What does the term immigrant neighborhoods mean in US history?

Answer 1

They were usually poor and crowded.

Immigrants are people on the move so few immigrant neighborhoods stay the same. Some move on and others move in to take their place.

Immigrants to New York City in the 1900s found themselves crammed together on a piece of land on the Lower East Side, only about fourteen square miles in size, with people from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds.

Churches, synagogues, and mosques provided religious and social support, political machines brokered aid in exchange for votes, and families built strong communal ties. With so many people in such a small area, there were crowded, unsanitary conditions and inadequate sanitation. Many immigrants became part of the "working poor," or people whose incomes fell below the poverty line.

Answer 2

An "immigrant neighborhood" refers to a location, often small in geographical size, in which large numbers of new immigrants to the US lived. Often, they moved into sub-standard housing, often tenements, and rarely where more affluent-although-poor native-born Caucasians would never agree to live. Having immigrants in one area or "neighborhood" provided cultural and family identity and support to immigrants, while providing a false sense of safety to native-born Caucasians. If Whites stayed out of the neighborhoods where Italians, Slavs, Prussians, Russians, Slovaks, Poles, etc. lived, "we" would be "safe" from "them."

The "we-them" mentality actually strengthened cultural divisions, rather than helped with assimilation. If you isolate non-American groups, you guarantee their journey will be long for assimilation to occur.

Conversely, when US Native Born citizens immigrate to Europe, Americans tend to spread out and NOT live in immigrant neighborhoods as USA-English speaking. But in countries much different than the US, Americans would also congregate close together, such as living in the Middle East.