Between 1815 and 1914 more than thirty million immigrants came to America. Roughly 1,285,000 arrived in 1907 alone.

This area has for generations been a community of newly arrived immigrants. It is here, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, that Italians, Jews and Chinese first settled after arriving in New York. They settled in different neighbourhoods, uniquely preserving the heritage of their homelands and trying to establish a toehold in the New York economy. As a result, the Lower East Side is full of ethnical diversity. In the 20 years before the First World War, approximately two million Jews flooded into the Lower East Side. Today, new arrivals of immigrants are mostly Hispanic and Asian.

Numerous ailments prevailed around the turn of the twentieth century on the Lower East Side of New York City. The unsanitary and overcrowded conditions of many tenements and the working conditions on the Lower East Side were the contributing factors to outbreaks of disease. Cholera, Byssinosis, Typhus Fever, Typhoid Fever and Polio were many diseases that occurred.

Irish and German immigration soared in the late 1840’s and the newcomers settled near the old immigrants. By 1870 German immigrants had created a Klein Deutschland, or “Little Germany.” More than 170,000 German immigrants lived here in the 1870’s. As Klein Deutschland spread, Little Italy’s were also beginning to sprout nearby. The number of Italians arriving in New York rose from 12,000 in 1880 to nearly 400,000 in 1920. Most of the Italians were initially from Northern Italy as emigration from the South was forbidden. In 1861 Italy was unified and as a result most of the emigration was from the South. Many of these early Southern Italian immigrants had strong regional identities and did not relate to the newly unified nation of Italy. As a result settlement within the Lower East Side followed similar segregation. Many of them settled along Mott, Mulberry, and Elizabeth streets in what is today called “Little Italy.”

A small Chinese community was also established here about this time in response to deepening anti-Chinese sentiment on the West Coast. It grew slowly, but was estimated to number about 40,000 by 1940. To many the colour of the skin, language and system of writing was mysterious and, as a result, the Chinese population was not trusted. As a protection against racism, the Chinese community clustered in residential areas known as Chinatowns.

By the turn of the 20th century the German population suffered a tragic loss. In 1904 a steam-ship set fire killing most of the 1331 German passengers on board. After this event the heart went out of Klein Deutschland and the German community moved away - to the Queens. The area occupied by the Germans now became the Jewish Lower East Side. Eastern European Jews began coming to America in significant numbers after 1880. Practically all of them first settled on the Lower East Side. In 1890 an estimated 135,000 Jews lived in the neighborhood; by 1915 there were about 322,000, constituting nearly 60 percent of the area’s population. They and the Italians were the last major immigrant groups to arrive in America before European immigration slowed under the Johnson-Reed act of 1924.

Bangladesh and Ecuador are sources for many of today’s immigrants. In addition some 37,000 Puerto Ricans live in the neighborhood, though they are not classified as immigrants. Little Italy is under relentless pressure from the expanding Chinatown. There are more than 80,000 residents in Chinatown and its still growing rapidly. It has expanded across the Bowery and along East Broadway. Nevertheless, Little Italy still retains its distinctive cultural flavour.

Consider the following: