Immigration to America in the Early 1900's In the eyes of the early American colonists and the founders of the Constitution, the United States was to represent the ideals of acceptance and tolerance to those of all walks of life. When the immigration rush began in the mid-1800's, America proved to be everything but that. The millions of immigrants would soon realize the meaning of hardship and rejection as newcomers, as they attempted to assimilate into American culture. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the existing American population. It has been said that immigration is as old as America itself. Immigration traces back as far as the 1500's when the West faced the coming of the Spanish. At that time, the Americas had been settled by the Indians, who were soon threatened by the first immigrants of America. These Spanish conquerors threatened to undermine the culture of the Indians as well as their way of life. Evidently, immigration started from the beginning of our country's time and has had an everlasting effect on America today. Between 1880 and 1920 almost twenty-four million immigrants came to the United States. Between better salaries, religious freedom, and a chance to get ahead in life, were more than enough reasons for leaving their homelands for America. Because of poverty, no future and various discrimination in their homelands, the incentive to leave was increasing. During the mid-1800's and early 1900's, the labor and farm hands in Eastern Europe were only earning about 15 to 30 a day. In America, they earned 50 cents to one dollat in a day, doubling their paycheck. Those lower wage earners in their homeland were st... ... middle of paper ... ...ilroad and mining companies had depended on cheap Chinese labor for the majority of their profits and were still unwilling to pay higher wages to white American workers. These businesses increasingly depended on Japanese immigrants to replace the prohibited Chinese workers. As the Japanese came, the Americans told the same story that they had with the Chinese. They were once again arguing that the Japanese were taking their jobs and not absorbing the American culture. The United States took action yet again, by creating an informal treaty with Japan, restricting Japanese immigration to the U.S. As America continued to recruit workers from other countries, they continually worried about an immigration problem. In 1924, the Federal government passed the Immigration Act which officially barred further immigration from Asia and Europe to the U.S.
During the late 1800's and early 1900's hundreds of thousands of European immigrants migrated to the United States of America. They had aspirations of success, prosperity and their own conception of the American Dream. The majority of the immigrants believed that their lives would completely change for the better and the new world would bring nothing but happiness. Advertisements that appeared in Europe offered a bright future and economic stability to these naive and hopeful people. Jobs with excellent wages and working conditions, prime safety, and other benefits seemed like a chance in a lifetime to these struggling foreigners. Little did these people know that what they would confront would be the complete antithesis of what they dreamed of.
Between the years of 1840 and 1914, about forty million people immigrated to the United States from foreign countries. Many of them came to find work and earn money to have a better life for their families. Others immigrated because they wanted to escape the corrupt political power of their homelands, such as the revolution in Mexico after 1911. Whatever the case, many found it difficult to begin again in a new country. Most immigrants lived in slums with very poor living conditions. They had a hard time finding work that paid enough to support a family. Not only was it difficult for immigrant men, but for women as well. Immigrant women faced many challenges including lack of education and social life as well as low wages and poor working conditions.
Immigration has existed around the world for centuries, decades, and included hundreds of cultures. Tired of poverty, a lack of opportunities, unequal treatment, political corruption, and lacking any choice, many decided to emigrate from their country of birth to seek new opportunities and a new and better life in another country, to settle a future for their families, to work hard and earn a place in life. As the nation of the opportunities, land of the dreams, and because of its foundation of a better, more equal world for all, the United States of America has been a point of hope for many of those people. A lot of nationals around the world have ended their research for a place to call home in the United States of America. By analyzing primary sources and the secondary sources to back up the information, one could find out about what Chinese, Italians, Swedish, and Vietnamese immigrants have experienced in the United States in different time periods from 1865 to 1990.
The United States’ government instilled a closed door policy with the creation of many immigration laws in an effort to make America a melting pot of similar ethnicities. However, the prejudice of American society that was enforced by immigration policy forced immigrants to form their own communities for the purpose of survival and protection, turning America into a mosaic of different cultures. The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 and Naturalization Act of 1870 both created a false image of acceptance for immigrants while simultaneously restricting immigration. The United States’ government only began clearly restricting immigration with the Page Act of 1875 and Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
The United States had an open door policy on immigration from the nations beginning until 1921. During that time, between 1790 and 1920, the population grew by 102 million. That’s about one million new immigrants each year for 130 years. Most of these immigrants were from European countries. In 1921 Congress passed the Quota Act which put a cap of 360,000 new immigrants per year. Congress did this because the public was concerned about the number of new immigrants and how it would affect the country. This act also favored immigrants from England, Germany, France, and Scandinavia over those from Asia, Africa, and southern Europe.
