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Immigration in the Late 1800s
Immigration in the Late 1800s
Brief history of immigration in united states essay
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Jacob Riis’ How The Other Half Lives intensely depicts the reality of the extremely indigent population of New York City slums in the late nineteenth century. During this time thousands of newly arrived immigrants began to overcrowd American cities in pursuit of betterment and equal opportunity. Numerous amounts of people had traveled to America to escape the detrimental reality of their own country only to find that America offered nothing better for them. The same people that suffered famine or revolution dealt with living in continuous danger and health threatening quality. Unfortunately, there was no better option as permanent placement of immigrants became extremely problematic. Soon enough, there was no more space for living. The abundance …show more content…
Not many people would even dare to blink past these filthy areas as they were either completely oblivious and unaware or chose to ignore it. This wasn't until Jacob Riis, photographer, journalist, and social reformer used his talent and expertise to bring attention to the lack of viability in tenement housing with his book, How The Other Half Lives. Riis himself experienced a difficult journey through jobs that led to his later success, this allowed him a closer look at how the poor lived. He used his privilege as a successful photojournalist and police reporter to create the disheartening eye opening experience into a world that was incapable of helping itself. At this time many of the upper class citizen of New York City were blind to the horrific conditions immigrants were forced to live into, which gave Riis’ book the audience he needed to not only state the gruesome truth of living in the slums, but also present photographic evidence of inhuman living and working situations of that …show more content…
This allowed his subjects to appear clear at night, as film is very difficult to shoot handheld in the dark. But flash photography is also very suitable for a more dramatic effect in portraiture, especially against unlit areas. One photograph in specific that illustrates this practice is Midnight in Ludlow St. The photograph is directed at two men sleeping in what seems to be an overcrowded and dirty bedroom. The angle Riis’ shoots at is head on which neither demonizes nor glorifies the poor, but gives direct connection to eye level portraiture, which is important when photographing the homeless. This creates personalization and grants the viewer to form some sort of emotional and personal connection, as if they are the ones in the photograph looking at the two men. Riis also used flash in this photograph, which is why we are able to see the grime clinging to the windows and floors against the very dark and dramatic contrast given off by the light. We see very clearly the faces of the unknown men, covered in filthy blankets, surrounded by dust and dirt, making you envision just how unfair it is to be complicit in your own dehumanization. This photograph brilliantly brings your attention to the silent world of tenement housing at night, while the other half are asleep in their comforting homes - these men, along with many other women and children, are used to sleeping on filthy floors in jam
Differences present between immigrant and non-immigrant families in terms of opportunity, social inclusion and cultural acceptance is a prominent issue in the world today. In the novel, Brother, David Chariandy shows how these inconsistencies affect the opportunities present for second-generation migrants. Francis, Michael and Aisha are all children of migrants residing in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough or “Scar-Bro” as Michael refers to it (Chariandy). This suburb is home to immigrants of colour struggling to raise families on minimum wage jobs and the institutional racism present. This essay will first examine how the opportunity of second generation migrants is affected due to the preconceived idea of what opportunity is from the first
In 1890 Jacob Riis, a Danish migrant and New York Times reported introduced the immigrant problem to Americans using photojournalism in his book How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. This book provided insight into the harsh lives of the immigrants living in the slums of New York by giving photographic evidence that spoke to the hearts of many Americans. At the time many were unaware of the difficult challenges many immigrants faced and Riis brought up this social issue. Riis himself however has some bias and delineates these people into groups of the “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”. Despite his muckraking skills and attempts to reveal the hostile conditions of immigrants Riis has some racial prejudices
Throughout the early 1900s an American immigrant experience was subject to society’s opinion and the nation’s policies. Various ethnicities endured the harsh reality that was American culture while familiarizing themselves with their families. Immigration thrived off the strength and pride demonstrated by their neighborhoods. Notions of race, cultural adaptations and neighborhood represented the ways by which human being were assessed. In a careful interpretation of Mary Lui’s “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery” and Michael Innis-Jimenez’s “Steel Barrio”, I will trace the importance of a neighborhood in the immigrant experience explaining the way in which neighborhoods were created, how these lines were crossed and notions of race factored into separating these neighborhoods.
