Communication Immigrant Enclaves

In 1909, my grandfather was born to German-Jewish immigrants in Harlem, Manhattan. At the time, Harlem was at the tail end of being a thriving immigrant community populated largely with . Those people have dispersed to other parts of New York since that time, but the community was an important part of the immigrant experience at that time.

Think about the readings from this week regarding the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan. I was in that neighborhood last week and there is no evidence of the Irish immigrants left there. It is todays Chinatown with lots of good food and Asian groceries. Again, the neighborhood today is a community of recent immigrants bonding together over shared cultures, languages, and diasporic experiences.

Now consider the readings in the context of your own hometowns experience. Are there immigrant enclaves in your hometown? What are the origins of these peoples? If not, where do the new immigrants go? When I lived in Kenner, we had large Cuban and , but they were dispersed within the community. There was no Little Havana (as you find in Miami) and no Little Saigon (as exist in other cities). If this is the experience of your hometown, how did the recent immigrants integrate (or not) into the local community? Kenner has seen a massive Latinx immigration influx since Hurricane Katrina, but when I visit my mother, I cannot say that I can identify a specific Latin Quarter of the city.

Give this one some real thought. Because we dont (for ) in an area like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, where there are distinct and clearly defined immigrant communities, this one is going to take some thought. If you are part of a , add some of your own experiences. If you think that there are no immigrants in your hometown because it is too rural or too small, think again. They are there. But where and how have they built communities in these places? Do some research and answer these questions.