FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

SEC. 101. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES. (a) Findings.—Congress finds that— (1)(A) immigration, and the resulting diversity of cultural influences, is a key factor in defining the identity of the United States; and (B) many United States citizens trace their ancestry to persons born in nations other than the United States; (2) the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century marked a period in which the volume of immigrants coming to the United States far exceeded that of any time prior to or since that period; (3) no single identifiable neighborhood in the United States absorbed a comparable number of immigrants than the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City; (4) the Lower East Side Tenement at 97 Orchard Street in New York City is an outstanding survivor of the vast number of humble buildings that housed immigrants to New York City during the greatest wave of immigration in American history; (5) the Lower East Side Tenement is owned and operated as a museum by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum; (6) the Lower East Side Tenement Museum is dedicated to interpreting immigrant life within a neighborhood long associated with the immigrant experience in the United States, New York City’s Lower East Side, and its importance to United States history; and (7)(A) the Director of the National Park Service found the Lower East Side Tenement at 97 Orchard Street to be nationally significant; and (B) the Secretary of the Interior declared the Lower East Side Tenement a National Historic Landmark on April 19, 1994; and (C) the Director of the National Park Service, through a special resource study, found the Lower East Side Tenement suitable and feasible for inclusion in the National Park System. 112 STAT. 3396 (b) Purposes.—The purposes of this title are— (1) to ensure the preservation, maintenance, and interpretation of this site and to interpret at the site the themes of immigration, tenement life in the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the housing reform movement, and tenement architecture in the United States; (2) to ensure continued interpretation of the nationally significant immigrant phenomenon associated with New York City’s Lower East Side and the Lower East Side’s role in the history of immigration to the United States; and (3) to enhance the interpretation of the Castle Clinton, Ellis Island, and Statue of Liberty National Monuments.