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Description
Author Tyler Anbinder discusses his most recent work, City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York. The talk was recorded at the Arlington Public Library in January 2018.
A
B
Evening,
everyone,
my
name,
is
Michelle
Fernandes
and
I
am
from
the
department
of
programs
and
partnerships
here
at
Arlington,
Public
Library.
Thank
you
so
much
for
joining
us
today
to
hear
Tyler
Ann
binder
discuss
his
book
city
of
dreams,
the
400
year,
epic
history
of
immigrant
New
York.
In
the
spirit
of
today's
subject
matter,
I
can
reveal
to
you
that
my
ancestors
came
to
New
York
from
Puerto
Rico,
Italy
and
various
locations
within
the
Jewish
Pale
of
Settlement.
B
We're
not
really
sure
special
thanks
to
our
partners
at
one
more
page
books
for
being
with
us
tonight
and
making
copies
of
City
of
Dreams
available
for
purchase,
join
us
and
them
on
February,
8th
at
7
p.m.
here
in
Central
Library
auditorium.
As
authors,
Stephen
Livingston
discusses
his
book
Kennedy
&
King
as
part
of
the
library's
commemoration
of
Black
History
Month.
You
can
also
visit
us
online
at
library,
Arlington,
Va
US,
and
follow
us
on
social
media
for
the
most
current
listing
of
upcoming
library
programs.
B
Our
speaker
tonight,
Tyler
Ann
binder,
is
a
professor
of
history
at
George,
Washington
University,
his
first
book
nativism
and
slavery
won
the
Avery
Craven
prize
of
the
organization
of
American
Historians.
His
second
book
5
points
won
the
New
York
City
Book
Prize
in
2001,
and
he
served
as
consultant
to
Martin
Scorsese
for
gangs
of
New
York.
His
ancestors
came
to
New
York
from
southwest
Germany,
Poland,
Ukraine
and
Russia.
B
A
All
right:
well,
thanks
for
coming
out
so
I'm
gonna
talk
for
the
next,
no
more
than
45
minutes
about
this
book,
a
city
of
dreams
which
is
a
history
of
immigrant
life
in
New,
York
City
from
the
first
Dutch
settlers
to
the
present
and
I,
know
that
and
then
we'll
have
time
for
questions.
I
know
one
of
the
one
of
the
groups.
That's
here
tonight
is
one
of
the
library
book
clubs,
the
nonfiction
book
club,
and
when
I
talk
to
book
clubs
I'm
often
asked.
Why
did
you
decide
to
write
this
book?
So
I
thought?
A
Maybe
I
would
address
that
first
and
get
it
out
of
the
way.
There
were
two
reasons:
I
decided
to
write
this
book.
One
was
because
I
wanted
a
narrative
challenge,
I'd
written
as
Lisa
described,
I
written
two
previous
books
that
were
kind
of
straightforward.
One.
Looked
at
the
history
of
a
short-lived
political
party
from
its
birth
in
1853
till
its
dissolution
in
1860,
the
other
one
looked
at
the
history
of
one
single
4x6
block
neighborhood
in
New,
York
City
from
its
settling
around
1802
the
time
it
was
pretty
much.
A
A
One
little
neighborhood
I
came
up
with
so
many
great
stories
about
immigrants
who
didn't
live
in
that
neighborhood
and
as
I
collected
them
over
the
years,
I
thought
you
know.
I
just
ought
to
do
something
with
these,
and
that
was
that
was
the
other
reason.
I
decided
to
write
this
book.
So
here
so
first,
even
though
it's
a
big
book
as
you
can
see
it's
550
pages
of
text
and
then
when
you
add
the
the
footnotes-
and
you
know
we
academics-
we
have
to
have
our
footnotes
or
endnotes
to
be
exact
with
the
endnotes.
A
A
The
first
of
those
is
that
the
immigrant
experience
what
it's
like
to
arrive,
the
disorientation,
the
struggle
to
create
a
foothold
in
a
new
homeland,
the
discrimination
that
immigrants
face
and
their
eventual
adaptation
to
America
that
those
things
had
never
varied
much
throughout
American
history,
that
the
experience
the
experience
that
an
immigrant
had
in
the
1600s
isn't
that
much
different
than
the
experience
that
immigrant
has
in
the
1900s
or
even
here
in
the
21st
century.
