Giovanna M. Cucciniello
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The “foreignness” of the immigrant has often been exaggerated in drawings and cartoons carried by the popular press and in advertisements. Such negative images of ethnic and racial minorities have created and reinforced barriers to social progress and integration. At the same time, however, the plight of the immigrants (who were crowded into tiny apartments; restricted, for all practical purposes, to the ghettos of the cities and forced to work for substandard wages) became of great concern to a group of reformers and progressive social critics around the turn of the century. These critics and reformers fought for better working conditions, better housing, and better education for American immigrants.1
The students I instruct emigrated with their families predominantly from Central and South America but also from other parts of the world and are no strangers to immigration. They are often disenfranchised and isolated from mainstream American culture and society. Migration and adaptation to a new country and social environment carry with it consequences that are not solely limited to language barriers. It is important to address these issues when taking into account our second language learners needs. How does the need to cope with our physical environment shape our social behavior, and our material culture? What changes take place or have taken place within our lives is a direct result of moving to a different location? There are a number of reasons for movement even within a country from native areas into the cities: political, religious and economic. Students will be encouraged to share their experiences and come to understand the universal messages put forth in Hine’s photographs.
The Hine photographs we will be describing were made in a phase of industrial expansion and the United States wanted cheap labor. Through Ellis Island passed as many as 5000 immigrants a day. From 1906 to 1926 (the period covered by the Hine series) approximately 14,000,000 men, women and children entered America through the bottleneck of Ellis Island. In 1907 alone the total was 1,290,000, while from 1820 to the present it is over 38,000,000. When immigration was restricted in 1926, the yearly total dropped to 300,000. As the 20th century began, millions of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe poured into Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and other U.S. cities. In New York, the nation’s largest city, more than half of the population was foreign-born. The pace and size of U.S. cities were different than anything experienced by most immigrants. Whether they came from villages or small cities, little in their past prepared them for the crowded streets, blaring traffic, towering skyscrapers, and roaring subways of large urban centers like New York. Many of these cities were marked by great diversity. Neighborhoods were defined by class, religion, ethnicity and race. For example in New York City, bias forced most of the city’s 50,000 African-Americans into Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem and pockets of Brooklyn. Southern Italians, who were considered “black” by some New Yorkers, were also targets of racial discrimination.
As new immigrants settled downtown, New Yorkers with older roots in the city moved uptown or to the city’s outer boroughs, such as the Bronx. Subways, trolley lines, railroads, bridges, and ferries made possible this escape from the inner city. Despite all their differences, millions of New Yorkers read some of the same newspapers, saw the same movies, laughed at the same comic strips, mixed in public spaces like Coney Island, and wore mass-produced fashions that blurred class distinctions.
By introducing the theme of immigration in this unit, as it relates to the photos and this particular time of American history, it is important for students to relate their personal immigrant experiences to the lesson. How are the events and experiences similar or different to what immigrants today may confront upon their arrival to the United States? Are cities and neighborhoods still defined by class, religion, ethnicity and race?
