Insights from Enrique's Journey

Surprisingly, there seemed to be more similarities between Riis's How the Other Half Lives and Nazario's Enrique's Journey than what I previously thought. One big reason for this was because both authors wrote their stories for the same purpose which was to raise public awareness of the many immigrants' hardships in order to bring social reform. Nazario and Riis then hoped that the reform which occurred would help immigrants to reach their goal to live a happier life. There was no doubt that both immigrants during their separate eras struggled to fit in to society. Another similarity is that immigrants were always taken advantage of and mistreated just for someone else's greed. The effect of immigration in the U.S. regardless of when in history is noticeable. Immigration during Riis's era doubled or nearly tripled New York City's population and caused industrialization to grow at a rapid speed. Riis even shed light on how the increase in pollution from industries destroyed the beautiful elements in NY city. Now during our time the population as a nation is reaping the consequences of the massive inflow of immigrants. Unemployment is consistently rising which in turn starts degrading our economy. However I learned that the rise in immigrants is not always negative. For example the work that they are willing to do helps local businesses from where the live. Now that I think about it immigrants all came here primarily in search for a better life throughout anytime in history. The government during the two different stories contrasted very much. Today most measures by the government are to lessen the amount of people coming into the U.S. by building walls while during the mid 1800’s immigrants were freely welcome to in.