紐約的移民生活
地方性遺產
美國人的身邊幾乎都有來自於美國境外的親屬。這些來美國居住、生活的人被稱為移民。
1850年代至1900年代早期，數以千計的移民湧入美國並定居在紐約市。剛開始的移民來自於愛爾蘭及德國，後來的移民則來自於義大利、東歐、中國及世界上的其他國家。因為大部分的移民在剛抵達時都很貧窮，所以他們時常住在曼哈頓下東區(Lower
East Side)擁擠的廉價公寓內，這些公寓大樓的租金低廉。
下東區的移民公寓博物館(Lower
East Side Tenement Museum)座落在一棟前身為廉價公寓的大樓內，敘述著紐約市內的移民故事。它於1860年代興建完成，一層可容納4戶家庭，共可容納20戶家庭。每一間公寓只有三間房：客廳或前房、廚房及一間狹小的臥室。通常每間公寓內都住有七個人以上。廉價公寓不單擁擠，大樓直到1905年後才有浴室。而且直到1918年後，住戶也有電力可用。
博物館重新整修公寓，使其看起來像是有家庭居住一般。這張照片展示出1918年時，住在公寓內的Rogarshevksy一家人的廚房樣貌。亞伯拉罕
(Abraham
Rogarshevsky)、芬妮
(Fannie
Rogarshevsky)
及她們的四個小孩於1901年自蘇俄來美定居。不久後，又在美國產下另外兩個小孩。當他們住在這廉價公寓時，有另一名寄膳宿者(住在他人家中且需支付住宿及食物費用的人)與他們共住，也就是說一間三房公寓內住了九個人！
Almost all of us have relatives who came from someplace other than the United States. People who came to America to live are called immigrants.
From the 1850s through the early 1900s, thousands of immigrants arrived in the United States and lived in New York City. They first came from Ireland and Germany and later from Italy, Eastern Europe, and China, among other places. Because most immigrants were poor when they arrived, they often lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where rents for the crowded apartment buildings, called tenements, were low.
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is in a building that used to be a tenement and it tells the story of immigrants in the City. It was built in the 1860s and could house 20 families, four on each floor. Each apartment had only three rooms: a living or "front" room, a kitchen, and a tiny bedroom. Often seven or more people lived in each apartment. Not only was the tenement crowded, but also, until 1905, there were no bathrooms inside the building. Residents also did not have electric power until after 1918.
The Museum has re-created the apartments to look like they did when families lived there. This photograph shows what the Rogarshevksy family's kitchen looked like in 1918. Abraham and Fannie Rogarshevsky arrived with their four children from Russia in 1901. Later, they had two more children in the United States. While they lived in this tenement, a boarder (someone who pays for food and lodging in another person's home) lived with the family. That would have made nine people living in a three-room apartment!
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