2.7 Mid-Semester 2 Reflection

The High Line

1. Through doing the reading questions about immigration in the late 19th century, I learned about the motives of migration not just the process of migration. It really opened my mind to see why these people would leave their homes and come to a new country to start completely new. It helped me learn empathy which I think is the most important thing I learned from this reading. In order to understand why these people would migrate, I had to step into their shoes and think about how I would handle their situations and what I would do.

2. I think the most important thing I learned from researching immigration today, is that I learned how the process has changed and again the motives for why people would migrate. For example, my topic of research was about the Honduran Caravan. The reason behind thousands of people migrating to the US is really tough to think about. They are migrating because of the high crime rate, poverty, and high murder rate in Honduras. I read lots of interviews and stories and each one was shocking and really sad. Most of the people in the Caravan are seeking refuge because they have been threatened by gangs and they just want to keep their families safe. Through research of this topic, my mind was opened to what the US is doing about it and we aren't doing much. In fact, we are trying to keep those people seeking refuge out of the country. I don't think that is right because these people are so desperate that they have said that they will do any job no matter how degrading it is. This topic really helped me understand the motives behind migration and how the US is handling the situation.

3. The two most challenging aspects of living in 19th-century urban settings is the concern of safety and rapid industrialization. With the concern of safety, there were lots of incidents due to rapid industrialization. For example, with the invention of the car, lots of people started driving and there weren't any laws with driving yet so there were lots of accidents that ended up with people getting injured or killed. Because of these incidents, the government took notice and created laws about driving to keep everyone safe. That's how lots of laws became into existence. First, there would be an accident that would injure people and the government would take notice and create a law for that accident and keep people safe. Another example is with the workplace. There are rules now to how a workplace should be run and set up so no one would get hurt like the accident of the fire in one of the workplaces that lead to lots of people dying. I think the US did a great job at meeting these challenges because now we have laws that keep everyone safe and we don't have to worry about getting injured or killed in everyday life or the workplace.

4. The High Line is related to late-19th century and early 20th century Progressivism in many ways. Progressivism really means the support for social reform. There were lots of examples with progressivism in the 19th-20th century such as settlement houses. Some people saw underdeveloped neighborhoods and wanted to place a complex to help with developing those neighborhoods and offer services to benefit that community. The High Line connects to this because it started out as somewhere that was never used except for exchanging drugs and as a place homeless people would stay. Everyone wanted it taken down because nothing good came from it and it didn't look good. Someone had a great idea to keep it but basically "renovate" it to become and walking path with tons of plants and art to bring in new people to this neighborhood and get rid of the drug problem and homelessness associated with the High Line. With the new "museum" more and more people came into the neighborhood which helped out the businesses and shops that were around the High Line and created a "park in the sky" for all people to enjoy. It took an "eyesore" and a "good-for-nothing" place and turned it into a beautiful place to take a stroll. In contrast, the High Line is dissimilar to progressivism because it didn't do much with social reform. A lot of progressive ideas are based around social reform and the High Line is based around keeping a part of history but turning it into something beautiful. It does bring all walks of life together but it doesn't do anything to better the community in a learning sense. The settlement movement was based around educating lower class people and helping out the community with jobs and civil issues. The High Line is just a park and has done great things to help out the businesses in the community and bring people together but it doesn't help with bettering the community.