Macaulay Seminar 2
The Peopling of New York City
Prof. Napoli
Spring 2013
Course: MCHC 1002
Credits: 3.0
Code: 3255
Section: MW3H
Schedule: M,W 3:40-4:55pm
Room: 2231B
I. Introduction:
In this seminar students investigate the role of immigration and migration in shaping the New
York City’s identity, past, present, and future. Seminar topics include: the factors that have
driven and drawn people to New York since the seventeenth century; the different ways that
religion, race, gender, and ethnicity have shaped immigrant encounters with and within the
city; the formation and social organization of immigrant communities in such neighborhoods
as the Lower East Side, Harlem, Little Italy, Chinatown, Astoria, Flushing, and Stapleton; the
impact of successive waves of newcomers on urban culture and politics; and the continuing
debates over assimilation and Americanization. Extensive reading and writing assignments
are enriched by walking tours and guest lectures. The culminating project of this seminar is
the collaborative construction of multimedia presentations that deal with immigrant
communities in New York City neighborhoods.
II. Learning Objectives:
In the seminar, students will:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of history of some of the different population groups
within New York City by reading and writing about the literature of immigration to New
York City.
2. Use qualitative, quantitative, and experiential approaches to studying people in order to
come to an understanding of the diversity of people’s experience in and of the city and
developing a web-based presentation based on that research.
3. Increase their understanding of past and present issues of migration, immigration, race,
and ethnicity by analyzing primary and secondary sources and by engaging in in-class
discussions.
III. What is expected of you?
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
You are expected to know this syllabus and understand what it says. If you have
questions, ask me.
 You must attend regularly and be on time for class. It matters.
 Bring the assigned reading with you to class. Be ready to talk about it.
 Unless a physical ailment precludes you from doing so (and if it does I need you to talk
with me about it), I ask that you maintain your seat throughout a class session. Etiquette
and simple civility suggest that you respect both your instructor and fellow classmates
sufficiently to retain your seat.
IV. Evaluation Mechanisms and Course Rules:
1. Grades
You will be graded on the following:







3-5 page journalism primary source assignment
5-10 pages of an ethnic community analysis wiki
5-10 page take home final essay
multimedia project
class participation
peer evaluation of contribution to group work
peer evaluations of community analysis sites multimedia projects
10%
20%
30%
20%
10%
5%
5%
2. Incompletes
I will not grant incompletes for this course.
3. Attendance
Students are expected to attend all class meetings as scheduled. Failure to attend class
will have a negative impact on your class participation grade. Upon the 4th unexcused
absence your final grade will drop by 1/3 of a letter grade. Your final grade will
continue to fall by 1/3 of a letter grade for each unexcused absence thereafter.
V. How the Class Works:
In an effort to encourage productive discussion, various roles will be assigned to
individual students each week. Roles and dates will be assigned by me.
The Contextualizer
This person’s job will be to read an additional article, book chapter or primary source
(assigned by me) and then lecture the class for 5-10 minutes about it’s contents, and in
this way providing historical context or background for the subject matter under
discussion. Everyone in the class will take this role at least once.
Discussion Leaders
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Teams of 4 students will be assigned to lead the discussion for each session where we
have readings. Teach team will (probably) do this three times during the term.
Teams will be responsible for leading approximately 20 minutes of class time.
Your group should plan a brief introduction (perhaps 5 minutes) of the subject under
discussion and then a series of questions that will guide us through the assigned reading.
Questions might highlight connections between one set of readings and the next, relevant
contrasts, and interesting arguments. Your job is to get the class talking.
VI. Assignments
1. Journalism Primary Source Short Paper: 10% 3-5 pages
Due: Wednesday, March 18
Your assignment is to see how newspaper journalists reported the story of mass
immigration at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.
Select any 1 year between 1880 and 1924.
Using online resources, look at a newspaper, such as the New York Times1
available through the BC Library, or the Brooklyn Eagle2 available through the
BPL, and search for articles focused on the topic of “immigration.”
Using no fewer than 4 articles, write an essay of at least 3 and no more than 5
pages about what you found. Additional instructions will be provided.
2. Class Participation: 10%
See the Appendix for a discussion of class participation.
3. New York City Ethnic Community Analysis and Multimedia Project: 40% total
Working in groups of no more than 4 students, you will select one ethnic group
presently residing in New York City. You will participate in the construction a
wiki page that will introduce this ethnic group to a non-specialist audience. You
are expected to contribute five to ten pages of textual material to this effort.
Additional instructions will be provided. (20%)
On the basis of this research and writing, you will construct a multimedia project
about a neighborhood in which this group resides. This can take a variety of
forms, to be discussed in class. (20%)
All students in a group receive the same grade for these projects.
For the NYT, on the BC web site you have to use the “advanced”  “command line search” option to select a
specific date range. See: ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2009)
2
See: (http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org), “The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporting on immigration”
(http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Skins/BEagle/Client.asp?Skin=BEagle&AW=1356892168406&App
Name=2&GZ=
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While students will divide up the work on the wiki page, all students are expected
to contribute equally to the multimedia project. I strongly recommend that at the
beginning of the work the group create a contract outlining each individual’s
responsibilities.
4. Peer Evaluation of Contributions to Group Work: 5%
Because you are working with your peers on the group project, members of
groups get to grade each other. Peer evaluation forms will be provided and
completed on the last day of class. Evaluations are confidential.
5. Peer evaluations of community analysis sites and tours: 5%
The entire class will grade your group wiki site and multimedia project. Forms
will be provided.
6. Take Home Final Exam: 30%
There will be a take home final exam, in essay format, at the end of the semester.
It will be based exclusively on the assigned readings and in-class discussion.
Minimum 5 pages, maximum 10.
You will have a week to complete it, and it will be due to me – via email -- at our
regularly scheduled exam time for this course.
VI. Walking Tours
You must go on three neighborhood walking tours this term.
1. I will conduct one of the Lower East Side on Sunday, March 10, at 1:00pm. If you
cannot attend my tour, you must arrange to go on another historic walking tour – one that
I approve in advance – and show me proof that you attended. You will post your
comments and/or reflections about this tour on our eportfolio wiki by March 13.
2. You will take another tour of a different neighborhood and post to our class wiki your
evaluation (200 words or more) of the experience. Was the tour successful? Did you learn
anything? There are lots of free NYC walking tours to chose from. One listing is here:
http://gonyc.about.com/od/toursbr/tp/Free-New-York-City-Walking-Tours.htm.
Alternatively, you can find a walking tour book, and take one of the tours it describes.
You must complete this assignment by April 8.
3. You will take and document a tour of the neighborhood that you elect to research. This
one will probably be done by everyone working on a given neighborhood, at the same
time. If I can, I’ll go with you.
VII. Honesty:
All work you turn in for this class must be your own. Any deviation from this standard
will result in a "0" for the assignment.
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Plagiarism. According to the MLA style guide, plagiarism “is to give the impression you
have written or thought something that you have in fact borrowed from someone else."
[Joseph Gibaldi and Walter Achtert, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 3rd
edition (New York: Modern Language Association of American, 1988), p. 21.] If you
borrow an idea, a sentence, or more from a source, you must let the reader know what
that source is. It's only fair to the original author.
If you do not know what plagiarism is, ask me, consult a work such as the MLA guide, or
check out a website like this one: http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml
University policy on Academic Integrity:
The faculty and administration of Brooklyn College support an environment free from
cheating and plagiarism. Each student is responsible for being aware of what constitutes
cheating and plagiarism and for avoiding both. The complete text of the CUNY
Academic Integrity Policy and the Brooklyn College procedure for implementing that
policy can be found at this site: http://www.cuny.edu/about/administration/offices/la/Academic_Integrity_Policy.pdf.
If a faculty member suspects a violation of academic integrity and, upon investigation,
confirms that violation, or if the student admits the violation, the faculty member MUST
report the violation. Academic integrity procedures are detailed here:
http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/portal/docs/AI_Implementation_Procedures.pdf
IX. Intellectual Diversity:
The best classes are ones where a diversity of viewpoints is represented and articulated. I
encourage students to form their own opinions about the issues raised in this course after
investigating the evidence available and considering a variety of theoretical perspectives.
Students are free to voice their viewpoints, and in fact will be rewarded for doing so, as
long as they are respectful to others in the class. Students’ grades are based on their
mastery of history, not their opinions about particular issues. In other words, students
need not agree with the professor, the authors of assigned readings or other students; they
simply need to understand their arguments.
I borrowed this paragraph almost directly (I changed a few words) from Professor Ryan
Moore, Ph.D., SYP 6645: Sociology of Popular Culture Syllabus, Florida Atlantic
University, Spring 2006
(graduate.fau.edu/gpc/110806/sociology%20of%20popular%20culture%20graduate%20syllabus.doc Accessed Dec. 28. 2008)
because it expresses my sentiments nicely.
X. Disabilities:
It is the policy of the City University of New York to comply with Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of
1990 as amended, state legislation (Executive Law 296), local law, and applicable
regulations promulgated pursuant to these laws to prohibit the exclusion of qualified
students with disabilities, solely by reason of their disability, from participation in college
programs or activities. Brooklyn College, as a unit of the City University, does not and
will not discriminate against qualified students with disabilities in access to its programs
and/or services. Disability, for purposes of this policy, is defined to mean a "physical or
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mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities," such as
walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, or learning, for example.
In order to receive disability-related academic accommodations students must first be
registered with the Center for Student Disability Services. Students who have a
documented disability or suspect they may have a disability are invited to set up an
appointment with the Director of the Center for Student Disability Services, Ms. Valerie
Stewart-Lovell at 718-951-5538. If you have already registered with the Center for
Student Disability Services, please provide me with the course accommodation form and
discuss your specific accommodation with me.
XI. Me:
Office location: 514 Whitehead
Office hours: MW 12:30-2:00pm and by appointment.
Email: pnapoli@brooklyn.cuny.edu
XII. Tech Fellow:
Amanda Licastro
Email: amanda.licastro[at]gmail[dot]com
Office Location: Honors Lounge
Office Hours: Alternating Mondays and Wednesdays from 12-3pm
email amanda.licastro [at] gmail [dot] com to make an appointment.
http://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/brooklynitfs/your-itfs/
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Napoli
Macaulay Seminar 2
Spring 2013
Teaching Calendar
3:40pm-4:55pm
I have ordered the following books at Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers, 150 Campus Road, New
York, NY 11230 (718) 434-5326

Miguel "Mickey" Melendez, and Jose Torres, We Took The Streets: Fighting For Latino
Rights With The Young Lords (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005)

Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers, All the Nations Under Heaven: An Ethnic and
Racial History of New York City (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996)
All other readings are available on our Blackboard page.
Monday, January 28
Organization/Introductions
Wednesday, January 30
Approaches to the Study of Immigration (I)
Reading:
Oscar Handlin, Immigration Portrayed as an Experience of Uprootedness
John Bodnar, Immigration Portrayed as an Experience of Transplantation
Donna Gabaccia, Immigrant Women: Nowhere at Home?
Monday, February 4
Approaches to the Study of Immigration (II)
Reading:
George Sanchez, Race, Nation and Culture in Recent Immigration Studies
Kathleen Conzen, et. al, The Invention of Ethnicity in the United States
Matthew Frye Jacobson, More ‘Trans-,’ Less ‘National’
Due: Complete CITI on-line ethics training (https://www.citiprogram.org/Default.asp?)
Print the completion certificate and submit it to me.
Wednesday, February 6
Building the Wiki and the Multimedia Project
Amanda Licastro
Google “audio walking tour,” and see what you find.
Monday, February 11
Colonial New York
Reading:
Binder, ch. 1, Multi-Ethnic From the Beginning
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Reitano, ch. 2, City of the Whirlpool, 1609-1799
Wednesday, February 13
19th Century New York
Reading:
Binder, ch. 2, Dynamic Growth and Diversity
Reitano, ch. 3, Gotham, The Paradoxical City, 1800-1840
Monday, February 18 (no classes)
Wednesday, February 20 (conversion day – Monday Schedule)
Using the Census
Rosemarie Fogarty, from the US Census
Monday, February 25
African Americans in NYC
Readings:
Leslie M. Harris, ch. 2 and 3 from In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in
New York City, 1626-1863 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
Wednesday, February 27
Irish and German 19th Century
Reading:
Binder, ch. 3, Diversity in Action
Reitano, ch. 4, The Passionate and Proud City, 1840-1865
Monday, March 4
Immigration at Flood Tide I
Reading:
Binder, ch. 4, Old and New Immigrants in Greater New York City
Reitano, ch. 5, The Empire City: Questioning The Gilded Age, 1865-1899
Wednesday, March 6
Immigration at Flood Tide II
Reading:
Binder, ch. 5, Jews and Italians in Greater New York City
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, chapters 5 & 6, 9 - 11
(http://www.bartleby.com/208/)
Sunday, March 10
Walking Tour of the Lower East Side
Monday, March 11
Ellis Island and Immigration Restriction
Reading:
Vincent J. Cannato, American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, chapters 11 & 16
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Wednesday, March 13
New York City with the Immigration Door Shut
Reading:
Binder, ch. 6, Ethnic New Yorkers from the Great War to the Great Depression
Binder, ch. 7, A Time of Trial: New Yorkers During the Great Depression and
World War II
Due: Reflections on walking tour #1, posted to our eportfolio site.
