NYC as a Refuge

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now a call-in with a history lesson baked in on coming to New York as a refuge from where you grew up. Give me you're tired, you're poor, you're starving artists yearning to breathe free. Oh no, that's not exactly how it goes, but maybe you get the idea. Many people come to New York City as a form of escape, whether it's escaping a creatively stunted small town, a conservative family who didn't accept you for who you are, or escaping a literal dictatorship abroad. Listeners, are you one of those people in any category?

Did you come to New York City or anywhere in our area to escape from somewhere else? We're taking your calls, especially from those of you who have come here recently in recent years, in recent decades. Tell us your story. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. The news hook here, of course, is the current wave of asylum seekers coming mostly from Venezuela. While this current asylum seeker crisis feels different in certain ways, especially the slimy political export using them as pawns aspect being sent by Texas, it's also a reminder of how people seeking refuge in New York City in large numbers is nothing new.

Listeners, for the next few minutes, we're inviting your stories. What did you come to New York or the New York area to find refuge from? What were you coming for that you were attracted to? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. If you weren't born in or around New York City, call up and tell us why you came. This is a good moment considering what's going on, to talk about why people come to New York today, and we'll get into the history of that with Lilly Tuttle from the Museum of the City of New York. Your story is welcome here, 212-433-WNYC.

What did you come to New York seeking refuge from, and what is it that you were attracted to? 212-433-9692. Lilly Tuttle is curator at the Museum of the City of New York. The museum has a centennial exhibition up right now. That among other things shows New York's rich history of being a place that attracts people from all over the country and all over the world, things they're escaping from, and things they're attracted to. Lilly, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Lilly Tuttle: Thank you, Brian. I'm glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Part of traditional US history the way it has tended to be taught is the pilgrims coming from Europe to Massachusetts to find religious freedom. Though from what I've read in many places, it was also very much for economic reasons. Was there anything like that mix in the early European migration to New York?

Lilly Tuttle: Sure, absolutely. First of all, I think it's important to remember that New York was originally inhabited by Indigenous communities, the Lenape people, so all European arrivals were newcomers in a sense. New York, in contrast to Massachusetts and Plymouth, is really a different founding story where people largely came here for economic opportunity. The story of money and the quest for opportunity and a new start is really baked into New York City's history from the first Dutch settlers who came here in the 17th century.

Brian Lehrer: We think of New York as such a magnet for immigrants through all of US history from Britain, from Holland, then from Germany, and from Ireland and then the Ellis Island area, so many Italians and Jews and more Irish and after the 1965 Immigration Act so many New Yorkers ever since from all over the Americas and from Asia and more from Africa too. Has it really been New York though so much more than other major US cities or do we just talk about it more?

Lilly Tuttle: I think New York was a really, really important port of entry for so many people from all of those origin countries that you mentioned. However, I think it's important to acknowledge that New York is very often a jumping-off point. It's a springboard, so to speak, that people tend to migrate to places where they know people, where they have connections and kin from their homeland. That doesn't mean that they always stay in New York long-term. There is a whole region and a whole country that has absorbed the immigrants and migrants who have come here over so many generations.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear some stories that are coming in. Robin in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Robin. Let me try that again. Robin in Brooklyn, do we have you now?

Robin: Yes, you do. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Now I can hear you. Hi, there.

Robin: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Hi, there.

Robin: Okay, great. Hi. I'm not an immigrant. Actually, I'm second generation. I came from a small town in New Jersey, 15 miles away from New York City. I left my town to escape homophobia. When I came to New York City, I felt like I was in a totally other world. The PATH train was the line of demarcation between feeling like I was the only gay person in New Jersey to being in the middle of the gay community. I ended up going to NYU, not because of its academic excellence, but because I found out in high school that it was the center of the gay community. I felt like I was able to actually see myself and escape some very negative things in my small town 15 miles away but worlds apart.

Brian Lehrer: Robin, thank you so much for that story. We can just hear the heads nodding out there, Lilly, of so many people who had similar stories to those when they came to New York.

