How did immigrants from southern and eastern Europe change cities?

Answer 1

The large European Immigration, particularly after World War I, had a dramatic effect on North American inner cities.

Many were desperately poor, uneducated, non-English speaking workers driven from their homes and homelands, hoping for jobs and a better future for themselves and for their children. So they sought out relatives, friends and fellow countrymen who had preceded them to the New World, in order to get advice, assistance and a start in survival in an Anglo-Saxon North America.

They congregated in the run-down downtowns and skid rows of cities where the housing was very basic and very cheap. They worked hard at low-paying jobs, saving every penny possible, and gratefully cherishing the opportunity for their children to get schooling.

On Sundays, usually their only day off from work, whole families would gather on the sidewalks and street corners of their neighbourhoods, to socialize and relax amongst their own ethnicities, since they were usually treated badly by the Anglo-Saxon citizens, considering them as " dumb foreigners " because they couldn't speak English.

The often derelict inner cities took on a second life with colourful, cheerful families sprucing up their new environment as best they could afford.

These brave newcomers prospered, and so did their neighbourhoods. Plants and flowers on window sills, and even small vegetable and herb gardens on rooftops sprang up everywhere. Despite a grim lifestyle, they were happy and positive thinkers, driving their children to study hard and succeed, so that they would have a better life than their immigrant parents.

Eventually, city fathers realized, recognized and celebrated the rebirth of the inner cities as multiculturalism became accepted as a positive social phenomenon. Of course, ethnic restaurants sprang up in these neighbourhoods too. Eventually, Anglo-Saxon Canadians and Americans looked forward to occasional downtown visits to ethnic eateries and shopping, enjoying the different sights, sounds and smells of foreign foods and cultures without having to spend money to travel abroad.

They were living and, simultaneously, contributing to the " North American Dream ", freedoms of choice of religion, jobs, home ownership and education for their young.