Tenement Living

Today we visited the Lower East Side Museum where we saw an actual tenement home from the infamous immigrant slum founded in the 19th century, Five Points, and interacted with an actress portraying the life of a young girl from a Greek immigrant family, Victoria Confino. The tour began with a background briefing of the Confino family, looking at family photos and immigration documentation (available under the "Primary Source" section). Then the museum educator gave our group a role in preparation to meet Victoria Confino. The educator told us that we were an Italian family that recently got off the ferry from Ellis Island and were now wandering the streets of New York. It is very noisy and busy. We hear a lot of different languages being spoken. What do we do next?

Source: Depiction of the Five Points neighborhood to image the sights and sounds.

I think this would be a great exercise for learners to engage in. Previously, I have only briefly discussed the poverty and the living conditions of immigrant slums with my students. During discussion, we connect Five Points immigrants to immigrants new to the country today. Often times, they come from poor countries and have little to start with. It makes sense why the immigrants struggle during their initial years in the country. Traditional American values encourage them to build their own fortune over time through hard work.

However, I like the idea of having learners forget the present to really imagine the struggle and anxiety that the immigrants must have experienced. After visiting the tenement, I would like to take more time in the classroom to allow learners to speculate on how they would go about survival as newcomers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Learners would need background information about push factors that caused the immigrants to leave their homes and physical/health inspections at Ellis Island. I could do a similar set-up to what the museum educator did for us by examining the same primary sources we saw on our tour as a whole group. In small groups, learners can choose from the selections on the Interactive Journey with Victoria or set up their own backstory: what country they left, why they left, what they packed, and why they came to the United States. Then learners can see the state of the tenement through this Virtual Tour. Afterwards, students can develop questions that they would ask Victoria--things that they would naturally be curious about as newcomers to the United States. Ultimately this lesson would bring the immigrants' journey to life for learners, hopefully resulting in an unforgettable and humbling experience.