As I continue to refine my research, I have been consulting a wide variety of texts. One goal for my fellowship is to understand the comprehensive history of the South Bronx in order to contextualize The Bronx Music Heritage Center’s work and mission. For this purpose, I have been reading Jill Jonnes’, South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City. In this book, Jonnes provides a comprehensive, and detail-oriented look at The South Bronx and the politics surrounding it. She describes the crests and troughs of each generation. Jonnes starts from the beginning, when the Bronx originated as a suburb and surged in population through various waves of immigrants–German, Irish, Italian, and Jewish. Then, Jonnes delves into the post World War II boom, and the flow of Puerto Ricans and Blacks who were displaced from Manhattan. Next, Jonnes gives a thorough explanation of the infamous mid 1970s period marked by urban poverty, vacant properties, and most notoriously, the burning. Jonnes’ book is hailed as a cornerstone of urban history, and was considered an excellent example of chronicling the dynamic history of the South Bronx.
In terms of understanding issues more closely tied to immigration, I have been looking to two books in particular. Nancy Foner’s, From Ellis Island To JFK–New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration and Vivek Bald’s, Bengalis Harlem and The Lost Histories of South Asian America.
To understand a bit more about the history of music in New York City, I have been reading Love Goes to Buildings on Fire–Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever.
Nice library of sources! I’d love to know more about how these are directly helping you with your research project. How is Bald’s book, for example, assisting you in your approach to the Bangladeshi community of the Bronx? What have you learned that you didn’t already know? What might you expect to find as you conduct your interviews? Does the book help you define the kinds of questions you might ask as you sit down with musicians or other interview collaborators?