Immigrants from the past

[Emiliano]

Photographs like those never get old for me. It's just really interesting to think about this country's relationship with immigration over the past two centuries, from Castle Garden to Trump's wall. The immigrant experience really fascinates me in general - what compels people to leave their home country, what kind of life and living conditions the have once they arrive in the us. What the process of assimilation was like, and what aspects of their culture they kept, what things were lost. How the native born society views immigrants, and how the different ethnic groups find ways to establish themselves here. How the expectation and the reality of living in America compared...

I always liked this quote too: "I came to New York because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I learned three things: The streets are not paved with gold. They are not paved at all. I am expected to pave them.”

Turn of the century NYC is my favorite time period to learn about, but it was a really rough, dangerous, filthy, crowded place. It's interesting to juxtapose the images of the new arrivals in their traditional dress with photos like the ones taken by Jacob Riis of the tenements on the Lower East Side too.