White Supremacy and Multiculturalism (1608-1775)

This episode examines the intertwined foundations of multiculturalism and white supremacy in New Amsterdam—later New York City—from Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609 to the eve of the American Revolution. It traces how the city’s growth depended on the transatlantic slave trade and the displacement of Native peoples, creating a diverse yet deeply unequal society. Dutch colonial policies, less bound by religious conformity than those in much of British North America, fostered a degree of cultural pluralism that shaped the city’s early development. Yet this openness coexisted with, and was often built upon, systems of racial exploitation and dispossession that would define New York’s trajectory for centuries.

• Berlin, I., & Harris, L. M. (Eds.). (2005). Slavery in New York. The New Press
• Black New Yorkers, https://blacknewyorkers-nypl.org/. Created and maintained by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library.
• Burrows, E. G., & Wallace, M. (1999). Gotham: A history of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press.
• Dodson, Howard, Christopher Paul Moore, and Roberta Yancy. (1999) The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology. Wiley & Sons.
• Faber, E. (1992). A time of charge: Peter Stuyvesant and New Amsterdam. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Goodfriend, J. E. (1992). Before the melting pot: Society and culture in colonial New York City, 1664–1730. Princeton University Press.
• Harris, L. M. (2003). In the shadow of slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. University of Chicago Press.
• Hodges, G. R. (1999). Root and branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613–1863. University of North Carolina Press.
• Maskiell, N. S. (2022). Bound by bondage: Slavery and the creation of a northern gentry. Cornell University Press.
• McManus, E. (1966). A history of Negro slavery in New York. Syracuse University Press.
• Mosterman, A. (2021). Spaces of enslavement: A history of slavery and resistance in Dutch New York. Cornell University Press.

Expansion Necessitates Immigrants (1775-1825)

In the wake of the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), rebuilding New York City and developing the young nation depended heavily on immigrant labor. Episode 2 explores how, between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, New York emerged as the most important urban center in the United States, with a rapidly growing economy and a diverse population. The city’s transformation began in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1776, which destroyed nearly one-quarter of its buildings as Patriot forces evacuated ahead of British occupation. From these ashes, New York was reborn—briefly serving as the nation’s capital in the 1790s and establishing itself as a hub of commerce, finance, and trade. Early infrastructure projects, such as the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, laid the grid that would structure the city’s expansion, while preparations for the Erie Canal promised to connect the port to inland markets. These developments, coupled with ongoing maritime trade, created a constant demand for immigrant workers, whose labor fueled the city’s seemingly unstoppable growth.

• Anbinder, T. (2001). Five Points: The 19th-century New York City neighborhood that invented tap dance, stole elections, and became the world’s most notorious slum. Free Press.
• Blackmar, E. (1989). Manhattan for rent, 1785–1850. Cornell University Press.
• Burrows, E. G., & Wallace, M. (1999). Gotham: A history of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press.
• Bernstein, P. L. (2005). Wedding of the waters: The Erie Canal and the making of a great nation. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Kanakamedala, P. (2024). Brooklynites: The remarkable story of the free Black communities that shaped a borough. NYU Press
• Harris, L. M. (2003). In the shadow of slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. University of Chicago Press.
• Hodges, G. R. (1999). Root and branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613–1863. University of North Carolina Press.
• Stott, R. B. (1990). Workers in the metropolis: Class, ethnicity, and youth in antebellum New York City. Cornell University Press.
• Spann, E. K. (1981). The New Metropolis: New York City, 1840–1857. Columbia University Press.

• Waldstreicher, D. (2009). Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification. Hill and Wang.

 

Becoming Irish-American (1790-1880)

This episode examines the waves of Irish immigration to New York City and the community’s transformation from marginalized newcomers to a powerful political force. It begins with the arrival of early Irish immigrants—often Protestant and relatively privileged—who came in the 17th and 18th centuries, sometimes as indentured servants woven into the fabric of colonial New York. The mid-19th century brought an explosion of Irish migration as famine and English colonial oppression devastated Ireland. Upon arrival, these predominantly Catholic immigrants encountered intense anti-Irish prejudice, economic hardship, overcrowded housing, and competition with African Americans for jobs and political influence. Over time, the Irish leveraged U.S. immigration laws that privileged white immigrants, secured municipal employment, and built networks of political patronage. By the late 19th century, Irish New Yorkers had consolidated power through the Democratic Party and the notorious Tammany Hall, reshaping the city’s political and economic landscape.

