The Lower East Side: A Gateway to America

The Lower East Side has long been a portal for immigration and migration in the United States. As early as 1820, Irish immigrants and African American migrants from the South made up approximately twenty percent of the area's population. In the 1840s, the Potato Famine in Ireland and the Civil Wars in the German states led to a great influx of Irish and southern Germans to the neighborhood. By 1870, more than 170,000 German-speaking immigrants lived on the Lower East Side, and the area became known as Kleindeutschland, or "Little Germany." At the same time, "Little Italy" was beginning to sprout nearby, and by the turn of the century, a small Chinese community was established in the area in response to the deepening anti-Chinese sentiment on the West Coast.

Eastern European Jews began coming to New York in significant numbers after 1880. By 1915, this group constituted nearly sixty percent of the area's population, and the neighborhood became known as the Jewish Lower East Side. Almost 30,000 Sephardic Jews, fleeing the Balkan Wars, also came to the Lower East Side around this time. The Eastern European Jews and the Italians were the last major immigrant groups to arrive in the U.S. before the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 slowed immigration to a trickle by placing quotas on immigration from eastern and southern Europe.

With the liberalization of immigration laws in the 1960s, immigrants began coming to the Lower East Side once again. Today, 36% of the area's residents are foreign-born, and 60% of all residents over the age of five speak a language other than English at home. Presently, 32% of Lower East Siders are Hispanic, largely from Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic; 30% come from Asia-primarily China, but also India, Korea, and the Philippines.

As a gateway to immigration, the Lower East Side has always been a mosaic of rich and varied languages, religions, and cultures. From past to present, each group has made a unique contribution to the flavor and character of the neighborhood. Moreover, this exhilarating mix of cultures offers us an unprecedented opportunity to draw connections between past and present, between immigrant life and culture on the historic Lower East Side and the unfolding story of its current residents.