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Lower East Side Tenement Museum
91 Orchard Street
New York, NY
10002
Tel: +1-212-431-0233
Fax: +1-212-431-0402
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Dialogues for Democracy
The Challenge
Many of the challenges immigrant families confronted in the past are similar to those new immigrants face today, such as maintaining language and culture while adapting to a new place, negotiating the welfare system, surviving as a single mother, working in sweatshops, facing racial discrimination, and struggling for better housing. Yet many visitors who come to the museum searching for connection with their immigrant heritage harbor hostilities towards those they regard as the “bad” immigrants of today. Further, new arrivals facing discrimination as foreign interlopers are not aware of their deep connection to a long American tradition of immigration.
The Dialogues for Democracy Questions
- Who gets to come to America? Who should be allowed to decide? On what basis?
- What does it mean to be a citizen?
- What does it mean to be American?
- What, if any, assistance should be given to new immigrants? By whom? For how long?
The Program
The Museum’s Dialogues for Democracy program seeks to use the history of American immigration as a basis for an ongoing discussion concerning contemporary immigration policies. Visitors begin with a tour of the recreated 19th and early 20th century immigrant apartments in 97 Orchard Street. These tours are often conducted by immigrants or people working on immigration issues today. Using these individual, human stories as a starting point, visitors return to our “Kitchen Table” space for a facilitated dialogue on contemporary immigration-related experiences and issues. The Museum has hosted dialogues among community leaders to address challenges and issues faced in the neighborhood today. It has also hosted discussions specifically addressing the problems of sweatshops with garment industry workers, designers, manufacturers and policy makers.
Impact
The goals of the program are to increase understanding of the evolution and impact of American immigration and immigration policies; stimulate dialogue among people of diverse backgrounds on immigration and related enduring social issues; challenge prejudices based on ethnicity, citizenship status, nationality, class and race; and inspire civic action among recent immigrants and descendants of immigrants.