Lilly Tuttle: Absolutely. You know what it made me think of, and this is a story that we tell in our exhibition, New York at Its Core, which is our ongoing New York City history exhibition at the Museum is Patti Smith, who came to New York from Camden, New Jersey. In her book that I'm sure so many listeners of yours have read, Just Kids, she talks about coming to New York in the '60s and feeling like she just had to get out of Camden and how immediately accepted she felt going to Washington Square Park, finding like-minded people, finding Robert Mapplethorpe. I think Patti's story and Robin's story are really just great examples of the way New York has really beckoned people and welcomed people for so long for so many different reasons.

Brian Lehrer: Patti Smith, straight out of Camden. Al in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Al.

Al: Hey, Mr. Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. I love your show. Keep up the good work. I'm an immigrant. I came to United States on the basic of resettlement. I'm originally from Liberia. I'm one of those so-called lost child from Africa, children who get caught in the conflict but kidnapped and forced to work in a diamond mine, a gold mine like a slave. You might have heard a movie called Blood Diamond. That movie is about my kind of generation.

Before coming here, I went through a lot. Immigration to America is a very important thing that America opened her door for people like me. I'm very thankful for the fact that America adopted me to bring me here to live here for indefinite period of time. God agreed that I was going to survive but thanks to American people and the taxpayers through the system they do with the United Nation that they brought me here. I really appreciate that. I want America to be open to immigrant because some people have no idea what some of us go through before getting here.

For America to be able to adopt people like me to come and live here for indefinite period of time is a blessing. Every time I pray, I pray for America and I pray for American people. I'm so much thankful for you for allowing me to express this feeling over the air so that some people can hear that. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: I'm thankful to you for doing that so movingly. Al, call us again. Let's go next to Anda in Brooklyn. Anda, you're on WNYC. Am I saying your name right?

Anda: Anda, yes, that's pretty much right.

Brian Lehrer: Anda, hello.

Anda: Hi, hello. I'm pleased to be on your show, which I admire very much. My family were World War II refugees. We left Latvia in '44, then we were in refugee camps in 1950. At that point, you were given the choice to emigrate, otherwise, you were sent someplace. We were sent to Kansas to a farm because there was a shortage of manpower after the war. My parents had just become engineers in Latvia, so that was a big shock to them. They were back on the farm. I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska near there. I came to New York in '63. Because I played the piano and I was a foreigner, I never really felt comfortable in Lincoln.

It's a very nice town, but my name was different. If I spoke a different language on the street, people would turn around, so I was always dying to get out of there. I came to New York and went to Juilliard, and I stayed here. Many people I know from the Midwest did not like New York because it was too crowded and impersonal and whatever, but I loved it. I fit right in. I've had an odd name, I could play the piano. I appreciated New York with culture and with diversity and all the beautiful things it has, other than this problem. The problems are big, but the good outweighs the bad by so much.

Brian Lehrer: Anda, thank you so much. What a great story. Lilly, she embodies it all, right? She was an immigrant from abroad but also an immigrant from the Midwest.

Lilly Tuttle: Yes. I think one of the things that really characterizes New York, and this is actually something you spoke about earlier, Brian, is this idea of churn and that New York is a city that people come to and they leave and then they come back and that there's a lot of in-and-out migration. I think that is typically a sign of a very healthy city. Arrivals and departures really actually signify a city that is dynamic and vibrant and all of the things that we associate with New York.

Brian Lehrer: Can you talk a little bit about the other side of this, how racism and xenophobia have affected the experience of those who migrated here or wanted to, impacted who even could migrate here? I'm thinking of a story that our reporter, Jake Offenhartz, did just this week from Staten Island, where some of the asylum seekers from Venezuela are being settled for the moment, I think, proportionately to the population there, but there was this pizza place owner who was giving out free slices to the asylum seekers, and in sad wonderment at how they were devouring the pizza like they were actually hungry, they didn't have enough food to eat.

There were other people who resented their neighbor, the pizza owner, for giving out free food to the asylum seekers because it only encourages them. I wonder if that push and pull is representative of something that you show in the exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.

