Jewish Immigration and Assimilation

Their challenges in the Lower East Side, New York 1880’s

by Carlos Lobo

Reasons for Immigration – General Challenges

They came from small Eastern European Jewish villages

Religious, poor, uneducated.

Political Refugees from Europe Jewish villages

In search for a better quality of life in New York

Challenges:

New Customs, Idioms, traditions.

Crowded village

Poor living conditions

Still prone to discrimination

Jewish Immigration – Assimilation“ Hester Street “ Movie

Hester Street, a movie focusing on assimilation, has Gitl as main character, who struggles to adapt in New York City.

The culture of New Yorkers, especially her husband, make it hard for her to adapt.

Gitl, divorces from her husband.

She could just not adapt entirely even though she tried

Assimilation

Like Gitl, many immigrants struggle to assimilate a new country and its new rules, culture, etc

Gitl needed to learn English very fast

She also was indirectly forced to change her dress and hair style

Living conditions were not the best. Crowded conditions for some immigrants was totally new

Most Jewish came from small villages. The sudden change to a major and crowded city like New York really took them by surprise.

When not prepared and ready to adapt, most people have problems in their relationships like Gitl

Bias

Immigrants at that time, especially married Jewish women were biased against after divorce penalty.

American names were highly preferred and changed right away by their fathers.

Yiddish was still highly used, but English was more and more encouraged to be learnt

Most laws in marriage, divorce contracts, etc, either favored men or women in some aspects

Men just tended to be more dominative than women and in most cases they would have more advantages

Ethical Issues

Crowded villages in the city, led to ethical issues

Slums often have uneducated people with few rules or control

Therefore, most people fall into addictions

Alcoholism or stopping at bars often

Prostitution

Infidelity

Domestic Violence

Healthy risks. Just by living in slums, diseases spread faster

Money obsession

Jewish struggles in Europe continued in America

Jewish immigrants had a rough time before immigrating. There was a lot of discrimination, oppression, hatred towards Jews in Eastern Europe

They were forced to immigrate to a new land in search of better opportunities.

About 2 million Jewish people immigrate in just weeks to New York.

They were so relived to put feet on New York that most of them saw NYC as the entrance of paradise.

One Jewish woman was so excited she wrote a poem: The New Colossus “ Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The poem is said to be the welcoming to the immigrants from the Statue of Liberty, sending the message that they are now free and welcome in this land.

The reasons of continued discrimination

Most people could just not share the poem later on. They became disillusioned

Prejudice and Bias against Jews increased

Hotels and Clubs refused to admit Jewish people

Universities put limits to admit new Jewish students, usually strict limits

Jewish people were seen as threat to Americans and their values

Were forced to work in harsh condition and usually for longer hours

These were due to the fact that America was facing a large change in its demographics, urbanization and industrialization.

There were so many Jewish immigrants that immigration was cut off from European countries in the 1924 Immigration Act. Jewish people especially were 100% affected.

Overcoming discrimination and keeping traditions

Jews kept their main language, Yiddish, a combination of Hebrew characters with German and other Eastern European languages

Wrote Yiddish literature

Published Yiddish Newspapers

Wrote Yiddish songs

Opened Yiddish theaters

Parents still urged their children to adopt American Culture

Today few Jewish Americans speak more than few words of Yiddish

They are still connected with their history and culture

Jewish Lifestyle – Yiddish usage

Personal experience and relations of current immigrants to late 1880s immigrants

A new place, village, country is always going to be different from your home land.

In my experience I had to adapt to few things when coming to this country. The weather, the idioms, technology, etc.

From the film I kind of compare myself with Gitl or Bernstein in some aspects and to Jake in some as well.

For example, I haven’t changed my clothing style to some more popular styles that I see here. I try to keep my original accent and my preferred sports like soccer rather than American football or baseball.

However, I kind of lost some of my traditions and old holydays celebrations from my country, mainly because they are not really practiced here, for example Carnival which I miss so much. The rest of the holydays I don’t even remember.

I have recently acquired lots of interest to some holydays here for example Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Independence Day.

Other immigrant stories comparing Hester Street movie

My uncles divorced in basically the same way and for almost the same reasons like Gitl and Jake in Hester Street.

My aunt could not assimilate the culture of this country. It was just too much for her and I think she also missed her life back home.

My uncle got interested in another women after that but despite that he also couldn’t assimilate the culture here and also missed his country.

Both of them moved back home but separated.

I think the problem might be that most immigrants don’t know all the struggle and challenges that’s coming to them when immigrating.

Conclusion

Immigrants usually don’t have another option than leaving their countries in search of a better life in another country.

The thing is that some immigrants like to adapt, experience and enjoy new challenges, lifestyles, etc. Others realize that they might never leave their traditions and try to keep it while working hard in the new country. Some others just cant assimilate and go back to their countries.

In Hester Street, for both Gitl and Jake, moving back home was never an option because their old home villages were in a worse spot.

Immigration could be the salvation for some and the nightmare for others.

Sources

- New York Public Library (New York Neighborhoods – The Lower East Side)

http://www.icsresources.org/ (Jews in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century America)