Shirley Tan's calm and happy life — San Mateo County housewife, mother of twin 12-year-old boys, singing in the church choir — blew up at 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 28, with a knock on the front door.Within minutes, the immigration agent standing there had the 43-year-old Tan in handcuffs. She is scheduled to be deported to her native Philippines on Friday.If Jay Mercado, Tan's partner of 23 years and the mother of her sons, were a different gender, it's highly unlikely that knock ever would have come. As a U.S. citizen, Mercado could have sponsored a wedded spouse for legal permanent residency. But although Mercado and Tan married in San Francisco in 2004, federal law limits the definition of marriage to a man and a woman, and same-sex partners of U.S. citizens don't have a route to legal permanent residence extended to straight married couples. Read more.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Immigration Now - Facing Deportation
Since Kat Long, author of Forbidden Apple: A Century of Sex and Sin in New York City, will be speaking at the museum tomorrow night, we figured we'd mention how sex and immigration policy have become entwined today. The Mercury News reports that newcomers to the States involved in same-sex partnerships with U.S. citizens are facing deportation, since immigration rights don't apply to civil unions.
This weekend at the Tenement Museum - ASL and Walking Tour
Two great programs at the Museum this weekend:
Join us Sunday, April 5 for an American Sign Language interpreted tour. The 1:15 PM The Moores: An Irish Family in America tour will be accompanied by an ASL interpreter and is open to all. If you'd like to make reservations for this special tour, which we offer the first Sunday of every month, contact Sarah at 212-431-0233 ext. 232.
This weekend we're also launching Immigrant Soles, a new neighborhood walking tour. The 90 minute tours focuses on the daily experiences and challenges of the neighborhood’s immigrant residents, visiting places where they ate, studied, worshipped, and lived. It’s a wonderful overview of the social history of the district. You can read a review on the Moving Sidewalk blog.
One of the coolest things about the tour is learning where Mr. Confino had his apron factory (Allen Street), where Mr. Rogarshevsky's funeral parlor was located (just down Orchard), and where Josephine Baldizzi went to elementary school (PS 42 on Hester Street). It's fun to see our historical tenants out of 97 Orchard and out in the streets and factories where they spent much of their time.
Immigrant Soles is offered Saturday and Sunday at 1 PM. (Look for it twice daily by summertime.) The walking tour is a great companion to a building tour, expanding upon the stories and policies we talk about at 97 Orchard Street.
For tickets, see the online calendar, or call 866-811-4111. For more information, please feel free to call the Museum at 212-431-0233.
Join us Sunday, April 5 for an American Sign Language interpreted tour. The 1:15 PM The Moores: An Irish Family in America tour will be accompanied by an ASL interpreter and is open to all. If you'd like to make reservations for this special tour, which we offer the first Sunday of every month, contact Sarah at 212-431-0233 ext. 232.This weekend we're also launching Immigrant Soles, a new neighborhood walking tour. The 90 minute tours focuses on the daily experiences and challenges of the neighborhood’s immigrant residents, visiting places where they ate, studied, worshipped, and lived. It’s a wonderful overview of the social history of the district. You can read a review on the Moving Sidewalk blog.
One of the coolest things about the tour is learning where Mr. Confino had his apron factory (Allen Street), where Mr. Rogarshevsky's funeral parlor was located (just down Orchard), and where Josephine Baldizzi went to elementary school (PS 42 on Hester Street). It's fun to see our historical tenants out of 97 Orchard and out in the streets and factories where they spent much of their time.
Immigrant Soles is offered Saturday and Sunday at 1 PM. (Look for it twice daily by summertime.) The walking tour is a great companion to a building tour, expanding upon the stories and policies we talk about at 97 Orchard Street.