Sure
the
the
specifics
of
it
might
be
different.
A
You
know
you
might
you
might
try
to
to
cure
your
homesickness
through
the
internet
today
versus
letters
or
newspapers
back
then,
but
that
homesickness
is
the
same,
and
so,
whereas
these
other
things
will
change
the
home
that
that
whole
idea
of
that
the
process
you
go
through
doesn't
change.
Very
much
assimilation
in
particular
is
one
of
those
elements
that
hasn't
changed
very
much.
One
of
the
things
you
will
hear
a
lot
in
the
immigration
debate
today.
Is
this
idea
that
today's
immigrants
don't
assimilate?
A
Like
my
grandparents
did,
that's
often
the
way
you'll
hear
it
phrase
and
I
argue
in
the
book
that
that's
not
true,
that
today's
immigrants
assimilate
exactly
same
way
that
your
grandparents
did
or
your
great-great
grandparents
did
in
part.
That's
because
we
all
overestimate
how
much
our
immigrant
ancestors
actually
assimilated
to
us.
If
we
knew
them,
they
seemed
kind
of
American.
Maybe
they
had
an
accent,
but
still
they
were
one
of
us.
A
They
were
part
of
their
family
that
we're
familiar,
but
people
who
didn't
know
your
immigrant
ancestor
they're
that
accent
and
everything
else
about
them
made
them
extremely
foreign
to
them.
Made
them
seem
completely
unamerican
to
them,
and
so
it's
not
that
immigrants
assimilates
that
adult
immigrants
assimilate
so
much
today.
My
what
I
argue
is
that
adult
immigrants,
people
who
arrive
in
the
United
States
once
they're
already
adults-
they
don't
assimilate
that
much.
They
don't
assimilate
as
much
as
native-born.
Americans
typically
would
like.
A
You
know
they
typically
look
at
their
when
they
talk
when
they
use
the
word
home.
They
typically
mean
the
place
they
were
born.
The
foods
they
eat
are
typically
the
foods
that
they
ate
as
children.
The
songs
they
sang
are
typically
the
songs
they
sang
as
children.
The
music
they
listen
to
is
typically
the
music
from
their
homeland,
but
that
that's
always
been
the
case,
and
that
is
the
case
today,
just
like
it
was
the
case
a
hundred
years
ago,
200
years
ago
and
so
forth.
A
And
finally,
every
generation
of
of
Americans
contains
a
significant
population
that
believes
immigrants
are
a
menace
to
American
society
that
they're
fundamentally
different
than
those
from
the
past.
So
in
some
ways
I
feel,
like
you
know,
the
kind
of
reaction
you
see
to
immigrants
today.
That
is
wary.
That
is
distrustful
that
is
full
of
animus
it's
to
be
expected
because
that's
there's
always
been
a
portion
of
the
American
population.
A
That's
felt
that
way
that
feels
threatened
in
one
form
or
another
by
the
people
who
are
coming
to
the
United
States,
who
they
feel
will
change
the
States
in
a
way
that
they
don't
like.
So
it's
so,
whereas
we
think
of
the
United
States
as
a
nation
of
immigrants,
which
is
accurate,
we've
always
been
a
nation
of
immigrants
that
has
had
a
significant
portion
of
the
population
that
doesn't
like
that
fact
or
doesn't
like
the
extent
to
which
that
is
the
case,
and
so
it's
kind
of
a
yin
and
yang
thing.
A
A
So
I
had
to
make
again.
This
is
in
particular
I
mentioned
this
because
of
the
people
in
the
book
group.
Who've
already
read
the
book
and
like
to
think
about
these
things
had
two
big
decisions
I
had
to
make
when
writing
the
book.
The
first
was:
how
would
I
keep
the
book
from
being
reading
like
an
encyclopedia,
because
I
did
not
want
to
write
an
encyclopedia
I,
wanted
it
to
have
a
story
with
a
beginning
middle
and
an
end.
A
Even
though
I
wouldn't
mention
all
the
groups-
and
the
second
decision
I
made-
was
that
I
would
choose
certain
immigrants
and
tell
their
stories
in
details,
and
these
exemplary
immigrants
and
I
don't
mean
exemplary
in
the
sense
that
they
were
especially
well
behaved.