• Anbinder, T. (2001). Five Points: The 19th-century New York City neighborhood that invented tap dance, stole elections, and became the world’s most notorious slum. Free Press.
• Anbinder, T. (2016). City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Berick, J. (n.d.). Luck of the Irish: Not always a good thing. Tenement Museum. https://www.tenement.org/blog/luck-of-the-irish-not-always-a-good-thing/
• Bernstein, I. (1990). The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War.
• Burrows, E. G., & Wallace, M. (1999). Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press.
• Bayor, R. H., & Meagher, T. J. (Eds.). (1996). The New York Irish. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Diner, H. (1983). Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century.
• Diner, H. (2000). Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish foodways in the age of migration. Harvard University Press.
• Golway, T. (2014). Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics.
• Great Famine Voices. (2020, May 17). The Famine Irish in New York City [Video]. Irish Heritage Trust. https://greatfaminevoices.ie/famine-emigrant-stories/the-famine-irish-in-new-york-city/
• Ignatiev, N. (1995). How the Irish Became White. Routledge.
• Ó Gráda, C. (2005). “The New York Irish in the 1850s: Locked in by Poverty?” New York Irish History, 19, 5–22.
• Museum of the City of New York. (n.d.). Nativists and immigrants. https://www.mcny.org/story/nativists-and-immigrants
• New York Irish History Roundtable. (n.d.). New York Irish History journal archive. https://nyirishhistory.org/journals
• Takaki, Ronald. (1993). A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America.
• Tenement Museum. (n.d.). Irish outsiders. https://www.tenement.org/tours/irish-outsiders/
• Wertheimer, J. (1990–91). “The Green and the Black: Irish Nationalism and the Dilemma of Abolitionism.” New York Irish History, 5, 25–40.

Becoming Chinese-American (1836-2020)

This episode begins by exploring the reason why Chinese immigrants sought to leave China and come to the United States. It then documents Chinese perseverance and organized resistance overcoming the obstacles of structural racism and exclusionary immigration laws rooted in a national racial project to form a flourishing community in New York City. Taking viewers on a journey from China to California and then to New York, this story is one of tragedy, perseverance, political struggle, and extreme intolerance by US citizens and authorities. Initially arriving to work in the gold mines of California, Chinese men faced harsh conditions and were often brutalized because white miners viewed them as competition. As the mines dried up, many transitioned into railroad work and urban service industries such as laundries, restaurants, and small manufacturing. Chinese women were largely restricted from entry through laws like the Page Act of 1875, designed to prevent family formation; however, many were smuggled into the U.S. and forced to become sex workers. With extreme intolerance on the West Coast, a large number of Chinese immigrants arrived in New York City [rawn by expanding labor markets, safer—though still segregated—enclaves, and the possibility of building new kinship and business networks. They did so, but internal conflict brought on by lack of opportunity provided to them by U.S. authorities brought great pain to the community. Still, the Chinese enclave in New York City and elsewhere throughout the United States overcame racist immigration laws—often through court challenges, community mutual aid societies, and alliances with other marginalized groups—and flourished, continuing to grow stronger to this day with post-1965 immigration fueling vibrant multi-generational Chinatowns across the city.

• Chang, Gordon H. (2019). Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Chin, Margaret M. (2005). Sewing Women: Immigrants in the New York City Garment Industry. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Foner, Nancy (Ed.). (2013). One Out of Three: Immigrant New York in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Hum, Tarry. (2014). Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
• Kwong, Peter, & Miščević, Dušanka. (2005). Chinese America: The Untold Story of America’s Oldest New Community. New York: The New Press.
• Lee, Erika. (2003). At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Lew-Williams, Beth. (2018). The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Ngai, M. M. (2004). Impossible subjects: Illegal aliens and the making of modern America. Princeton University Press.
• Peffer, George Anthony. (1986). “Forbidden Families: Emigration Experiences of Chinese Women Under the Page Law, 1875–1882.” Journal of American Ethnic History, 6(1), 28–46.
• Pfaelzer, Jean. (2008). Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Seligman, Scott D. (2016). Tong Wars: The Untold Story of Vice, Money, and Murder in New York’s Chinatown. New York: Viking Press.
• Takaki, Ronald. (1998). Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Updated and revised ed.). Boston: Little, Brown.
• Tchen, John Kuo Wei. (1999). New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776–1882. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Becoming Italian-American (1880-1945)

This episode details the emergence of the Italian-American community in NYC. After exploring the motivations for leaving Italy—largely economic and political desperation—this episode dives into the xenophobia faced by Southern Italians arriving in the U.S. between 1880 and 1924. It traces how the Italian immigration pattern was unique, as many of these immigrants frequently returned to Italy with the hope of one day remaining there permanently. It shows the ways Italians helped develop the infrastructure of New York City, from subway tunnels to the Brooklyn Bridge, while overcoming anti-Italian sentiment from Protestants and even earlier-arriving Irish Catholics. The episode also examines conflict with the Catholic Church, discrimination in schools, and the embrace of radical labor politics in the early 20th century, including the role of Italian immigrants in major strikes and the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti case. Finally, it illuminates the ways Italian-Americans organized to change the structures that oppressed them before they were eventually accepted by mainstream U.S. society.

• Avrich, P. (1991). Sacco and Vanzetti: The anarchist background. Princeton University Press.
• Cameron, A. (1993). Radicals of the worst sort: Laboring women in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1860–1912. University of Illinois Press.
• Cannato, V. J. (2009). American passage: The history of Ellis Island. HarperCollins.
• Cerulli, S. J. (2019). Italian/Americans and the American Racial System (Master’s thesis, CUNY Graduate Center). AcademicWorks, CUNY. 
• Choate, M. I. (2008). Emigrant nation: The making of Italy abroad. Harvard University Press.
• Fox, S. (1990). The unknown internment: An oral history of the relocation of Italian Americans during World War II. Twayne Publishers.
• Gage, B. (2009). The day Wall Street exploded: A story of America in its first age of terror. Oxford University Press.
• Gambino, R. I. (1974). Blood of my blood: The dilemma of the Italian-Americans. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
• Gardaphé, F. L. (2002). We weren’t always white: Race and ethnicity in Italian/American studies. Occasional Paper, John D. Calandra Institute, Queens College, City University of New York.
• Guglielmo, J. (2010). Living the revolution: Italian women’s resistance and radicalism in New York City, 1880–1945. University of North Carolina Press.
• Higham, J. (1955). Strangers in the land: Patterns of American nativism, 1860–1925. Rutgers University Press.
• Hood, C. (1993). 722 miles: The building of the subways and how they transformed New York. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Kessner, T. (1977). The golden door: Italian and Jewish immigrant mobility in New York City, 1880–1915. Oxford University Press.
• Kraut, A. M. (1994). Silent travelers: Germs, genes, and the “immigrant menace”. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Ngai, M. M. (2004). Impossible subjects: Illegal aliens and the making of modern America. Princeton University Press.
• Orsi, R. A. (1985). The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950. Yale University Press.

Becoming Jewish-American (1880-1945)

This episode reveals the development of the Jewish-American community in New York City from the colonial period to the present day. Focusing on the largest wave of Jewish immigrants that arrived between 1880 and 1924, it explores the reasons they came to the United States—including religious persecution, pogroms, and economic restrictions in the Russian Empire—and the ways in which Jews assimilated into U.S. society while confronting prejudice and exclusion. The episode begins in the colonial period, illuminating the formation of a fairly significant, largely Sephardic, Jewish community in New York City. It then traces the arrival of German Jews in the mid-19th century, their westward migration, and their relative assimilation. From there, it centers on the Eastern European Jews who settled in the Lower East Side, working in the garment industry, participating in radical labor activism, and shaping major workplace reforms in the wake of tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Finally, the episode follows Jewish New Yorkers through the restrictive immigration policies of the 1920s, the Holocaust refugee crisis, and the postwar growth of the city’s Jewish population.

• Cannato, V. J. (2009). American passage: The history of Ellis Island. HarperCollins.
• Gurock, J. S. (2012). Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a changing city, 1920–2010. New York University Press
• Karabel, J. (2005). The chosen: The hidden history of admission and exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin
• Kessner, T. (1977). The golden door: Italian and Jewish immigrant mobility in New York City, 1880–1915. Oxford University Press.
• Kraut, A. M. (1994). Silent travelers: Germs, genes, and the “immigrant menace”. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Michels, T. (2005). A fire in their hearts: Yiddish socialists in New York. Harvard University Press
• Moore, D. D., Gurock, J. S., Polland, A., Rock, H. B., & Soyer, D. (2017). Jewish New York: The remarkable story of a city and a people. New York University Press
• Ngai, M. M. (2004). Impossible subjects: Illegal aliens and the making of modern America. Princeton University Press.
• Rock, H. B. (2012). Haven of liberty: New York Jews in the New World, 1654–1865. New York University Press
• Polland, A., & Soyer, D. (2012). Emerging metropolis: New York Jews in the age of immigration, 1840–1920. New York University Press

Becoming Cuban-American (1804-1980)

This episode explores how Cuban immigrants shaped New York City’s evolution across nearly two centuries. It begins in the early 19th century, spotlighting how New York emerged as a vital commercial and political node for Cuba—fueling economic ties through the sugar trade and providing refuge for exiles. It follows the rise of the Cuban émigré community, anchored by key figures like José Martí and institutions such as the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which used New York as a base for mobilizing independence efforts against Spain.

The narrative then shifts to mid-20th-century waves of migration shaped by U.S. intervention, Batista’s regime, and Fidel Castro’s revolution. It covers the Cuban Adjustment Act, which granted privileged entry and settlement to Cuban refugees, and the Mariel Boatlift, a pivotal moment that redefined perceptions of refugees and U.S. immigration policy. Throughout, this episode examines how Cubans navigated racialized political reception, class divides, and shifting U.S.–Cuba relations—all while establishing a thriving Cuban‑American identity in the city.

