would instead just make a suggestion to their relative/friend as to where he would be able to find work. Many employers found it helpful, as I presume it must be, to hire people who his employees are already aquainted with and get along with. This way, there wouldn’t be very many disturbances in the work place. However, Koreans especially despised this idea, not trusting their employees to make the right decisions.

In terms of employment, as Anbinder and Chin mention, immigrants have a slight power over the natives when it comes to getting a job, because immigrants are willing to work more hours for less pay. This is unfair to native people because they are now out of a job, and are now getting no money. However, in Lee’s article, entrepreneurships are compared, and it is found that immigrants tend to become self-employed more than natives do because they don’t have the same “high-priced salable skills.” This argument can lean either way, but as a native, I tend to side with the natives, because they were here first, and really should have first choice at jobs.

In response to Eden’s first question about women’s status at this time, I think it’s easy to say that the status of women was much higher than at any other point. Because the times were hard, it was oftentimes necessary for a woman to work to support her family. Many young girls beame hot-corn girls, in order to make a few extra cents a day for her family. Older girls worked with their mothers as seamstresses, also in order to supplement the family income. Although having women in the work area has always been a gray area, when it has been needed, like after WWII, it has been relied on.

In order for any immigrant to get a job, like Jacqueline says, he needs a variety of skills: the ability to speak English, to get along with ohers, employee connections, and the indifference to being paid lower wages than natives. Most immigrants were so overjoyed to be getting money at all, that they didn’t care whether or not it was a fair wage. Today, not even an immigrant would stand for that. There would be a strike…or the employer would be sued: yet another example of the progression of immigrants

Time is money. When facing desperate situations promising either life or death, every present action explicitly affects the future. Immigrants to America quickly realized that they had to portion both their time and money wisely in order to ensure the best successful output possible. They understood that the longer it took to find a job (Anbinder notes that employment was stronger in foreign countries than in America), the longer they had to endure hunger, stress, and discomforts at home. Jobs available were not luxurious; they required long hours of toil and tolerance. However, when realizing what life could be like without the employment, the slightest wage for the hardest work seemed like an incredible feat. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly the first step they had in mind in achieving the “American Dream”, but hey, it could be worse, right?

Foreigners’ approach to job-hunting varied with culture, ethnicity, and location. In Five Points, Anbinder states that the immigrants basically took whatever they could find, whether it be peddling or hard labor. The occupations even depended on what season was currently in place. Chin’s article explains the differences of how Chinese and Korean garment shops approached employment. Chinese businesses only hired skilled coethnic workers, who would not slow production down. They were extremely personal, since employers encouraged their employees to bring friends to the job, and to work with them in training. Korean garment shops, which hired Latinos, were not as accepting. Workers were paid by the hour, rather than by articles produced; thus, employees had less flexibility in the schedule for their personal needs or demands of the children. Bringing along friends was discouraged, for the stranger may be too slow for the rate of production required. Jews, Koreans, and African Americans were compared and contrasted in Lee’s text based on their methods of beginning entrepreneurship. Hard work was a cultural value seen in Jews and Koreans, which made them inevitably successful in small business. They relied on their own drive to produce an income, or helped each other with rotating credit associations. African Americans, on the other hand, were underrepresented to begin with, and depended heavily on external loans. These, however, were not reliable for extended periods of time, and therefore could not sustain a business alone. Because their social situation was so unfavorable, they could not even trust/rely on one another for monetary support. Considering the points made in the two articles, I strongly agree with Jacqueline when she states that coethnic social networks had a major impact on the success of the immigrant; either your “kin” were there to support you or were not.

Eden brings up some great points that really do need to be addressed. Personally, I also believe that women struggled the most when it came to survival in America. They constantly faced discrimination by those of “higher” social stance (men, in particular). According to Foner, this injustice even made them turn against themselves, purposefully making sure that their own income did not exceed that of her husband’s. Lower wages reinforced the already-established perception of women as “inferior”; females were seen as the humans used soely for reproductive and child-rendering purposes, which then made success in American economic life difficult.

Although immigrants today are not “modern-day variations on old themes” (Foner 89), many similarities still exist regarding social and economic hardships. Women and other minorities combat discrimination, and immigrants labor for long hours with little monetary support. The higher educational level of immigrants is an improvement, however. In addition, the independence and rights that women continue to gain in America is also a positive step in the right direction. Achievements over time help these foreigners build the confidence necessary to continue establishing a bloodline in this new land. Life isn’t easy for anyone – especially immigrants – but with the right stamina and motivation, achieving your variation of the “American Dream” is truly possible.

