Beyond the Melting Pot the M.I.T
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Beyond the Melting Pot THE M.I.T. PRESS PAPERBACK SERIES 1 Computers and the World of the Future 38 The Psycho-Blology of Language: An edited by Martin Greenberger Introduction to Dynamic Philology by 2 Experiencing Architecture by Steen George Kingsley ZIpf Eller Rasmussen 39 The Nature of Metals by Bruce A. 3 The Universe by Otto Struve Rogers 4 Word and Object by Willard Van 40 Mechanics, Molecular Physics, Hoat, and Orman Oulne Sound by R. A. Millikan, D. Roller, and E. C. Watson 5 Language, Thought, and Reality by Trees by Richard J. Benjamin Lee Whorf 41 North American Preston, Jr. 6 The Learner's Russian-English Dictionary and Golem, Inc. by Norbert Wiener by B. A. Lapidus and S. V. Shevtsova 42 God of H. H. Richardson 7 The Learner's English-Russian Dictionary 43 The Architecture and His Times by Henry-Russell by S. Folomkina and H. Weiser Hitchcock 8 Megalopolis by Jean Gottmann 44 Toward New Towns for America by 9 Time Series by Norbert Wiener Clarence Stein 10 Lectures on Ordinary Differential 45 Man's Struggle for Shelter In an Equations by Witold Hurewicz Urbanizing World by Charles Abrams 11 The image of the City by Kevin Lynch 46 Science and Economic Development by 12 The Sino-Soviet Rift by William E. Richard L. Meier Griffith 47 Human Learning by Edward Thorndike Pot by Nathan 13 Beyond the Melting 48 Pirotechnia by Vannoccio Biringuccio Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan 49 A Theory of Natural Philosophy by 14 A History of Western Technology by Roger Joseph Boscovich Friedrich Klemm 50 Bacterial Metabolism by Marjory Astronomy by Norman 15 The Dawn of Stephenson Lockyer 51 Generalized Harmonic Analysis and 16 Information Theory by Gordon Ralebeck Tauberlan Theorems by Norbert Wiener 17 The Tao of Science by R. G. H. Slu 52 Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory 18 A History of Civil Engineering by Hans by Norbert Wiener Straub 53 The Historian and the City edited by 19 Ex-Prodigy by Norbert Wiener Oscar Handlin and John Burchard 20 I Am a Mathematician by Norbert Wiener 54 Planning for a Nation of Cities edited by 21 The New Architecture and the Bauhaus Sam Bass Warner, Jr. by Walter Gropius 55 Silence by John Cage 22 A History of Mechanical Engineering 56 New Directions in the Study of by Aubrey F. Burstall Language edited by Eric H. Lenneberg 23 Garden Cities of To-Morrow by Ebenezer 57 Prelude to Chemistry by John Read Howard 58 The Origins of Invention by Otis T. Mason 24 Brett's History of Psychology edited by R. S. Peters 59 Style In Language edited by Thomas A. Sebeok 25 Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener 26 Biological Order by Andre Lwoff 60 World Revolutionary Elites edited by Harold D. Lasswell and Daniel Lerner 27 Nine Soviet Portraits by Raymond A Bauer 61 The Classical Language of Architecture by John Summerson 28 Reflexes of the Brain by 1. Sechenov 29 Thought and Language by L. S. 62 China Under Mao edited by Roderick Vygotsky MacFarquhar 30 Chinese Communist Society: The Family 63 London: The Unique City by Steen Eller and the Village by C. K. Yang Rasmussen 31 The City: Its Growth, Its Decay, its 64 The Search for the Real by Hans Hofmann Future by Ellel Saarinen 65 The Social Function of Science by 32 Scientists as Writers edited by James J. D. Bernal Harrison 66 The Character of Physical Law by 33 Candidates, Issues, and Strategies: Richard Feynman A Computer Simulation of the 1960 and 67 1964 Presidential Elections by I. do S. No Peace for Asia by Harold R. Isaacs Pool, R. P. Abelson, and S. L. Popkin 68 The Moynihan Report and the Politics of 34 Nationalism and Social Communication Controversy by Lee Rainwater and by Karl W. Deutsch William L. Yancey 35 What Science Knows About Life: An 69 Communism in Europe. Vol. 1, edited by Exploration of Life Sources by Heinz William E. Griffith Woltereck 70 Communism in Europe, Vol. II, edited by 36 Enzymes by J. B. S. Haldane William E. Griffith 37 Universals of Language edited by 71 The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot Joseph H. Greenberg edited by Irving L. Horowitz Beyond the Melting Pot THE NEGROES, PUERTO RICANS, JEWS, ITALIANS, AND IRISH OF NEW YORK CITY BY NATHAN GLAZER AND DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN 1111111 THE M.I.T. PRESS MASSACHUSETFS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS (D) This book is one of a series published under the auspices of the Joint Center for Urban Studies, a cooperative ven- ture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Har- vard University. The Joint Center was founded in 1959 to organize and encourage research on urban and regional problems. Participants have included scholars from the fields of anthropology, architecture, business, city planning, economics, education, engineering, history, law, philosophy, political science, and sociology. The findings and conclusions of this book are, as with all Joint Center publications, solely the responsibility of the authors. Copyright @ 1963 