• Ayala, C. J. (1999). American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898–1934. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
• Duany, J. (1999). Cuban communities in the United States: Migration waves, settlement patterns and socioeconomic diversity. Pouvoirs dans la Caraïbe, 11, 69–103.
• Guerra Vilaboy, S. (2023). La United Fruit Company en Cuba y la trata de braceros. Études caribéennes, 54 (Avril 2023).
• López, A. J. (2014). José Martí: A Revolutionary Life. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press
• Miller, B. M. (2011). The Image-Makers’ Arsenal in an Age of War and Empire, 1898–1899: A Cartoon Essay.Journal of American Studies, 45(1), 53–75.
• Pérez, Lisandro. (2018). Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York. New York, NY: New York University Press.
• Pérez, Louis A., Jr. (1999). On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
• Pérez, Louis A., Jr. (2008). Cuba in the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
• Pedraza, S. (2007). Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Vaughan, C. A. (2003). Cartoon Cuba: Race, gender and political opinion leadership in Judge, 1898. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 24(2), 195–217.

Becoming Puerto Rican-American (1898-2010)

This episode explores the intertwined histories of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States that gave rise to a vibrant Puerto Rican community in New York City. Beginning in the Spanish colonial period, it traces the revolutionary organizing of Puerto Ricans in exile in 19th-century New York, linking these struggles to the broader fight against imperial Spanish rule. After the Spanish-American War, when governance over the island shifted to U.S. authorities, Puerto Ricans were defined by the Supreme Court as non-citizen subjects, denied both autonomy and equal status under the law. During World War I, citizenship was granted through the Jones Act—less as a recognition of equality than as a means to draft Puerto Ricans into military service. In the postwar decades, New York City officials actively encouraged migration from the island, seeking to fill factory jobs with cheap labor. This influx transformed the city’s demographic and cultural landscape, but it also fueled political activism as Puerto Ricans confronted discrimination, economic exploitation, and urban neglect. By the height of the Civil Rights era, New York’s Puerto Rican community had become a force in local politics and radical organizing, with groups like the Young Lords building on earlier struggles to demand self-determination, racial justice, and dignity for Puerto Ricans in both the city and on the island.

Becoming Haitian American (1804-2025)

This episode traces the long arc of Haitian migration to New York City, beginning with the violent history of slavery and revolution in Saint-Domingue. The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) created the first Black republic, inspiring freedom struggles worldwide – including among African Americans in the United States, while provoking fear and isolation from White Americans and Europeans. Throughout the 19th century, Haiti remained marginalized by imperial powers, though it served as a beacon for emancipation and Pan-African thought. The U.S. occupation (1915–1934) deepened Haiti’s dependency and exploitation, paving the way for Cold War–era dictatorships. Francois “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier ruled with U.S. support, presiding over mass repression and economic decline that spurred waves of exile. Beginning in the 1960s, thousands of Haitians—many fleeing dictatorship and poverty—built communities first on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and then in Flatbush, Brooklyn, establishing churches, businesses, and cultural centers that became hubs of political organizing against Duvalier rule. By the 1980s, Haitians arriving in New York were largely displaced by neoliberal reforms. They endured discrimination, incarceration, and racist stigmas—most notoriously the association of HIV/AIDS with Haitians—but also organized vigorously, staging protests at the United Nations, amplifying anti-Duvalier voices, and lobbying U.S. policymakers. After Duvalier’s fall in 1986, many leaders returned to Haiti, while a new generation of Haitian American activists pushed for integration, civil rights, and political representation in New York. Their efforts culminated in electoral breakthroughs such as the 2007 city council election of Mathieu Eugene. The Haitian diaspora also mobilized in solidarity with Haiti through crises such as the 1991 and 2004 coups against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the devastating 2010 earthquake. Today, Haitian New Yorkers remain a vital force in the city, weaving their history of resilience and resistance into the broader fabric of immigrant and Black life in all five boroughs.

• Audebert, C. (2016). The recent geodynamics of Haitian migration in the Americas: Refugees or economic migrants? Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, (101), 25–49.
• Catanese, A. V. (1999). Haitians: Migration and diaspora. Westview Press.
• Dash, M. (2001). Haiti and the United States: National stereotypes and the literary imagination. Macmillan.
• Laguerre, M. S. (1984). American Odyssey: Haitians in New York City. Cornell University Press.
• Pierre-Louis, F. (2006). Haitians in New York City: Transnationalism and the New Immigrants. University Press of Florida.
• Smith, M. P. (2006). Transnational urbanism: Locating globalization. Wiley-Blackwell.
• Stepick, A. (1998). Pride against prejudice: Haitians in the United States. Allyn and Bacon.
• Zéphir, F. (2004). The Haitian Americans. Greenwood Press.