Migrants, Communities, and Culture

New immigrants have already changed Philadelphia's cultural scene—particularly in urban neighborhoods. This brief uses three types of evidence— a small-area database of cultural participation, a survey of residents of North Philadelphia and Camden, NJ, and a survey of artists living or working in the metropolitan area—to explore migrant cultural engagement. Taken together, SIAP’s evidence on artists and cultural participants paints a portrait of migrants and foreign-born residents who are positively oriented toward cultural expression but frustrated by institutional, spatial, and socio-economic barriers. Can culture serve as a means of linking new Philadelphians to other social institutions?