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-18005 Printed in the United States of America Second printing, January 1964 First M.I.T. Press paperback edition, August 1964 Second paperback printing,December 1964 Third paperback printing,March 1965 Fourth paperback printing, October 1965 Fifth paperback printing, September 1966 Sixth paperback printing,June 1967 Preface THIs is a beginning book. It is an effort to trace the role of ethnicity in the tumultuous, varied, endlessly complex life of New York City. It is time, we believe, that such an effort be made, albeit doomed inevitably to approximation and to inaccuracy, and although it cannot but on occasion give offense to those very persons for whom we have the strongest feeling of fellowship and common purpose. The notion that the intense and unprece- dented mixture of ethnic and religious groups in American life was soon to blend into a homogeneous end product has outlived its usefulness, and also its credibility. In the mean- while the persisting facts of ethnicity demand attention, understanding, and accommodation. The point about the melting pot, as we say later, is that it did not happen. At least not in New York and, mutatis mutandis, in those parts of America which re- semble New York. This is nothing remarkable. On the con- trary, the American ethos is nowhere better perceived than in the disinclination of the third and fourth generation of newcomers to blend into a standard, uniform national type. From the beginning, our society and our politics have been at least as much concerned with values as with interests. The principal ethnic groups of New York City will be seen PREFACE maintaining a distinct identity, albeit a changing one, from one generation to the next. One group is not as another and, notably where religious and cultural values are involved, these differences are matters of choice as well as of heritage; of new creation in a new country, as well as of the main- tenance of old values and forms. Our discussion of these differences necessarily touches, even dwells, on the conse- quent, widely varying patterns of achievement in areas such as education, business, and politics. Understandably enough, the unevenness of achievement in such matters is the source of resentment and even bitterness by many indi- vidual members of the different groups. It may be that our discussion will also be resented by such persons, for much the same reason. We would therefore, in advance, ask a measure of forgiveness for taking up a subject which needs to be discussed, but which cannot be aired without giving pain to some. The Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Uni- versity sponsored this study, and its indefatigable director Martin Meyerson sustained it in adversity. A grant from the New York Post Foundation made possible much of the re- search and writing. We are singularly indebted to a great many scholars and fellow New Yorkers who have given us information, ideas, and encouragement. We would like par- ticularly to acknowledge the counsel of Daniel Bell, Leonard Covello, Father Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, S.J, Herbert J. Gans, Frederick L. Holborn, Will Maslow, Michael Parenti, and Lloyd Rodwin. Nancy Edelman and Victor Gioscia helped with research on the Puerto Rican and Italian sections. Pro- fessor James S. Coleman generously provided an analysis of the results of the 1962 New York gubernatorial election. This work was conceived and organized by Nathan Glazer. He wrote "the Negroes," "the Puerto Ri- cans," "the Jews," "the Italians," and most of the "Intro- duction." Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote "the Irish" and most of "Beyond the Melting Pot." We have discussed and criticized each other's writing, and worked together to for- mulate the thesis that the book presents. Washington N.G. April, 1963 D.P.M. Vi Contents INTRODUCTION I THE NEGROES 24 25 Numbers 29 Jobs 44 Education 50 The Family and Other Problems 53 Housing and Neighborhood 67 Leadership, Politics, Intergroup Relations THE PUERTO RICANS 86 86 Prologue 91 The Migration 99 The Island-Centered Community 110 The Mobile Element 116 Lower Income 122 The Next Generation: Family, School, Neighborhood 129 Culture, Contributions, Color THE JEWS 137 143 The Economic Base 155 The Passion for Education 191 Community, Neighborhood, Integration 166 Politics 171 Culture and the Future THE ITALIANS 181 186 The Community 194 Family Influences 202 Religion 205 Occupations 208 Politics THE IRISH 217 219 The Green Wave 221 The Democratic Party 230 The Roman Catholic Church 238 The Wild Irish 250 "There Are Some of Us Left" 262 The Party of the People 274 City of God and Man BEYOND THE MELTING POT 288 292 The Jews 294 The Catholics 299 'Negroes and Puerto Ricans 301 The Role of Politics 310 The Future 317 TABLES 325 NOTES 349 INDEX vni Introduction I N 166o William Kieft, the Dutch governor of New Netherland, remarked to the French Jesuit Isaac Jogues that there were eighteen lan- guages spoken at or near Fort Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan Island.