The house on Henry Street

by Lillian D. Wald

The possibility of deflecting people to the land has been demonstrated by Jewish societies in New York, and with proper support other organizations interested in this phase of the immigrant’s welfare might repeat their success. Such programmes of distribution, however, cannot be carried out without effective co-operation from the people in the rural regions, and assimilative processes will not be wholly successful until the native-born American is freed from some of his prejudices and provincialism.

An unsocial attitude in the country naturally drives the stranger to an intensive colony life which accentuates the disadvantages of the barriers he and we build up.

An experience in Westchester County illustrates this very well. We were seeking lodgings for two intelligent and attractive young Italians who were working on a dam at one of our settlement country places. Incidentally, the work they were doing was quite beyond the powers of any native workers in the vicinity of whom we could hear. We asked an old native couple, squatters on some adjacent land, to rent an unoccupied floor of their house to the two young men. The man, despite their extremely indigent condition (the wife went to the almshouse a short time after), absolutely refused, fearing the loss of social prestige if they “lived in the house with dagoes.”

Perhaps, having little else, they were justified in clinging to their social exclusiveness, but their action in this case illustrates the almost universal attitude toward the immigrant, particularly the more recent ones, and perhaps only those who have felt the isolation and loneliness of the newcomer can comprehend its cruelty.

An educated Chinese merchant who once called at the settlement apologized for the eagerness with which he accepted an offer to show him over the house, explaining that although he had been thirty years in this country ours was the first American home he had been invited to enter.

We need also to analyze the philosophy of much of the discrimination against aliens in the matter of employment, and it is not pleasant to remember that until recently a state employing an enormous number of foreign workers forbade the bringing of suit by the non-resident family of the alien, although he might have lost his life in an accident through no fault of his own.

Scorn of the immigrant is not peculiar to our generation. A search of old newspaper files will show that the arrival of great numbers of immigrants of any one nationality has always been considered a problem. In turn each nationality as it became established in the new country has considered the next-comers a danger. The early history of Pennsylvania records the hostility to the Germans—“fear dominated the minds of the Colonists”—despite the fact that the German invaders were land-owning and good farmers.

An Irish boy observed to one of our residents that on Easter Day he intended to kill his little Jewish classmate. Having had long experience of the vigorous language and kind heart of the young Celt, she paid little attention to the threat, but was more startled when the soft-eyed Francesco chimed in that he was also going to destroy him “because he killed my Gawd.” “But,” said the teacher, “Christ was a Jew.” “Yes, I know,” answered the young defender of the faith, “He was then, but He’s an American now.”

Despite its absurdity, was not the boy’s conception an exaggerated illustration of that surface patriotism which is almost universally stimulated and out of which soul-deadening prejudices may grow—may take root even in the public schools?

Great is our loss when a shallow Americanism is accepted by the newly arrived immigrant, more particularly by the children, and their national traditions and heroes are ruthlessly pushed aside. The young people have usually to be urged by someone outside their own group to recognize the importance and value of customs, and even of ethical teaching, when given in a foreign language, or by old-world people with whom the new American does not wish to be associated in the minds of his acquaintances. This does not apply only to the recent immigrant, to whom his children often hear contemptuous terms applied. I remember attending a public hearing before the Department of Education of New York City at which Germans vigorously urged the study of their native tongue in the public schools, because of the impossibility of persuading their children to learn or use the language by any other means than that of having it made a part of the great American public school system.