Still in Squalor

The immigrants of the past, while glorified by some, had many hardships that are often forgotten. It is often forgotten that by 1900, “about three-quarters of Manhattan’s residents were tenement dwellers–the newest immigrants being the most likely inhabitants” (Foner 42). These inhabitants had squalid condtions that would be imaginable to us now. “Access to steam heat, hot running water, and private toilets—what we now view as basic necessities— were unknown luxuries to this early wave of immigrant poor” (42). This is well documented in Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives, a publication that opened the eyes of many Americans. But why did the immigrants live like this? They lived like this because they could not afford any better being new to the country.
Today, much of our immigrants do not live like this. Contrary to the findings of Riis, they have access to hot water, to toilets, and other basic necessities. Immigrants have created their own towns and neighborhoods, forming three “Chinatowns, a little Odessa-by-the-Sea, Caribbean Brooklyn, and a Dominican colony in Washington Heights” (48). Although many of the immigrants have made it out of that intense squalor of a century ago, there are unfortunately still some who still have to endure it. There are reports of “Mexican immigrants inhabiting tunnel-like spaces behind buildings in Washington Heights, Chinese men being packed with ten or fifteen others into one-bedroom Chinatown apartments that have been sub- divided into compartments smaller than many closets” (59). Indeed these are ‘‘the kind of claustrophobic quarters that [Jacob] Riis sought to eliminate’’ (59). I found this a bit surprising that there were still so many living in this way especially after so many years. Will there come a time when this will stop? One can only hope.