2.7 Mid-Semester Summary Activity

1. The most important thing I learned about immigration in the late 19th century was that people viewed immigrants differently than we do today. We tended to have a natural bias against immigrants and some of the reason for this was just because they lived in a different country than us and we didn't know too much about them other than the type of communities they are coming from and the crimes they have committed in the US and back home. But back in the 19th century, they were for immigration. They sent ships to and from other places to bring people into the US for jobs and opportunities. We were the melting pot. I think this is important because it shows the difference in history of how we the people tend to think about immigration. 

2. The most important thing I learned about immigration today is that most people base their opinions about all immigrants off of what one singular immigrant did. What I mean by this is, say, an immigrant, who practices as a doctor, is in a restaurant when someone starts to have a medical problem of some sort and causes a scene. This immigrant could very well be the only person who knows what to do medically in that situation and they could end up saving this person's life. On the other hand you could have an immigrant who goes to rob a bank and ends up killing someone while they're there. The story that will stick in people's mind is the story of how an immigrant took someone's life not the one about an immigrant who saved it. I think this is important because though it could be inferred that the majority of immigrants cause harm to the US, not all of them do. There are immigrants out there that do just want to come to the US to live a good life and not cause harm. The problem now is just getting the right people for the US in and getting the harmful ones out. 

3. I think the two most challenging aspects of living in urban settings in the 19th century would be the waste/sanitary conditions and living spaces/tenements. Since people couldn't really go to the bathroom and keep it anywhere in their house, people everywhere would dump their waste onto the side of the street to be cleaned up. This caused a terrible smell throughout the city and also ties into the sanitation aspect of urban living. Because of the waste being dumped in the streets and into the sewers, the water was not sanitary for people. This ties into the living spaces and tenements. Having to fit so many people into the rooms in a building, it caused diseases to be highly infectious. They were infectious through things like water and the air in general that the people were sharing. I think that collectively American success was pretty good with this. Today, we have ways to purify water in our own homes, our homes and hotels are cleaner and safer, and we have health codes that provide all of these things for us. 

4. I think that the overarching idea of the Highline itself connects with the idea of Progressivism in the late 19th century early 20th century. The reason they wanted to build the Highline was so that they could turn a "problem" in to something that the community as a whole can enjoy and grow from. in the Highline video, they talked about how a mile and a half of land was just going to go to waste and even though there were solving a problem, they wanted to do something more. They wanted the Highline to be able to be a place where you can escape from your normal life and reconnect with the city. I think this connects with Progressivism because not only did they solve a problem, they made something out of the solution that people could connect and grow with. 

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View from the Highline