But
I
mean
exemplary
because
they
literally.
A
So
even
though
it
might
sound
crazy
to
try
to
summarize
this
whole
400
year
story
in
the
next
31
minutes,
I
have
left
I'm
gonna
try
to
do
it
because,
after
all,
it
was
crazy
to
try
to
write
this
book
in
the
first
place,
but
I,
but
I
did
it
anyway.
So
I
can't
tell
you
how
many
times
I
was
told
that
when
I
would
tell
people
I
was
doing,
I
would
get
that.
Look
that
crazy
can't
do
that.
A
A
Don't
do
anything
else,
but,
as
was
the
case
with
many
of
these
explorers,
whenever
they
would
find
something
that
looked
like
they
could
make
some
money
off
it.
They
would
get
diverted,
and
that
was
the
case
with
Hudson.
Although
Hudson
to
his
credit,
he
did.
He
comes
to
the
North
American
coast.
He
explores
all
the
rivers
the
best
one
he
finds
the
biggest
one
he
finds
is
the
Hudson.
He
sails
up
the
Hudson.
A
A
That's
gonna
lead
me
right
to
Asia,
but
no
it
led
him
to
Albany
instead,
so
he
gets
to
Albany
where
the
river
pretty
much
Peters
out
and
there's
not
much
there
except
some
Indians
who
have
lots
of
furs,
beaver
furs
and
so
Hudson
goes
back
and
he
reports
to
the
Dutch.
This
is
what
I
found
in
the
Dutch
chili.
We
don't
care
about.
These
furs
go
off,
do
more
exploring
Hudson
ends
up,
he
does
more
explain.
A
He
goes
up
to
what's
now
kind
of
northern
Canada,
his
crew
revolts
against
him,
because
he
is
really
determined
to
try
to
find
a
passage,
and
so
he
goes
up
into
that
northern
part
of
Canada
in
the
Arctic
now
and
his
crew
revolts.
Against
him-
and
they
put
him
in
a
dinghy
and
push
him
out
to
sea
and
the
crew
goes
back
to
Europe
and
so
Hudson
dies
with
his
son
in
this
dingy
someplace
up
up
in
northern
Canada.
A
An
amazing
thing
is
today
thanks
to
climate
change
in
global
warming,
the
place
where
Hudson
was
set
adrift,
you
can
actually
sail
through
because
the
ice
is
melted
so
much
you
can
actually
sail
through
to
Asia
now,
so
Hudson
was
actually
exactly
in
the
right
place.
He
was
just
400
years
too
early
now
the
Dutch,
the
story
of
New
Amsterdam,
is
typically
told
this
way.
A
It's
typically
told
that
New
York
gets
the
character
that
it
it
will
have
one
that's
very
accepting
of
immigrants,
because
the
Dutch
themselves
are
very
accepting
of
strangers
that
the
Netherlands
being
this
little
country
in
Europe
has
always
been
that
had
always
been
welcoming
of
people
from
other
places,
and
that's
true,
but
New
Amsterdam
was
not
that
way.
It
turns
out.
So
so
Peter
Stuyvesant,
who
ran
New
Amsterdam
for
most
of
its
history,
was
a
very
unwelcoming
kind
of
God.
So
much
so
he
wanted
pretty
much.
A
Only
the
Dutch
and
nobody
but
the
Dutch,
and
if
you
were
gonna,
come
to
new
resident
man,
you
weren't
Dutch.
You
had
to
follow
very
strict
rules,
so
cyber's
his
employers
said
to
him.
You
know
you
have
to
accept
anybody
who
will
come.
We've
got
hardly
anyone
who's
willing
to
live
in
this
barren
wilderness.
So
Stuyvesant
agrees
to
let
other
people
live
there,
but
with
restrictions.
So
the
colony
practices,
the
religion
of
the
Dutch
Reformed
Church,
when
some
Lutheran's
from
Germany
show
up.
A
He
says
you
can
stay,
but
you
can't
practice
your
religion
and
when
some
Jew
show
up
the
same
thing,
you
can
stay
all
that
he
really
doesn't
want
to.
Let
them
stay
at
all,
but
he's
ordered
to
let
them
stay
by
his
employers.
But
you
definitely
can't
practice
your
religion
Quakers
come
and
he
won't
even
let
them
stay
at
all.
