The museum. How many of you have visited in the past . And how many have you gone to our tenement . How many have been to exhibits here in this building . Okay. No you havent because it hasno opened yet. [laughter] so upstairs will be opening an exhibit, weve done talks in here so maybe thats great, youre wonderful, excellent. But i like to do that because i think sometimes people feel like theyve visited the museum and they came in 1992 and they dont need to come again, we are so sm glad when you come back again and you see the programs that wo are doing here, the Public Programs that we are doing here at night but also what we are really, really excited about is a new exhibit thats going to open this summer, july 4th, 2017, thats why you are seeing the over the years we had a family, Epstein Family that survived concentration camps and started live in 1947, refugeesar will be telling their story, a puerto rican migrant family that came here in the mid1950s and moved to this building the 1960s and the wong family, chinese family that came to the Lower East Side in 1965 and moved into this building in 1968. All new stories that we are going to be able to leave together and used same techniques that we used, to use the story, the real people, we elevate the stories of ordinary people in order to inspire connection past and present, so that what we do here at the museum is not just talk about the history of immigration and migration but also talk about its connections, and a few hours some of you might head home tolk watch the third act of a of a debate where probably not much of substance will come up and so we are excited to be able to welcome you here tonight to have a really substantial conversation about immigrationit past and present with two of our most favorite scholars and people who have worked with us behind the scenes with our educators and on our exhibits so this is a i know some of you are family members of the speakers here but the parents and sister, welcome, we are also a museum about family and so we would like to invite you to the broader family. Come back, come to more exhibits, come to more program and welcome tonight to this program on city of dreams, one last thing i was going to say is that i dont know if you knowro this, but in 1885 a german immigrant got off the boat and he came, this neighborhood two blocks from leer and had, i think, a barber store, he was a barber and his name was fredrik trump, so all of these immigration stories are going to tom coght in some way. So im going to do a quick interruption and im also going to ask you and im going to do it myself. Have a phone, you might want to turn off the volume. Okay, i did it. Professor of history and former chair of George Washington university. His first book nativism and slavery won the prize of the organization of american historians, second book, five points won the new york city book of 2001, probably mostd ito topread books. And he served as a consultant to martin for gains of new york. Im told that martin didnt listen to all of the suggestions. [laughter] his ancestors his ancestors s came to new york from southwest germany, russia and poland. Author of the awardwinning maximum city bombay lost and found. Finalist for 2005 pulitzer prize. Harpers magazine, time and newsweek and featured on fresh air and off things considered. An associate professor of journalism at new york university. Currently working on a Nonfiction Book about immigrants in contemporary new york. When that comes out, tyler will come and interview him here. He was born in calcutta and raised in new york. If you want to be tiered up, google article calling melting his pot about one building in queens that tells a story about all the different people who are sharing an Apartment Building and a story that has provided inspiration for us here at the tenement museum. Join us welcoming tyler and binder. [applause] thanks, annie, for that kind welcome. And thank you all for coming. So i was asked to give a 10 to 15 minutes overview of city of dreams and i have to admit thats a daunting task if youve seen the book. Its a big book and it tells a lot of stories but i will do my best to summarize in 10 to 15 minutes. One thing im always asked is why i wrote the book, so i thought i would maybe mention that. In part i was inspired because as i worked on my second book, i came across so much great material because the stories, events didnt take place in that six by four block area that was 5 points and so as i acum swlieted accumulated the stories i thought i need some other way to convey them. The other main thing that inspired me was i wanted a narrative challenge. I sweat over sometimes every word, sometimes way too long. I had written the typical historical books. Centur the reason why i wanted to write the city of dreams is its such a great story. I found writing it made me happy, telling the stories which, you know, sometimes the stories are terrible, sometimes theyre uplifting, but they always teach us something and so i just felt like it was a story that i had to tell. The book is long, 242 22 chapters and tells the stories of a lot of immigrant groups and focuses on the biggest immigrant groups for each century in the city in the 17th century focus on dutch and english and 18th century, the english and irish and 11th century, the irish and germans and Eastern European jews and italian and 20th century the jews, italians, puerto ricans, dominicans, chinese and west indians and so forth. Even though you might think, how could you bring those all those diverse stories togetheru into one narrative, the book the book is held together by several themes, though, i try to do it in a very subtle way, i really want to reader to be hit over the head is here is what you should be thinking now. I tried to make it subtle and i hope i succeeded in that. This is an image that was probably taken not too far from here of a garment worker. Probably an italian garment worker. So one theme of the book is that the immigrant experience has not varied much over new new york citys history. One