For tickets, see the online calendar, or call 866-811-4111. For more information, please feel free to call the Museum at 212-431-0233.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tenement Talks - Disappearing Storefronts
Kimberly is a Museum Shop and Tenement Talks associate. She writes about her experience at a recent Talk:
Barbers, bodegas, appetizer shops, locksmiths, and fabric suppliers all represent the entrepreneurial spirit of New York. These stores also provide a visual record of city life: their facades are recognizable in an instant to those who’ve lived here long enough. Some of their signs are missing letters or the neon has burned out, but they are too beloved to ever be changed. When Russ & Daughters had their neon sign repaired, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing as a flurry of customers feared they had gone out of business.
“Mom & Pop” stores become family. I’ve certainly grown up with a few. I’ve had one place cater a going-away party, another press a key for my first car, and another knows my absolute dependence on half and half for my coffee. Corporations tend to large masses of customers. You can go into a chain store and be ignored and some people like that. I don’t. If I go into my corner bodega someone will always say hello to me and want to talk some more.
Photographers James and Karla Murray joined us for a recent Tenement Talk. Their mission is to visually preserve the Mom & Pop, which they do in Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York. The Murrays’ prints are gorgeous, the film full of grain and naturally highlighting the worn patina of old metal signs and rusty hardware. Some of the featured stores have since closed, their signs removed and sold as scrap. While what comes next can also be a vital part of the community, there are those who will ache for the absence of a lost candy store. These photos at the very least preserve the memory of a closed business’s existence.
If you missed our Talk and would like to see the prints, you can check out the book at the Museum Shop or visit the Murrays’ website, http://www.jamesandkarlamurray.com/.
Barbers, bodegas, appetizer shops, locksmiths, and fabric suppliers all represent the entrepreneurial spirit of New York. These stores also provide a visual record of city life: their facades are recognizable in an instant to those who’ve lived here long enough. Some of their signs are missing letters or the neon has burned out, but they are too beloved to ever be changed. When Russ & Daughters had their neon sign repaired, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing as a flurry of customers feared they had gone out of business.
“Mom & Pop” stores become family. I’ve certainly grown up with a few. I’ve had one place cater a going-away party, another press a key for my first car, and another knows my absolute dependence on half and half for my coffee. Corporations tend to large masses of customers. You can go into a chain store and be ignored and some people like that. I don’t. If I go into my corner bodega someone will always say hello to me and want to talk some more.
Photographers James and Karla Murray joined us for a recent Tenement Talk. Their mission is to visually preserve the Mom & Pop, which they do in Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York. The Murrays’ prints are gorgeous, the film full of grain and naturally highlighting the worn patina of old metal signs and rusty hardware. Some of the featured stores have since closed, their signs removed and sold as scrap. While what comes next can also be a vital part of the community, there are those who will ache for the absence of a lost candy store. These photos at the very least preserve the memory of a closed business’s existence.If you missed our Talk and would like to see the prints, you can check out the book at the Museum Shop or visit the Murrays’ website, http://www.jamesandkarlamurray.com/.
Friday, March 27, 2009
More on Women's History
As an addendum to this week's posts on women and labor, check out the Library of Congress's Flickr stream, Women Striving Forward, 1910-1940. Striking photographs, no pun intended.
Votes for Women Pilgrimage from New York City to Washington DC
Library of Congress, LC-B2- 2648-14
In Their Own Words – New York Women's Lives
Museum Shop Manager Katherine Broadway guest-blogs about some of her favorite Shop books.
The film that plays in our Visitor’s Center talks about immigrant life on the Lower East Side. One such story is that of Rahel Gollup (known as Rose Cohen after a name change and marriage), who emigrated from Western Russia in 1892 at the age of 12. Rahel was part of the wave of Eastern-European Jewish immigrants fleeing the pogroms following the murder of Tsar Alexander II. Her memoir Out of the Shadow chronicles her journey to New York and her life as a garment worker.