A
They
literally
are
dragged
out
of
the
colony
by
their
hair,
the
women
put
onto
a
boat
and
shipped
away,
because
Stuyvesant
wanted
a
place
that
was
very
homogeneous
and
where
it
was
clear
who
was
in
charge
and
that
that
was
the
Dutch,
but
that
didn't
last
very
long
because,
as
I
said,
the
Dutch
get
into
this
colonization
game
late
and
the
amount
of
land
they
have
is
very
small.
The
other
problem
is
that
there
aren't
very
many
people
in
Holland
who
want
to
go
to
America.
A
This
is
the
period
this
is,
is
kind
of
the
golden
age
of
the
Netherlands.
With
you
know,
the
great
painters
of
that
period,
scientific
invention
and
the
Dutch-
are
so
rich.
Nobody
has
a
desire
to
emigrate
because
everything's
fine,
where
they
live,
and
so
the
con
so
they're,
even
their
colony,
starts
to
fill
up
with
people
from
other
places,
especially
the
English
who
control
the
territory
north
and
east
of
Manhattan
Island,
and
so
eventually
the
English
so
overwhelmed
the
Dutch
that
the
English
decide
we're
just
going
to
expand
our
colony
and
take
New
York.
A
It's
the
best
harbor
on
the
east
coast
of
North
America
and
we're
going
to
make
New
Amsterdam
into
New
York
after
the
Duke
named
after
the
Duke
of
York
and
made
it
make
it
into
the
hub
of
our
Caribbean
Atlantic
trading
network
and
so
in
the
1660s.
The
English
sent
a
flotilla
of
naval
vessels
and
sail
into
New
York
Harbor
and
take
New
Amsterdam
from
the
Dutch
and
they
turned
it
into
New.
York.
A
Now
it's
true
at
this
point:
here's
one
of
the
more
famous
immigrants
for
who
will
move
to
to
New
York.
It's
true
that
in
New
York
the
English
were
much
more
accepting
of
people
who
weren't
English
than
the
other
English
colonies.
So
in
New,
England
New
England
colonies,
like
Massachusetts,
were
very
much
run
by
the
Congregationalists.
A
The
Puritans
Virginia
had
it's
kind
of
elite,
but
in
New
York
they
were
more
accepting
of
other
people
in
part,
because
when
the
English
get
there,
there
aren't
many
English
in
Manhattan
and
there
are
a
lot
of
Dutch
and
they
all
stay,
and
they
you
want
them
to
stay
because
they
are
part
of
what's
making
the
city
very
successful,
so
the
English
when
they
take
over
when
they
take
over
New
York,
they
don't
go
about
doing
any
sort
of
ethnic
cleansing.
They
encourage
the
Dutch
this
day
they
let
the
Dutch
stay.
A
So,
as
I
said,
there
are
the
main
reason
the
English
take
over
New.
York
is
because
they
want
to
make
New
York
the
nexus
of
this
trading
hub
that
they
want
to
have
between
their
colonies
in
the
Caribbean,
which
are
producing
lots
of
sugar
and
tobacco
and
use
New
York
as
a
transshipment
point,
so
that
that
stuff
will
go
from
there
to
the
American
to
the
North
American
colonies,
and
especially
at
the
Port
of
New
York
and
from
there
will
either
be
traded
in
the
continental,
North,
America
or
shipped
to
England.
A
One
of
the
people
who
ends
up
arriving
in
New
York
as
a
result
of
that
is
Alexander
Hamilton.
So
Hamilton
is
born
in
the
Caribbean
he's
raised
in
st.
Croix.
He
works
after
he
becomes
an
orphan.
He
starts
working
for
a
trading
firm
that
does
most
of
its
business
with
New
York,
and
so
the
the
people
who
run
the
firm
will
leave
Hamilton
who's,
still
a
teenager
in
charge
of
the
Caribbean
office
of
the
st.
croix
office
when
they
go
off
to
New
York,
to
buy
goods
that
they're
gonna
then
bring
back
to
st.
A
Croix
and
sell,
and
so
Hamilton
learns
of
what's
going
on
on
the
continent
and
when
he
becomes
famous
in
st.
Croix
for
writing
at
this
big
hurricane
in
st.