thing i found that the dutch really werent that different at their core than the english and the english werent that different than the scotts, the scotts from the irish, the germans from the italians, et cetera, all the way up to to do where the biggest growing immigrant group in terms of proportion is south asian. The story is almost always the same. A hard journey to america, struggle to adjust, very little assimilation, better lives for themselves and their children. We tend to think of the experience as unique. Hn but in most senses the ones that really matter, the immigration experience is the same, generation after generation century after century. Another theme of the book is that antiimmigrant sentiment is as consistent a theme in American History as immigration conveyed some of the same ideas that you might hear in the press today. Throughout American History, americans have worried about immigrants, feared immigrants, sometimes even hated immigrants, the dutch were very antienglish. They thought that teng lish would ruin america and the police they had created. The english were very antiirish. Later on, the ones discriminated against for catholicism becomehe antisemites. And so on and so forth up to antimuslim sentiment today. And peoples antisentiments were too conservative or too radical. Sometimes people complained that immigrants takes our jobs, other times, many times new yorkers w complained that immigrants were a secret army plotting to destroy america. Op thats something that weve heard throughout americas history and throughout new yorks history. The other theme of the book, final theme is that immigrants today really arent any different in an important sense than previous generations of immigrants. We tend to think that todays immigrants arent like myou grandparents but in almost every sense, in almost every way, immigrants are just like our w immigrant grandparents or great grandparents or even, great, great grandparents. The difference is we perceivegd relatively insignificant differences or more often than not the result of past experience of our own immigrants. Ou so as long as there are people in the world seeking a better life for themselves and their children looking to move to a place where hard work, bold ideas and entrepreneurship are rewarded, new york will continue to be the worlds city of dreamn. Wo thank you. [applause] thank you, its a privilege to be here with you. As someone who has been working far too long on a book about immigrants in new york today, i mean, all of your achievement, how long did it take you to write this book . Well, if i have to admit it, 15 years. The writing itself maybe four years, a lot of Research Went into it, a lot of i cant start writing until i know more and theres so much to learn and so much to read, 15 years and four of writing. Thank you, that makes me feel so much better. Im only on year nine of mymuchi book. [laughter] well, what made you take up a little bit in your talk, and what was the actual writing . You chose a lot of immigrant memoirs and diaries and firstperson accounts and characters in the book, so as a historian, how do you chose one approach over the aother over, lets say, just kind of book or history or history of the politics about immigration . Well, what i wanted to do more than anything else was write a really good story, something that people would want to read and that they wouldnt be able to put down even thoughh it was a very big book and so, i feel like its always bet to lest historical actors tell their own stories and memoirs are really a great source, you cant always trust em mothers, memoirs is faulty, people embellish, so that makes things complicated, but you you learn to use your judgment and you hope to get things right. I hope i succeeded. One is the story of felix, 1853 riot which was mainly the irish rioting against blacks and republicans, the Republican Party and there were over a hundred deaths, so there was a famous by felix who was irish am immigrant, we dont want to fight, fight by the nigger, but irish immigrant that not more long ago people had been discriminated against and now leading the fight against someone else, but then for that sentence in history books, but felixs career talk to us about that . Sure. Felix, that sentence is quoted in dozen of history books of epitome the new york city draft, irish immigrants that dont want to be made equal of African Americans and believe that the war emancipation are going to do that. Eve th hes cited over and over again as an example of this racism and you cant deny that that innocence is full of racism, what happens to him which isnt in any books, he writes in 1862, makes it legal for exslaves and free blacks to fight in union army and they join by the tens of thousands and yet the army has a lot the army decides that only officers whites can be officers of the units. Strangely what i discovered is one of the solved years who volunteers to lead one of their one of their regiment is felix, which struck me as very strange. Giments and he does it first in South Carolina and then in savannah, georgia in 1864, 65 and 66. After the war, he moves to washington, goes to law school at George Washington where i teach and then after the war he gets a job as a u. S. Attorney in of all places jackson, mississippi and in jackson, mississippi he his job is primarily to prosecute bootleggers and klansmen and here you have felix, up until 14862 was clearly not the person who would seem to have much sympathy for African Americans now becoming a prosecutor of those who pursuited persecuted them. I thought that was a great story. The book also made me realize that a personal hero of mine was whitman. Some of my students here in the room, one of the things that i like to do on the first day of class, i like to take them to Staten Island ferry. So great celebrator of diversity of the humanity of new york of all things new york, but in 1842, the first thing whitman was anticatholic and antiirish and theres much discretion about election violence now who knows what will happen during