Languages (was Re: [Sca-cooks] globetrotting)

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> Not to mention the wave of immigration of the second half of the
> nineteenth century. Riis has recently come under some fire, though,
> as being both a sensationalist (it's been alleged that some of his
> more tawdry photographs of tenement life were either posed or the
> result of bursting in, with help from police, on families in the
> middle of the night) and somewhat patronizing to those who did not
> pull themselves by their bootstrings, as he had done (although Riis'
> poverty was somewhat self-inflicted). He had some uncomplementary
> things to say about certain immigrant groups which, today, would be
> regarded as simple racism.

Well, yes.

In high school, I struggled through Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle_, with
its uncomplimentary portrayals of immigrant Slavs; and was chivvied (by
our middle aged English teacher) through Thomas Hardy's _Jude the
Obscure_. Sensationalist, definitely...

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net OR jenne at tulgey.browser.net OR jahb at lehigh.edu
	"Index your brain."