Five Questions with Dr. Annie Polland
Dr. Annie Polland is a historian and an author. She has been the president of the Tenement Museum in New York City since 2021. You may not have heard about it. The Tenement Museum first came across my radar screen when a friend visited last year and enthusiastically shared her experience. As an American Jew whose immigrant family story has a lot to do with tenements in New York City, I was fascinated by the idea of bringing some of that history to light, especially now. Immigrants are routinely vilified in our country. The importance of the American melting pot, with immigrants providing a key ingredient in the secret sauce that really does make us great is under attack.
So I’m thrilled that Annie could join us for Five Questions tonight and that we’ll have the chance to learn more about this slice of our history that she specializes in.
The Tenement Museum consists of 12 apartments, each of which recreates the home of a real immigrant, migrant, or refugee family who came to New York between 1860 and 1930, with their stories reaching into the late 1900s. The exhibits explore moments of heightened xenophobia in American history and the ways that ordinary people have fought against them. Annie has a Ph.D. from Columbia, and her scholarship is in Jewish history, but she has embraced a role for the museum of focusing on teaching immigration and Black history as central, intertwined, and intersectional narratives in the American story.
We are waiting for the Supreme Court to decide the birthright citizenship case. Immigrants have been painted as dangerous criminals whose presence harms our communities and contributes to voter fraud. Even though the facts don’t back up those claims, the immigration debate continues to wage around us. Tonight I’ve asked Annie to help us consider how we can use history to better understand these issues. Her answers to my questions are fantastic—I’ve come to believe that historians are the real heroes of the American experiment.
“Five Questions” is a periodic feature for paid subscribers, my way of thanking those who are able to support the work in this way, so that I have the necessary time and resources to devote to it. All other Civil Discourse posts are available to free subscribers as well. I’m grateful to everyone who is here and committed to keeping the Republic.