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Lectures on Tap: 1920s NYC: Immigrant Neighborhoods, Culture, and Backlash

SOLD OUT.

Location provided with purchase.

Professors, experts, and storytellers giving thought-provoking lectures in NYC bars.

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "1920s NYC: Immigrant Neighborhoods, Culture, and Backlash"

🎙️ Speaker: Jonathan Ezra Goldman, PhD

Join us for a fascinating evening as Jonathan Ezra Goldman uncovers the hidden histories of immigrant New York in the 1920s. While many know the era’s glamour, far fewer know about the vibrant yet overlooked neighborhoods formed by Japanese, Arab, Armenian, Native American, and Puerto Rican communities, who recreated their heritage in newspapers, music, food, and everyday life.

Goldman will highlight these forgotten enclaves and the rich cultural worlds they built—alongside the darker story of intense white supremacist backlash. He’ll examine raids and deportations targeting ethnic communities, the encroachment of the KKK, and new anti-immigration quota laws that spurred extralegal immigration and human trafficking, plus some of the city’s clumsy, often goofy efforts to enforce “Americanization” through festivals and parades.

Jonathan Ezra Goldman (he/him) is Professor in the Department of Humanities at New York Institute of Technology, an author, activist, and musician. His new book, Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York from the Suppressed to the Strange, has been praised as an essential work of New York City history.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.

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