Immigration American Immigration

America has been a home for immigrants from foreign countries since it has been founded. Multiple immigrant groups have immigrated to the United States to find refuge and to start a new life. When the immigrants came to America they struggled. Depending on the time they came here and where they settled, they had a hard time assimilating to the new culture. No matter which immigrant group immigrated to America, each immigrant individual had multiple reasons for why they came to the new world. Immigrants are an important part of American history. If immigrants never traveled to America, we would not be where we are today. They contributed to the strengths and weaknesses of the United States. Out of numerous immigrant groups that traveled to America,

The Italian immigrants who did travel to America did not stay permanently. About thirty to fifty percent returned home. Dino Cinel, author of The Relationship Between American Money and Italian Land in Stimulating Return Migration states, “ Immigration to the United States was part of a strategy for achieving goals in Italy.” (p.185) Throughout Mr. Cinel 's writings he talks about, “The American Fever”. When the first immigrants came back from America with money, it gave hope to the Italians. Agencies from America also started traveling to Italy to promote life in America. In Northern provinces, the American agencies would hand out pamphlets and make public speeches, while in Southern provinces where literacy was rare, they spread the news of immigration to America by word of mouth and posters. Immigrating to America was all Italians would talk about, therefore, receiving the name “American Fever”. The Italians that decided to immigrate to America had to get a passport and declare whether or not they were leaving permanently or would return. If they declared that they were permanently leaving, they were cancelled from the communal population registers. The Italians that came to America were mostly

One of the major reasons why the Irish left Ireland was because of the potato famine also known as the Great Hunger. Daniels states that, “About 4.5 million Irish immigrated to the United States.” (p.127) Just like the Italians, the Irish did not only immigrate to America, but immigrated to other english speaking countries, such as Canada, New Zealand, Britain and Australia. The Irish mostly consisted of poor farmers. When land became smaller and rent payments rose, they began to sell their farmland and live mainly on potatoes. Potatoes were easy to produce and took little labor to grow and harvest. Potatoes became the main food source of many poor Irish families, but potatoes carried a disease called blight. In the 18th century, blight broke out destroying the entire crop, leaving poor Irish families starving. This started the famine and began to cause trouble for the already poor and starving Irish people. In the short film The Irish in America: Long Journey Home: The Great Hunger states that “They were desperate. They harvested edible seaweed and boiled it and stripped the rocks and seashore of all living matter until their was nothing left and in the end they were reduced to eating grass.”(48:17- 48:37) The British government did little to help the situation. Daniels explains, “Both British prime ministers honestly believed that the Irish needed to be more