I went to this museum in the very first day in New York City and I took a train in the opposite direction that I am supposed to take. Well this is not uncommon for a person who has no sense of direction. This tenement housed over 7000 immigrants in a decade, according to my memory of the interpretation. The guide was great and she embedded a few words in my mind: community, identity and chaotic. There are altogether 4 apartments on each floor and each was occupied by a six-people household. There are a total of 20 apartments in this single tenement. Conclusion: it is overcrowded.
The tenement was first occupied by German immigrants and then Jewish immigrants. This neighborhood was occupied by Jewish immigrants during late 1850s to early 1900s. Few days ago I visited United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and I roughly remember the Holocaust and suppression of Jewish happened in the same period as the immigration. The first thing popped up in my mind about Jewish immigration in United States is that despite the desperate situation faced by Jewish at that time, United States was unable to raise immigrant quota for Jewish. I am not taking any stance but I'd like to find out the relationship between Nazi suppression and Jewish immigration during 1900s.
Well here comes to the main point of this entry, finally. Earlier this year I was supposed to teach high school kids in Boston about "Identity". It is a very simple, but also complicated concept and the guide's interpretation brought me back to this matter. How did the Jewish immigrants protect their own identity when they are in a totally unfamiliar country? What kind of conflict did they encounter and how did they resolve this? The guide introduced us several photographs of that time and we saw different expressions of identity in the same community. When I was trying to convey the message, we used clothing, food and language as examples. Some of the Jewish immigrants stick to their traditions and speak Irish only, while some others tried their best to integrate into American culture or became "Americanized". Change in expression of identity could be seen across the generation as we saw some young American clothing and novels in immigrants' homes.
It was a really good experience and not surprisingly I could hardly see any Asian or Chinese visitors in the site.
No comments:
Post a Comment