When reading Chin’s “When Coethnic Assets Become Liabilities: Mexican, Ecuadorian, and Chinese Garment Workers in New York City”, I was struck back at how accurately her observations applied to my own family. Before my parents came to America, my grandmother and grandfather had already established themselves in Queens. My grandparents both worked at a nearby garment factory in Woodside, so by the time my father and mother came, they were already make a steady amount of money. The coethnic relationship began here when my grandmother helped my parents find a job in this way. Recently, my family also moved to a new house, but my mother was only able to find the house because of her friend. My family does this because they want to make their family and friendship bond stronger. By keeping your culturally-similar friends nearby, there is almost a since of security. When I visit my mom at work, I can see that this is very much true because her coworkers are our family friends and my uncle is my mom’s boss.

This is also the reason why we have specific ethnic neighborhoods. People feel better knowing that they have a friend or family member nearby. Without this sense of community, America would be a very difficult place to live in especially when a good amount of immigrants come to American knowing little to no English. However, I also understand that finding work can be competitive, like in the case of the Mexican workers. Like Eden mentioned, the Jews and the Koreans had access to more resources, which is what helped many start their own small businesses. For others, this might not have been the case, and so competition to find and keep a job was more prevalent. Ultimately, what most families need was stability and had different ways of finding it. My family, for example, found comfort through friendship and family circles. It is sort of the “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” kind of relationship.

As for the question posed by Eden about women’s status, I believe that the status didn’t really change only because in the end, the women always took the lower wage jobs. If you go back in history and think about the WWII era, people will say that women have come a long way when they began to join the workforce. However, this opportunity was only allowed because men left their working post to fight in the war. When women immigrants took the lower wage jobs, I believe its only because the men have moved up the ladder, so somebody needed to take their spots. However this is not the case today, because by simply allowing women to work in the first place, they were able to showcase their potential in the working environment thereby evening the playing field now.

In response to Eden’s question, despite the lower wages women received for their work, I think that the status of women began to change from the Victorian era.  For example, certain parts of the readings shared a common theme of how women, who worked for really low wages, still felt a feeling of independence and liberation from the gender roles of society. During the time of the Five Points reading, work was only available for widows and daughters and it was reading about these group of women that allowed me to see how independent they needed to be in their circumstances.  Specifically, reading about the widows really struck me as to how much they went through just to provide for their family; they allowed people to stay in their homes to have some sort of extra money rent. It was sad to see that these borders brought more and had more furniture than the widows had themselves. While borders had their furniture, widows and their children had to sleep on the floor because of the widows’ poor salary in the garment shops.

It was hard to read about how exploited the immigrants were and how insecure most of their job opportunities were. Readings from Anbinder and Chin discuss that if a new worker was introduced to a certain business and willingly worked for less wages, their current worker was easily disposed of. I could not stand how some employers really did not care about the fate of the workers they fired. They did not care if workers needed to pay rent or if their children needed food,workers were fired if there was a better replacement. Employers only had profit and success as number one priority. Some immigrants could not support their families and husbands needed to travel from place to place in hopes of having a job. According to the Anbinder readings, husbands either abandoned their families or ended up dead because of disease and in constant search of work.

Despite all the adversities immigrants had faced during the times of their work, most worked as a family just to accumulate a sort of household income.  They did all they could to sustain their household and life in America. What surprised me also was that those who had sustained households did not even choose to move from the Five Points or other areas; one example are the Lansdowne immigrants  who had a decent amount in their savings to move to other areas but chose to remain in the Five Points. I wonder what made them not want to leave; maybe they realized that if they moved somewhere else, they would not have their frugal behavior as they did in the Five Points. I think that they were so accustomed and realized how far they came and succeeded in the Five Points that they wanted to move further in this neighborhood.  Nevertheless, immigrants worked together to sustain a household and foundation for future generations; I am so glad that all their suffering was not in vain as generations of these immigrants succeed and thrive in the United States today.

I actually had to go back and check the syllabus after reading both Jacqueline and Eden’s sparks, to make sure that we WERE supposed to read chapter 4 of Foner this week. I say that because that chapter brought about a stronger reaction in me than any of the other readings, and I actually felt that my other female classmates would feel the same way. Maybe it’s because I’m secretly a reverse sexist who enjoys tales of women rising to the same level as men, or as demonstrated in this chapter, even rising above men. I was actually surprised to learn that Jewish women were actually expected to work to support their husbands (and sometimes their husbands’ education). I expected that there would have been a financial dependency upon men. While I did enjoy reading quotes from women who felt empowered after working here in the city, I was glad that the end of the chapter reminded us that women still have a ways to go before they are actually on par with men. Women have come a long way, but we still have quite a journey ahead of us.

