By Madeleine Kearns
Sunday, January 14, 2024
One of New York City’s hidden gems is its Tenement
Museum in the Lower East Side. Between 1863 and 1935, more than 15,000
immigrants from more than 20 countries called the tenement building their home.
Today, tour guides provide personal histories of selected immigrant families in
their reconstructed apartments. On my most recent trip, I learned about the
Moore family, who came to New York from Ireland in the 1860s, after the Irish
potato famine and around the time of the American Civil War.
Bridget Moore (then “Meehan”) arrived first, in 1863,
when she was 17 years old. At the time, many young female immigrants worked as
live-in maids for wealthy families uptown. Our guide explained that it was
common for these young women to remain single, since getting married was a
major economic downgrade. But evidently Bridget thought married life was worth
the sacrifice. After about a year, she married another immigrant, Joseph, and
moved downtown to live among the poor.
The young couple moved first to the Irish neighborhood of
Five Points, and then to “Little Germany,” to 97 Orchard Street, what is now
the Tenement Museum. They were Catholic and parishioners at Old St. Patrick’s
Cathedral. At the time of the move, they had three daughters under the age of
six: Mary Catherine, Jane, and Agnes. Sadly, Agnes died at five months old, due
to malnutrition. Over the course of the next decade, Bridget gave birth to five
more girls. The infant mortality rate in the Irish community at the time was 25
percent. But for the Moores, it was more like 50 percent. Only four of their
girls made it past childhood, and only one into old age. Bridget died at age
36.
The Moores were contemporaries of William M. Tweed, also
known as “Boss Tweed,” the Democratic politician and leader of Tammany Hall
(NYC’s Democratic Party’s executive committee) who plundered New York City of
an estimated $30 million to $200 million. Tweed provided generously for the
Irish and other immigrants, not out of altruism but political expediency. Boss
Tweed eagerly instituted “naturalization committees” through which,
essentially, Irish immigrants were provided a pathway to citizenship in exchange
for votes. To this day, this attitude persists among some Democrats. But for
others, the seemingly unstoppable flow of illegal migrants has become a major
liability.
Look at New York, for instance. Over the last year, over
100,000 migrants have arrived in the city, a crisis that Mayor
Eric Adams has suggested will “destroy New York City.” In the summer, he desperately
handed out flyers in English and Spanish explaining that the city is very
expensive and urging migrants to “please consider another city as you make your
decision about where to settle in the US.” Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work.
Last week, a Brooklyn high school was used to house about 500 migrant families
in bad weather conditions, requiring the school’s 3,400 students to do lessons
remotely and sparking public outrage.
The immigrants crossing the southern border are
— like our 19th-century immigrant ancestors, and like all human
groups — a mixed bag. Some are criminals. The majority are violating U.S.
immigration law. But many are more simply people in desperate pursuit of a
better life, just as you or I would be if we were in their shoes. The Christian
response is to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless, as
you find them. But the state’s obligation is to its own citizens, defending its
borders and enforcing its laws. In the long run, leniency toward illegal
migrants becomes cruelty toward one’s own citizens and legal residents.
If you need proof of this, just look at the United
Kingdom and its overwhelmed social-welfare system. In the U.K., the “stop the
boats” campaign, the U.K.’s version of “build a wall,” has been an abject
political failure. The current conservative government’s scheme to deport
migrants to a third country for processing was rejected by the U.K. supreme
court. Having failed to deliver on his promise to reduce net immigration by
300,000, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took aim at an easier target — legal immigrants.
Sunak proposed doubling the salary threshold that a
person must meet to bring a noncitizen spouse to the U.K. As Joseph Sternberg
in the Wall Street Journal observes, the proposal
misunderstands “the public’s belief that citizenship ought to confer special
rights and privileges on those who hold it.” As the boats keep coming,
preventing a British-born teacher from bringing her Spanish husband to live
with her in the U.K., as is the case with my friend, only intensifies anger.
Back to the Moores. According to the New York
Times, “when museum researchers contacted a few descendants of one of the
Moores’ daughters, Jane, they learned that the family did not even know their
ancestors had ever lived at 97 Orchard Street.” Births, deaths, and marriages
are all matters of public record. But without oral histories being passed down
through the generations, the struggles and toils of the Moores’ daily life are
easily forgotten.
It’s right to remember the sacrifices of our immigrant
ancestors as well as to be grateful for the opportunities they were offered (of
which we are indirect beneficiaries). Doing so ought to incline us toward
generosity. Still, the difference is this. In 19th-century America, the message
to immigrants was — come when welcomed, and with a plan. You must
find somewhere to live, a way of earning money, a person to support you.
Contrast this with today’s message. Come as you please and enjoy the free
stuff. It’s no wonder we’re in such a mess.
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