My other favorite memoir of women and labor in the New York is The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker. In November 1909 a massive strike of garment workers, mostly female immigrants from Eastern Europe and Italy, brought the shirtwaist industry to a standstill that lasted into February of 1910. Diary is Theresa S. Malkiel’s 1910 account of this “Uprising of the 20,000,” accompanied by Francoise Basch’s historical analysis.
The Tenement Museum Shop has a great collection of memoirs written by immigrants and children of immigrants, many of them by women. Here are some others that we carry at the shop:
Streets: A Memoir of the Lower East Side, by Bella Spewack
The Red Leather Diary, by Lily Koppel
Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family, by Patricia Volk
Tender at the Bone, by Ruth Reichl
PHOTO: Shirtwaist workers elect to strike. Source: International Ladies Garment Workers Union Archives, Labor-Management Documentation Center, Cornell University.
The film that plays in our Visitor’s Center talks about immigrant life on the Lower East Side. One such story is that of Rahel Gollup (known as Rose Cohen after a name change and marriage), who emigrated from Western Russia in 1892 at the age of 12. Rahel was part of the wave of Eastern-European Jewish immigrants fleeing the pogroms following the murder of Tsar Alexander II. Her memoir Out of the Shadow chronicles her journey to New York and her life as a garment worker.
My other favorite memoir of women and labor in the New York is The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker. In November 1909 a massive strike of garment workers, mostly female immigrants from Eastern Europe and Italy, brought the shirtwaist industry to a standstill that lasted into February of 1910. Diary is Theresa S. Malkiel’s 1910 account of this “Uprising of the 20,000,” accompanied by Francoise Basch’s historical analysis.The Tenement Museum Shop has a great collection of memoirs written by immigrants and children of immigrants, many of them by women. Here are some others that we carry at the shop:
Streets: A Memoir of the Lower East Side, by Bella Spewack
The Red Leather Diary, by Lily Koppel
Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family, by Patricia Volk
Tender at the Bone, by Ruth Reichl
PHOTO: Shirtwaist workers elect to strike. Source: International Ladies Garment Workers Union Archives, Labor-Management Documentation Center, Cornell University.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tenement Talks - Triangle
Thanks to everyone who came to last night's talk with David von Drehle and Kevin Baker. All of you were an engaged and attentive audience - we couldn't ask for better.
In the next few weeks we'll have a podcast of the talk on our website for those who missed it. Check at http://www.tenement.org/vizcenter_events.php.
David von Drehle and Kevin Baker
Ladies of Labor
Museum Shop Manager Katherine Broadway guest-blogs about some of her favorite Shop books.
Speaking of women and labor, one of my favorite books we carry in the Museum Shop is Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure by Nan Enstad. This book tracks women’s experiences through popular culture and fashion. Enstad explores how women negotiated the tension between being “workers” and “ladies” and how this affected the trends in fashion and literature at the turn of the twentieth century. Enstad spends considerable time discussing the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909 and women’s emerging roles as labor unionizers.
Further Reading:
From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend, by Priscilla Murolo,
A.B. Chitty, and Joe Sacco
A Coat of Many Colors, Daniel Soyer
Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918 by Ruth Rosen
Holding Up More Than Half the Sky: Chinese Women Garment Workers in New York City,
1948-92, by Xiaolan Bao
Speaking of women and labor, one of my favorite books we carry in the Museum Shop is Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure by Nan Enstad. This book tracks women’s experiences through popular culture and fashion. Enstad explores how women negotiated the tension between being “workers” and “ladies” and how this affected the trends in fashion and literature at the turn of the twentieth century. Enstad spends considerable time discussing the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909 and women’s emerging roles as labor unionizers.Further Reading:
From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend, by Priscilla Murolo,
A.B. Chitty, and Joe Sacco
A Coat of Many Colors, Daniel Soyer
Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918 by Ruth Rosen
Holding Up More Than Half the Sky: Chinese Women Garment Workers in New York City,
1948-92, by Xiaolan Bao
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