Lilly Tuttle: Yes, unfortunately, this is not a new story for New York City. As much as we are a beacon and a welcoming place, really going back to the era of Peter Stuyvesant in the Dutch settlement, Stuyvesant was not an advocate for religious pluralism. He was a notable anti-Semite. He came into conflict with Jews, Catholics, and Quakers. In the 19th century, we see a lot of anti-Catholic prejudice in this city, a lot of prejudice against Irish and Italian immigrants. I think it's important to remember that New York does have this tension in its history that really comes into play a lot in the 20th century as well.

The 1924 immigration restriction that really curtails immigration for much of the 20th century until the '60s, a lot of the intellectual architects of that were New Yorkers. I think it's something that we have to bear in mind and we have to reckon with as New Yorkers that this tension, this opposition, and frankly this often fear of newcomers for whatever reason, whether it's religious difference or just racism, has always been a part of our history. I think we have to look at this with our eyes open. That's a disappointing story about what happened in Staten Island, but I do think it does not fully represent New Yorkers and their general relationship with immigration and newcomers.

Brian Lehrer: Susanna in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susanna, you have a story for us?

Susanna: I sure do, and I'm sorry about the noise. I'm outside, sorry. I am an immigrant from Ireland. I'm the first generation. I came in 1992, but obviously, my parents brought me here. Not obviously, but they brought me here, and it was not an easy transfer. I was made fun a lot of, and other horrible things happened to me, but I've stayed here. I'm the only one who's stayed here out of my whole family, and I have a weird feeling about America because I am from another country. My husband is from Georgia, the state from [unintelligible 00:14:48] Atlanta, and his family is really Republican, and they can't understand me.

It's a strange dichotomy there because I just call myself a New Yorker and not American, even though I worked really hard to become an American. I almost got deported, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it is an interesting thing to-- When you're in New York, you're in New York, but when you go out if you're a New Yorker, when you leave New York State-- I don't know if any other callers or you guys feel like this, when you leave the state, it's a little bit different, "Oh, you're from New York" kind of thing.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Right, either with admiration or disdain. I wonder if you represent that at the Museum of the City of New York exhibition, Lilly, this idea of New York as part of America but also almost like a nation unto itself, culturally.

Lilly Tuttle: I don't know. It's an interesting question, and it's one that we grapple with a lot. I think there's always been this question of, is New York the most American city or the least American city? In our centennial exhibition, which will be next year, we look at the way in which culture that depicts New York, which is now we live in this era of global culture. It's really an interesting window into how New York is perceived across the country and across the world, and it has this kind of-- there's always been this love it, hate it quality to it.

Particularly in the '70s, we see a lot of films and television that depict New York in a very negative light, but in some ways, I think we can argue that New York represents some of the best values of the United States and some of the key founding principles of our nation. I think that the jury is still out on that, so to speak, but it's definitely something we deal with a lot in our content at the museum.

Brian Lehrer: Lilly Tuttle, curator at the Museum of the City of New York, I think you just said that the exhibit is not up yet, the centennial, but it's going to be mounted next year, or tell us when people can see what.

Lilly Tuttle: Right now, at the museum, we have New York at Its Core, which is on the first floor of the museum. It's basically the entire history of New York City told in two galleries, so 1609 up to-- Right now, it's up to 2012, but actually, we're planning a new expansion that will look at up to 2020 and a little bit on COVID. That is our signature exhibition where so much of this history is detailed. Then in 2023, we are launching a centennial exhibition because 2023 is the centennial of the Museum of the City of New York, where we will be looking at the cultural representations of New York, New York on the big screen, the small screen, on the page, on the canvas.

That's definitely where we get at this duality and this debate about New York City if you love it, if you hate it, if it's the greatest city in the world, or it's the worst place you could imagine. We are excited to spin out this story in all of its different aspects of the documentary and the representation, but we definitely have some great stories on view right now for your listeners.

Brian Lehrer: Great segment today, Lilly. Thank you so much for joining us as a curator from the Museum of the City of New York and helping us curate those calls that came in.

Lilly Tuttle: Thank you, Brian. Thanks so much.

 

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