-The 1921 Immigration Act was the first to include any quantitative restrictions on immigration. The Asian “barred zone” was upheld, but all other immigration was limited to three percent of the foreign-born population of any given group in the United States at the time of the 1910 census.
Since the 1600’s immigrants have changed americans religions,daily life and culture. Immigrants have helped americans develop their country by bringing new tradition and ideas.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many American nativist groups opposed free unrestricted immigration. Although racism is a main reason, there were many others. Economic, political, social and moral standards seemed to be threatened by these newcomers. The immigrants were unfamiliar of the language and customs that we take for granted in our everyday lives. The fear that gripped the nation was why people reacted so strongly against immigrants. The people feared change might distort the course of our prospering country. We did not want to become what those immigrants were fleeing.
After the depression of the 1880s, the number of immigrants quickly rose. It then dropped again due to the war in 1914 and, later, fell again because of immigration restrictions – the Chinese Exclusion Act – imposed in the 1920s. The reasons for these new immigrants to make their journey to America included: escaping religious, racial, and political persecution; seeking the relief of a lack of economic opportunity; or famine had pushed them out of their homelands. As immigrants started flooding in, valuable resources such as food, jobs, and housing had become a scarce necessity. Second generation Americans – people born into the United States of America but had immigrant parents – naturally blamed all the incoming immigrants for their problems.
Immigration to America began when Christopher Columbus discovered the new land now called the American continent. Immigration increased in the 17th century when people came from Europe, Africa, and Asia to the new land. There were many colonies, such as the British and Dutch. When people came they go to their people and find jobs as farmers. The first immigrants were in the east coast around 1607 to 1775 after the number of immigrants increased. In 1790 - 1850 there were few immigrants who came to America, but in 1850 to 1930 the number of immigrations increased (Dolan 4).
The reason why the immigration restriction took until 1920s for these efforts to reach fruition because of the exogenous shocks. First, dictionary of races came out and it made a conclusion that peoples from eastern and peoples from eastern and southern Europe are different than Americans. Second, the scientific racism proved that different people from different places are different to each others. For instance, skin colors and hair colors. Third, the immigration from southern and eastern europe a serious threat to American society and culture and should therefore be greatly reduced. Fourth, after the war world 1, American's intensification of national identity increased as many people in U.S had intensified Americanization and anti-alien sentiment
In response to the World War I for the following years from the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Congress of United States passed a law to limit immigrations, which named Immigration Act of 1924 or the Johnson-Reed Act. The Immigration Act of 1924 was an Act use to limit the big number of immigration entry to the United States. The Immigration Act of 1924 only provided two percent immigration visas from 1980s national census. Asians were not allowed to immigrate to the United States.
Even though there were hundreds of immigrants coming to America, from the 1800's to the 1900's, each group was stereotyped once they arrived. In order for immigrants to get to America, they had to journey a harsh trip. People from all over the world came to America, either to get away from diseases or to get new chances in the growing industries. Once they arrived in the United States they were met with worse conditions than from what they were fleeing. Certain legislations were formed by the Americans against these Immigrants. Immigrant groups such as the Irish, Russians, and Chinese came to America for good opportunities or an escape but, instead were met with discrimination.
During the late 19th century, numerous Americans began to migrate from agricultural regions in the Southern United States to the newly industrialized cities in the East and Midwest. The expansion of industry brought native-born citizens as well as foreign immigrants to these recently developed cities. Most of these people came with the hope of living the “American Dream”. A substantial amount of this new population was due to black men and women trying to escape tyranny, poverty, and the viciousness they were met with in the rural South after the end of Reconstruction. The greatest source of urban population growth during this time was a rising number of immigrants from abroad; Germany, France, and Ireland, but also from Italy, Eastern Europe, Canada, and the Far East. Many immigrants came from Europe seeking to gain liberation from famine, poverty, and to escape religious persecution or political harassment. Consequently, the cities became
In 1917, Congress sanctioned enactment requiring outsiders more than 16 to pass an education test, and in the mid 1920s movement portions were set up. The Immigration Act of 1924 made a standard framework that confined passage to 2 percent of the aggregate number of individuals of every nationality in America as of the 1890 national census–a framework that favored outsiders from Western Europe–and precluded foreigners from Asia.