Mark Peterson’s 1994 photograph, Image of Homelessness, compares the everyday life of the working class to the forgotten life of the lowest class in society. In the image, the viewer can see a troubled homeless man wrapped in a cocoon of standard manipulated 12in by 12in cardboard boxes and yarn. The yarn is what is keeping the man and box tied to the red bench. This bench has chipped paint and is right in front of a black fence. Underneath the bench is dirt and debris from the dead fall leaves. The center focal point is the homeless man on the bench. He is the focal point because he is the greatest outsider known to man. Behind this man is vibrant life. There is pulsating people crossing the clean street, signs of life from all the advertising on store windows, families walking and blurred cars filled with
...ll. The inner city has many complications the fact that most are African American is a mere coincidence. If we as a nation are capable of fixing all institutions and structural issues we could bring the slums out of poverty. The cycle of unemployment and poverty is a terrible cycle that cannot only be judged by race and cultural values. When reading this book keep in mind the difficulties, any family or person could go through these tribulations. There are many arguments and sides to each problem; this is another one of those. The battle for inner city poverty, and the factors that go along with it, has not been finished. Wilson brings out a different aspect which could help people expand horizons and come up with better solutions.
The “other America” Kotlowitz describes in his book is the public housing complex at Henry Horner Homes in Chicago. By following the lives of two boys, Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, we are exposed to the misfortunes, turmoil and death that their lives are filled with.
Jacob Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives is a detailed description on the poor and the destitute in the inner realms of New York City. Riis tries to portray the living conditions through the ‘eyes’ of his camera. He sneaks up on the people flashes a picture and then tells the rest of the city how the ‘other half’ is living. As shocking as the truth was without seeing such poverty and horrible conditions with their own eyes or taking in the experience with all their senses it still seemed like a million miles away or even just a fairy tale.
In the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Evicted, sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families as he exposes how the lack of affordable housing perpetuates a state of poverty. He even goes so far as to assert that it is eviction that is a cause of poverty, not the other way around (Desmond 229). While this latter argument is as engrossing and it is striking, analyzing it with justice is simply not possible within the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, it is these two factors—inescapable poverty and eviction—that engender an unrelenting condition of financial, emotional, and communal instability, effectively hindering any chance of upward mobility.
The novel How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis shocked middle and upper class Americans when it was published in 1890. Riis created a sensation when he revealed to the world, combining detailed written descriptions with graphic photographs, the horrific conditions of New York City’s tenement housing. How the Other Half Lives raises many questions, such as how and why the poor are subjected to such terrible living conditions and how that environment affects them. Riis also reveals his fears and prejudices toward certain ethnic groups as he investigates each tenement in order to find some kind of solution. The miserable surroundings Riis discusses throughout the length of his entire document focus on the tenement.
In The Promised Land, Nicholas Lehmann follows the stories of black migrants, politicians, and bureaucrats through the Great Migration, and attempts to explain the decline of northern cities, the constant liberty struggle of blacks across America, and government response to the issues surrounding the Great Migration. This work signalled a drastic change from the structured approach of Thomas Sugrue’s, The Origins Of The Urban Crisis, which observes the effects of institutions and human agency on postwar Detroit and its marginalized peoples. Both Sugrue and Lemann had (albeit slightly different) holistic views of the political climate of postwar cities, which helped provide context for prejudices towards blacks and the poor, and subsequently
Noticing the influx of immigration and population boom in Manhattan at the end of the 19th century, a man named J. Clarence...
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
A well-discussed debate in today’s economy is the issues concerning immigrants and their yearning desire to become American citizens. As displayed in The Jungle, a rather perturbing novel about the trials and ruthless temptations early America presents to a Lithuanian family, adjusting to a new surroundings and a new way of life is quite difficult. To make matters worse, language barriers and lack of domestic knowledge only seem to entice starvation and poverty among newly acquired citizens, who simply wish to change their social and economic lives to better themselves and their families. Such is the case of Jurgis Rudkus and his extended family, consisting of cousins, in-laws, and their multitude of children. Natives to the country of Lithuania, Jurgis and his family decide that, after Jurgis and his love, Ona, marry, they will move to Chicago to find work in order to support their family.
The book asks two questions; first, why the changes that have taken place on the sidewalk over the past 40 years have occurred? Focusing on the concentration of poverty in some areas, people movement from one place to the other and how the people working/or living on Sixth Avenue come from such neighborhoods. Second, How the sidewalk life works today? By looking at the mainly poor black men, who work as book and magazine vendors, and/or live on the sidewalk of an upper-middle-class neighborhood. The book follows the lives of several men who work as book and magazine vendors in Greenwich Village during the 1990s, where mos...
During the Gilded Age, the streets where the poor lived were inhumane. There were many people that lived on the streets or in tenements in poor condition. Jacob Riis, a photographer, exposed “the