In response to Eden’s question about the differences outweighing the similarities, I feel as if that’s a tricky question. New York City slowly evolves as time goes by, so the differences that come up are inevitable. Foner does a neat job of simply summing up why the differences outweigh the similarities: Contemporary immigrants arrive with more occupational and educational variety. The economy back then was transitioning into a post industrial economy, whereas today we have shifted from goods to services. The racial and ethnic structure today also plays a role. But it feels as if time is the main key here. The world moves “forward” so to speak, so that people  will have access to more educational and occupational opportunities. It moves “forward” as we transition from goods to services, from working in a factory to working in front of a computer. The world moves “forward” in the sense that other people from other countries are now able to come into the country, whereas they weren’t able to do so in the past. There are obvious differences between the past and present, but I feel as if those are inevitable differences that come with time. You could say that the present is a contemporary version of the past, if that isn’t a contradiction or paradox within itself.

Focusing on Foner for the time being, the constant motif of immigrants taking jobs away from the natives makes me, the child of immigrants, feel rather awful. Foner mentions how immigrants are less likely to complain, and are more willing to do whatever it takes to earn the paycheck, as opposed to natives. I have never noticed this sort of attitude towards native blacks and Hispanics, but the thought of thousands of immigrants pouring in and taking jobs “away” from natives just didn’t sit well with me. I don’t know if there’s a word in the English language to describe the feeling, but it was similar to how I felt when consistently seeing the term “white exodus” in Foner. It’s a slightly saddening feeling when you think of natives leaving because of the mass inflow of immigrants.

Foner still has me wondering about why immigrants with prestigious positions come to the city despite being so well off in their own country. It was discussed several weeks ago in class that they come to the city in hopes of a better future for their children, but that seems like a weak explanation. Education opportunities are expanding in other countries. If someone’s child comes to the city after completing their education in their home country and failing to find work there (this was frequent in the Philippines if I remember correctly) then that’s understandable. But the concept of someone doing really well in their country and then coming here and moving down the social ladder still perks my interest.

I agree with ToniAnn’s stance on whether or not she trusted kyes. The risk involved in this credit-rotating association aside, co-ethnic ties are definitely valuable, as demonstrated in a good number of these readings. I still can’t fully grasp why African Americans are an exception to this, even after reading Lee. It was stated that African American co-ethnic networks tend to be far less affluent, but surely not all the co-ethnic networks of other ethnic groups were well off?

The question that Eden posed is a very good one, and actually one that I had been wondering about myself while reading.  I think that the role of women definitely changed as time went on and conditions got worse, but I also think that their social position was, in fact, changed for the better.  Yes, the immigrant women often times had no choice but to work in garment shops or things of the like, but this was still better than nothing.  Before the women started to work outside the home, their “only” duties were assumed to be taking care of the children, house, and boarders.  So certainly, getting out of the house and being able to help support themselves and their families was a step up.  As a few women mentioned in the readings, making money themselves allowed them to assert a bit more independence, and therefore, opened the doors for them to insist that the men in their lives take up some household responsibilities.  Without the need for these immigrant women to work, no matter how grueling the work or low-paying the position, it is very probable that immigrant women today might still be expected to stay at home and deal with all of the household chores and family upkeep.

I found it interesting that a number of women hated when they were out of work.  They were bored, lonely, and felt that they had even more work at home than they did in the shops!  On a slightly different note, we all know the saying “Beggars can’t be choosers.”  This ran through my mind a few times while reading about how some immigrants opted out of taking a certain job because they were afraid of what social stigmatisms might be attached to it.  If these people were so desperate to get some money for things such as food and a place to live, one would think that they would take any position they could find!  However, I do have to wonder what I would do were I in their place.

Touching upon what Jacqueline said, the use of social networks was very popular among new immigrants, especially the Chinese and Koreans.  I think that I would be extremely grateful to be the one introduced to an open position at a garment factory, in the case of the Chinese especially, but I don’t know how quickly I would bring my friends and family into the shop for fear of losing my own job.  As for the Koreans, I don’t think I would be so trusting of kyes and the people involved with them.  While the idea seems great, the risk of losing so much might be too much for me, and push me away from dabbling in such a resource.  However, it was very heart-warming to read of all the ways that the immigrants helped one another.  Aside from the African Americans, each ethnic group mentioned in the readings this week seemed to rely very heavily on the help received from friends and relatives.  It’s nice to see that people who had so little were still willing to help those they knew and loved.