Monday, March 18
Urban Conflict and Violence
Cheryl Greenberg, “The Politics of Disorder : Reexamining Harlem's Riots of 1935 and
1943,” Journal of Urban History, 1992 18: 395.
Ronald H. Bayor, “Italians, Jews and Ethnic Conflict,” International Migration Review,
Vol. 6, No. 4 (Winter, 1972): 377-391.
Due: Journalism Primary Source Short Paper
Wednesday, March 20
Postwar Immigration and Migration
Reading :
Binder, ch. 8, A Better Time: New York City, 1945-1970
Reitano, ch. 8, World City: Redefining Gotham, 1945-1969
Spring Recess – Monday, March 25 through Tuesday, April 2
Wednesday, April 3
Puerto Rican Activism
Reading:
Miguel Melendez, We Took The Streets, chapters 1-5
Monday, April 8
Puerto Rican Activism
Reading:
Miguel Melendez, We Took The Streets, chapters 5-12
Due: Reflections on walking tour #2, posted to our eportfolio site.
Wednesday, April 10
Violence, Again:
Reading:
Edward S. Shapiro, “Interpretations of the Crown Heights Riot,” American Jewish
History, Volume 90, Number 2, June 2002, pp. 97-122.
Monday, April 15
Community Activism
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Guest Speaker Mohammad Razvi
Wednesday, April 17
Neighborhood Change
Reading:
Robert Snyder, “The Changed Neighborhood: The Irish of Washington Heights and
Inwood Since 1945,” from Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher eds, The
New York Irish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp. 439-460.
Richard D. Alba, et. al, “Neighborhood Change Under Conditions of Mass Immigration:
The New York City Region, 1970-1990,” The International Migration Review,
Fall 1995. Vol. 29, Iss. 3; pg. 625.
Monday, April 22
Transnationalism
Reading:
Robert Courtney Smith, Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of Immigrants
(Berkley and Los Angeles California, University of California Press,
2006), chapter 2 and 3, pp. 18-52.
Due: Written portion of the Ethnic Community Analysis Wiki
Wednesday, April 24
In-Class Group Work
Monday, April 29
Day Off
I will be giving you this day off because you will have taken 1 walking tour with me
on a weekend.
Wednesday, May 1
Open
Monday, May 6
2 group presentations of wikis and multimedia projects
Wednesday, May 8
2 group presentations
Monday, May 13
1 group presentation
Wednesday, May 15
Wrap up and Peer Evaluations
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Appendix
Class Participation Criteria: 10% of your grade
Fully 10% of your course grade will depend upon your personal contributions to our class
sessions. Participation is the key to a lively class. Class participation provides the opportunity to
practice speaking and persuasive skills and requires the ability to listen carefully. Comments that
are vague, repetitive, unrelated to the current topic, disrespectful of others, or without sufficient
foundation will be evaluated negatively.
Guidelines for Evaluating Participation
A+ or 95-100% Outstanding Contributor: This person’s contributions in class reflect exceptional
preparation. The ideas he or she offers are always substantive, provide one or more major
insights as well as direction for the class. When this person offers challenges or alternative ideas
for the class to consider these ideas are well substantiated and persuasively presented. If this
person were not a member of the class the quality of discussion would be diminished markedly.
A or 90-95% Good Contributor: This person’s contributions in class reflect thorough
preparation. His or her ideas are usually substantive, provide good insights and sometimes give
direction for the class. His or her challenges are well substantiated and often persuasive. If this
person were not a member of the class the quality of discussion would be diminished.
B or 80-89% Adequate Contributor: This person’s contributions in class reflect satisfactory
preparation. His or her ideas are sometimes substantive, provide generally useful insights but
seldom offer a new direction for class discussion. This person sometimes presents challenges for
the class to consider. These are fairly well substantiated and are sometimes persuasive. If this
person were not a member of the class, the quality of discussion would be diminished somewhat.
Non-Participant: This person says little or nothing in class. Hence, there is not an adequate basis
for evaluation. If this person were not a member of the class, the quality of discussion would not
be changed.
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