the election, you have passage of the book on election day in the war, municipal election in new york each attempted to prevent supporter from others to casting ballot. The fight was bloody and horrible recorded the herald, men were so beaten that they could not be recognized as human beings, their goal noted was to review the outrageous and they moved uptown [inaudible] had it been hypocrite head that had been smashed instead of window, we could find it in our soul to be sorrowful. You make the connection with election violence in the past and the fact that even a person of humane as whitman compels to issue the against immigrants . Its hard to appreciate today how, both how protestant americans felt their nation was and how much they felt protestants and how much they thought catholicism as a threat and so because americans, so Many Americans thought that protestant is what defined america, what gave us our freedoms, they described in american democracy, look at the world, the only place that it has democracy is protestant nations, look at the places that have the most scientific ingenuity, protestant countriesr obviously they are reading history oddly to come to such conclusions, nonetheless thats what they believed. They saw catholic immigrants as threat to that. In that particular case, what whitman is upset about is something that we can all imagine we get upset about which is the Public School and there was a big fight in this period, catholic immigrants coming to new york and sending their kids to Public Schools were shocked to find that the curriculum schools were protestant, children were required to singin protestant hymns and parents of catholic children objected to that and and instead of instead of saying, i see your point, maybe we should, you know, allow catholic children to read from a catholic version of the bible and so forth, american protestants said, no, we must keep the schools protestants because thats what makes America Great and if we take that out of the schools, our children and our nation will suffer and people felt very strongly about that and that was what inspired whitmans animus. The conflict in the book [inaudible] religious tolerance and speaking up for religious liberty, one of the most famous cases where peter tried to band from moving and a group of local mostly english people in document of religious tolerant. Mayor of bloomberg a few years ago when he made the very moving speech about the Islamic Center at grounded zero and why along with the conflict always had the tradition of tolerance and welcoming diversity. But in the book, most of the people eventually were force to recant. Yes, so peter also was not a very tolerant person, for him even variety of protestantism that the dutch didnt like were out of line. Lutherans were a big enemy. He we wanted to ban lutherans from new amsterdam, you really have to let the lutherans come in. You cant keep banning people. And so he allows the lutherans h and were seen more of a threat because their form of protestane was seen quite radical. It would lead to anarchy, this d really isnt right of banningt and the first and and religious and dont tend, people signed it and said and people are playing with religious, po [inaudible] historic high point for immigration. Ty is 27 is foreignborn. It was at its peak in 1865, and then by 1920, 41 , then it dipped in 1970 to mere 18 an come up to the 7 . So, you know, much of the team of the latter part of your book, but can you talk about the major laws or movements that explain the radical shifts and did you get a sense of how they are made in washington about which group to let in when . Thats a complicated question. First let me talk about your point about the flows and in particular to get a sense of how wild new york may seem very immigrant today how really in comparison to the past its not. The best example is 1865 where 51 of the citys residents are immigrants. Whats more interesting about the number is the fact that in those days, new york has generally had bigger families, lots of kids, so really most of the nativeborn new yorkers were tinny children and if you look at just adults in 1857, ten were foreignborn. New york today is a third less immigrant than it was in 1855, if you talk about adults its far less. Then in terms of how law affects flow of immigration, whats interesting for most of new yorks history laws have had nothing to the with the flow of immigration history and economics has had much more of an impact. Or and so people have tended toan come to the United States either because they saw great opportunity, Economic Opportunity here or because there was a lack of that opportunity where they were coming from and so for most of American History laws have had relatively little impact on the number of immigrants coming to the United States. And americans dont want them to come. And this fear combined with the roaring 20s would be taken over by large numbers of immigrants they convince americans to cut the flow of immigration so now you have the allies that are the laws that are very erasers with their underpinnings from england you can, of limited number but from. Italy year russia wants the number is cut by 90 percent from italy, agrees, russia and poland is cut to almost nothing so that is why the immigrant population but only in 65 that Congress Changes those laws and goes s back to where no one country gets privilege over another but with the flow there is the unintended consequences from that law that puts in place limits but there are exceptions to the limits ofexcet their are family members of immigrants already in the United States and they dont anticipate how many family members of asian or latino immigrants will want to come to the United States so that is one of the reasons why immigration grew so much more rapidly. That is how my own family came here. From detroit in the early 70s and by the early 80s we had 15 members fear so but now talk about the diversity. But the important thing to note about that lottery is you could obi qualify for the diversity lottery if you h