HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION

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HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION
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Stringing Beans in Baltimore
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Shucking Oysters in Florida
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Immigrants in a tenement
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The Population of The U.S
Unless you are a Native American, everyone has
immigrants as their ancestors. Give me your
tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming
shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to
me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
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Immigration is a CHOICE

• In most cases, immigrants make a conscious choice
  to UPROOT themselves and families from their
  current lives
• Immigrate or die
• Literally DIE in some cases (Irish Potato Famine,
  African slavery)

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Questions

• Where did the immigrants come from?
• When did they arrive?
• Why did they leave their home countries?
• Where did they settle?
• Where did they work?
• What aspects of their culture did they bring with
  them?
• What impact did immigrant cultural traditions
  have on the United States?

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FACTS

• Due to potato rot which began in 1845, the
  potato crop in Ireland began to fail.
• From 1845 to 1850 there were famine conditions in
  Ireland.
• More than one million people died of starvation.
• One-fourth of the Irish population moved to the
  United States.

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FACTS

• Because of improved farming methods such as crop
  rotation-and therefore greater abundance of
  food-the population of Europe doubled between
  1750 and 1850.
• These improvements reduced the need for farm
  workers ? many peasants were forced off land that
  they had lived on for generations

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FACTS

• The passage to the United States in sailing
  vessels took three months, on the average, at the
  beginning of the 1800s.
• The passage in steamships (which began to be used
  in the mid-nineteenth century) took ten days.

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FACTS

• The Russian government began to carry out pogroms
  (organized attacks) against the Jews of eastern
  Europe.
• A Norwegian worker could earn up to 4-5 dollars a
  day in the United States.
• This was more than triple the wage that the same
  person could have earned in Norway at that time

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FACTS

• The U.S. Congress passed the Contract Labour Law
  in 1864
• Employers could make contracts with workers in
  other countries and many employers lent money to
  foreign workers to pay for their transportation
  to the United States.
• After the workers arrived, they were required to
  pay the money back out of their wages.

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Three great waves of immigration

• 1815-1860
• 5 million immigrants - mainly English, Irish,
  Germanic, Scandinavian, and others from
  northwestern Europe
• 1865-1890
• 10 million immigrants - again mainly from
  northwestern Europe
• 1890-1914
• 15 million immigrants mainly from Eastern
  Europe

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Reasons for immigration

• There are two types of motivation for immigration
  
• PUSH factors (reasons to leave home country)
• PULL factors (reasons for settling in USA)

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PUSH FACTORS for immigration

• Scientific farming/change in economy
• Lack of political freedom in homeland
• Religious Intolerance in homeland
• Political Refugees fear for their lives
• Starvation/lack of options
• Forced Immigration (Slavery)

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PULL FACTORS for immigration

• Land plentiful, and fairly cheap.
• Jobs were abundant, wages high. (comparitivly)
• Industry and urbanization ? increase
• Notion that in America, the streets were, "paved
  with gold,"
• Religious and political freedom.

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Reasons for immigration 1890-1914

• Jews came for religious freedom
• Italians and Asians came for Work
• Russians came to escape persecution
• America had jobs
• America had religious freedom
• America was hyped up in many countries as "Land
  of Opportunity"

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Who were the immigrants? 1890 - 1914
Look at the chart on page 489 for differences
between OLD and NEW immigrants
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Eastern/Southern Europe Immigrants

• Immigrants from Southeastern Europe blamed for
  increasing problems
• 1880 1920 ?New York grew by 300, Chicago ?
  400, L.A?1000
• These newcomers were often described by what they
  were not
• Not Protestant
• Not English-speaking
• Not skilled
• Not educated
• Not liked. 

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Living Conditions in America not usually the
American Dream

• Filthy, dirty, diseases spread, cramped
• Gambling, drinking, etc.
• Ethnic Neighborhoods
• Ghetto Italian word for describing Jewish
  section, being trapped in at night by an Iron
  gate
• Immigrants TRAPPED in to this lifestyle

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Tenement Housing and Ethnic Neighborhoods

• Tenement Housing poor, rundown housing where
  many families lived in small, cramped conditions
  in the big cities

• Ethnic Neighborhoods
• Helped embrace New World hardships
• Continuation of OLD WORLD customs that werent as
  accepted in mainstream USA

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Ellis Island and Angel Island

• Ellis Island, NY
• 1892 immigration station
• 112 million immigrants would pass through Ellis
  Island
• Immigrants held for SICKNESS, tests of mental
  ability

• Angel Island, CA
• Chinese detained for weeks (Chinese Exclusion
  Act)
• Prisonlike conditions
• Accused of being SICK more often than European
  immigrants

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Nativism

• Feeling of hatred towards those not American

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What is the message of this Cartoon?
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The Irish

• Settled in New York (too poor to travel)
• Discriminated against
• Poor living conditions (80 of Irish infants died
  in New York)
• Took the jobs no one wanted
• "Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let
  Irishmen fill their place..."

• With the arrival of Eastern Europeans the Irish
  were no longer lowest class
• Became policemen firemen

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How the Irish became American
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Anti-Chinese Nativism

• Anti-Chinese immigrant feelings
• Chinese FLOODED to the U.S. after 1850s (100,000)
• Chinese labor essential to American West
• industrialization (railroads)
• ONCE projects were done they were NOT needed
  anymore
• Nativists backlash against Chinese was widespread
  
• They LOOKED different
• Language, customs, etc were different
• CHEAP LABOR

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Chinese Exclusion Act

• First Immigration law to ban a certain RACE of
  people from coming to America
• 1884 - 1943

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Americanization of Immigrants
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Immigration Laws

• 1790 ? Naturalization rule establishes ?a
  two-year residency requirement for immigrants
  wanting to become U.S. citizens.
• 1875 ? No convicts or prostitutes.
• 1882 ? Immigration from China is curtailed
  ex-convicts, lunatics, idiots, and those unable
  to take care of themselves are excluded. A tax
  (50 cents) must be paid by immigrants.
• 1892? Ellis Island opens.
• 1903 ? No political radicals, epileptics,
  professional beggars.
• 1907 ? No feeble-minded, tuberculars, persons
  with physical or mental defects, and persons
  under age 16 without parents. Tax on new
  immigrants is increased (8).
• 1910 ? No criminals, paupers, diseased.
• 1917 ? Immigrants over 16 years old must pass
  literacy exam.

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Immigration Laws

• 1917 ? Immigrants over 16 years old must pass
  literacy exam
• 1924 ? immigration limited to 165,000 annually.
• The nationality quota is revised to 2 of each
  nationality's representation

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More Recent Immigration

• Cuba ? 1950s settled mainly in Florida
• South America ? Legal/Illegal immigrants ?
  California
• Asia

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Melting Pot vs Salad Bowl

• Melting Pot?All immigrants mixed together form
  the American
• Salad Bowl ?All immigrants are American, yet keep
  their cultural heritage from their home