immigrants: Philadelphia Metropolis

Blaming The Man

It's hard to play the race card in Philadelphia these days. It's hard to blame The Man when you are the man. But it's also hard to break old habits.  Witness the news conference held this week by opponents of... (Comments)

Day in the Life: The Funeral Director

By Ada Kulesza» The story of violence in the city can be told many ways. First, there are the numbers: 320 killed so far this year, many of them young, black men. In each case, someone must enter the scene to tend to the burial of the body, the grief of the family, the simple logistics of death. As part of our Day in the Life series, we visit one such person, Khaijah Alderman, a funeral director who works in North Philadelphia. (Comments)

My Chinatown

By Mabel Lee» The first time I'd been back to Philly Chinatown in a year was on a Saturday a few weeks ago to have tea with a friend. In the car, with my father bumping slowly down 10th Street to avoid sudden street-crossers, I peer out the open window and take in the familiar sights: Chinese grandmothers aggressively doing their weekend shopping, the tofu woman selling an unsettling combination of bras, panties, and Asian sweets, the backside of my mother as she happily disappears into a pastry store to buy discounted buns. My parents, my sister, and I used to live in an apartment in Chinatown up until I was five and we moved into a house in the Northeast. But even after that, I continued going to Holy Redeemer School at the corner of 10th and Vine Streets (Comments)

A Day in the Life: Father Tom

Metropolis offers another story in our Day in the Life series, narrative about the daily life of special and ordinary people. In this installment, Mike Mallowe offers a portrait of the Rev. J. Thomas Heron, a Roman Catholic priest, who has served in the archdiocese for 34 years. It's a story that offers a a passionate defense of the work of priests and serves as an antidote to the lurid tales of sexual abuse and cover ups in the church. (Comments)

The New Philadelphia

The face of the New Philadelphia is brown with dark, almond-shaped eyes. It is the Mexicans who have settled in South Philadelphia; the Dominicans who are moving into the Lower Northeast; the Chinese who are settling all over the city.... (Comments)