Croix,
and
he
writes
a
letter
describing
the
hurricane
that
everyone
says
wow.
What
a
great
letter
who
is
this?
Who
is
the
person
who
wrote
this
fabulous
letter
and
then,
when
they
find
out
it's
an
orphan
who's,
had
no
formal
education
at
all
people
say:
oh
my
gosh,
this
guy's
he's
a
genius.
A
We
ought
to
give
him
a
formal
education,
let's
send
him
off
to
the
mainland,
to
college,
and
so
that's
what
they
do
and
Hamilton
being
ambitious,
gets
to
get
to
New
York
and
he
decides
not
to
go
back
to
the
Caribbean.
He
realizes
that
that
places
like
New
York
on
the
North
American
continent
are
going
to
be
the
real
source
of
power
within
North
America
and,
of
course
he
becomes
a
supporter
of
the
Revolution
as
well.
A
It's
not
a
coincidence
that
Hamilton,
whose
parents
are
both
of
Scotch
descent
and
whose
parents
in
fact
were
both
born
in
Scotland
that
he
feels
very
comfortable
in
New
York,
because
New
York's
revolutionary
supporters
in
particular
are
very
much
especially
Scotsman
and
Scots
women.
And
so
there
is
this
kind
of
ethnic
dimension
to
the
revolution
in
a
city
like
New
York,
where,
as
the
Scots
and
the
Irish
are
very
supportive
of
the
revolution
and
English
tend
to
be
less
supportive
of
it.
I.
A
Could
talk
about
Hamilton
a
long
time,
but
obviously
I
could
talk
about
all
these
things
a
long
time,
but
we
have
to
keep
moving
so,
as
I
said,
the
Scots
and
the
Irish
are
the
two
big
supporters
of
the
revolution
in
New
York,
and
so
you
have
this.
This
continuing
changing
flow
of
immigrants
to
New
York.
A
It
becomes
impoverished
in
part
because
of
the
way
that
the
English
take
advantage
of
the
Irish
they
take
their
land,
they
exploit
it.
They
give
very
little
of
the
returns
to
the
English.
Most
of
the
land
in
Ireland
is
taken
from
the
Irish
and
given
to
English
nobility
as
prizes
for
supporting
the
king.
So
obviously,
there's
a
lot
of
resentment
of
that
in
Ireland
and
so
a
lot
of
those
resentful
people
who
remember
that
their
family
wants
own
land
and
now
has
to
rent
back
what
once
was
their
own
land
from
other
landlords.
A
Now
they're
resentful
of
that,
and
so
a
lot
of
those
people
will
go
to
America
and
some
of
them
will
will
settle
in
New
York.
As
you
move
on
in
the
1800s,
the
the
immigrants
from
Ireland
become
poorer
and
poorer,
as
as,
as
Ireland
becomes
poorer
and
poorer.
By
the
time
you
get
to
the
1840s,
a
huge
portion
of
the
Irish
population,
especially
in
kind
of
the
southern
and
western
parts
of
Ireland,
become
very
dependent
on
the
potato.
A
They
have
so
little
land
on
which
to
grow
crops,
because
Ireland's
population
keeps
growing
and
growing
that
the
Irish
become
dependent
on
the
potato,
because
the
potato
is
pretty
much
the
only
thing
they
can
grow
on
the
tiny
little
bit
of
land
they
have
that
will
feed
their
families
and
the
potato.
You
know
not
in
French
fry
form,
but
the
potato
overall
is
is
pretty
nutritious.
You
get
some
vitamin
C
from
it
and
you
can
actually
live
just
eating
potatoes,
and
that
was
how
you
know.
A
And
but
there
wasn't
much
variety
to
that
diet.
The
potatoes
were
boiled,
they
couldn't
bake
them,
because
people
didn't
have
ovens,
you
couldn't
fry
them,
because
people
didn't
have
the
means
to
fry
them.
So
they
are
boiled
boiled
for
breakfast
boiled
for
lunch,
boiled
for
dinner.
So
when
this
fungus
comes
to
Ireland
in
the
mid
1840s
and
the
fungus
actually
comes
from
the
United
States
or
to
be
exact,
the
fungus
comes
from
Peru
Americans
import,
Peruvian,
guano
bird
droppings
to
fertilize.