Discrimination Toward Immigrants In The 1920's

Immigration into the “land of opportunity” was everything but a smooth, trouble-free journey for those escaping the terror, poverty and political persecution in their crumbling countries. The wave of immigrants was at its peak during the breakouts of economic depressions (Document A). The new flow of immigration doubled the American population, especially in major cities. Chasing after the American Dream, many Europeans were attracted by the employment openings and new chances they could obtain in America. However, despite their life being better than before, these immigrants still faced many obstacles and cultural conflicts trying to fit in and thrive in American culture. Although European immigrants poured into America driven by more political

Between 1880 and 1920 the United States acted like as huge magnet for immigrants. Previous

Racial Discrimination was very prevalent during the 1930’s. The line between caucasians and african americans was relevant in the way the african american community was treated in the south. The african american community had very little to no rights, which was strongly represented in the Powell V. Alabama court cases.

As the immigrants poured in and took jobs wherever they could find, finding a job became much harder. American citizens became infuriated that the immigrants were taking their jobs. This issue also stems back to racism as the main reason they were upset was that a minority was taking jobs. The American citizens feared that they would in essence be replaced by the immigrants. It almost became an every man for himself situation. Some protested by boycotting work due to the amount of immigrants in their workplace. Everyone just wanted to be able to support their respective family and with more jobs being taken up it was hard for Americans to do that. Immigrants also still had a hard time finding a job. Even when they did, they worked just as hard if not harder than others, but got paid much less than the average white male. The discriminatory actions that occurred in this time period not only happened in public, but in the workplace and essentially everywhere. The reduced amount of jobs made American Citizens call for immigration legislation. In Document C for example, the National People’s party called for new legislation and denounced what they called “ineffective laws”. People like James Bryce in Document B, called for a temporary back and forth of immigrants to bring them in when needed and push them out when not needed. The Government would eventually respond to these issues as tensions continued to rise in the United

World War I transformed the country from it’s old traditional ways to a new influential era known as the 1920’s or the “Roaring 20’s”. It changed the way society viewed women, African Americans, and immigrants. The 1920’s also placed a distinctive line between Americans, especially Americans for and against prohibition.

The 1920’s was an interesting time in American history. This era was also known as the roaring twenties. Although it is remembered as a fond time before the Great Depression there was also a lot of conflicts arising, Cultural conflicts in particular were at the center. Prohibition and Immigration were two of the main cultural conflicts during this time period.

After a troublesome and torrid time, the black people or what so called slaves, were entering the 20th century with hope of not being discriminated after the slavery had been abolished in the late 19th century. The beginning of 20th century had overseen the stampede of worldwide immigrants to America as they seek for a better life. As for African-Americans, they were entering the phase where they found themselves almost identical with the past century despite the slavery being abolished. Though the abolishment of slavery was written in the 13th Amendment, some of the states still legalized it. They were still in the same position as they were before in some of the states in America. The sentiment of racial discrimination remained strong between the white people toward the black people. They thought that they were still superior than the black people in all

The early 1900s came with an abundance of changes. There were multiple waves of immigration causing increased social separation. There was also increased industrialization. The increase in industrialization provided many jobs for the incoming immigrants. However, these immigrants took on a lot more than just a new job when they came to America. Immigrants faced harsh living and working conditions, racial strife, poverty, as well as social class issues. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explores many of these hardships immigrants had to face through the lives of Lithuanian Immigrants. Throughout his novel, Sinclair focuses on poverty and thoughts of what America was supposed to be like to portray hardships immigrants faced when coming to America.

98 years ago, in June 17, 1917, “The Immigrant” is a silent romantic comedy short film, which was written, directed by Charlie Chaplin, was released in America. It is a story of an immigrants encounter on the journey to America and his love story with a young woman he met on the boat. Charlie Chaplin’s the immigrant tended to show the society the view of life from an immigrant who has experienced many adversity and scenarios in order to look for understanding and sympathy from people to the immigrants as himself.

Most immigrants who came to the U.S had high expectations that they would find wealth but once they arrived they realized their expectations weren’t what they expected. Although, they were disappointed in not finding wealth the conditions in which the U.S was in by the late 1800s were still a lot better than the places they all had left behind to come. The majority of the immigration population anticipation was to find profitable jobs and opportunities. When the large numbers of immigration were migrating to the U.S, it was during the “Gilded Age”, which was the prime time for the country’s expansion of industrialization. This rapid expansion of new industries led to the need of workers which motivated people from other countries to come to

13. Who was Samuel Gompers and what organization did he found? What were the goals of that organization?

Founded by colonists, settlers and pioneers, the United States can be defined as a land of immigrants. But public opinion on immigration has changed dramatically in the past decades. In the 1920s, the majority of these immigrants originate from Europe, while immigrants in the United States today include a large percentage of those coming from Asia and Latin America (Chow and Keating). Immigration issues made division in the general public, especially among politicians. The greatest controversial subject in the immigration issue is the subject of illegal immigration. For example, immigration reform supporters block a street on Capitol Hill on Thursday, August 1, 2013, in protest against immigration policies and the House’s inability to pass a bill that contains a pathway to citizenship ("The Facts on Immigration Today.").

From 1880 to 1925, an era deemed New immigration, vast numbers of foreigners sought better lives as Americans. However, rather than a welcoming embrace, the expanding populations of immigrants were confronted with growing disdain of immigration. Many Americans assumed immigrants came to America as the poorest and most vagrant people of their country. Thus, many worried that immigrants would pollute America’s genetic stock and become financial burdens to the country. In response to growing anti-immigrant sentiment, Nativists demanded that America belong to “natives” and advocated restrictions on immigration to keep jobs for real Americans. And rather than protect immigrants from heavy discrimination, the American government responded by limiting

Due to the fact that immigrants began to flood in from Europe during the 1920’s, many Americans began to segregate these immigrants from “true” American society and Congress passed laws to hold back the tide of rushing immigration. As immigration reached a peak of the time, many “native-born” Americans held themselves higher and viewed themselves as superior to people not born in America even though many of them had ancestors from previous generations that were the immigrants of their time. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 led to the red scare from 1919 to 1920 that began a great surge of segregation and suspicion of foreigners because a majority of the immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe. Nativists

In the United States in the mid-1800’s people from both European and Asian countries began to immigrant to New York City in the search for a better life. Coming to the United Sates was not an easy task but based on the conditions in their native countries it was well worth it. There were many reasons as to why people left their native countries which included overpopulation, crop failures, religious and political corruption and plundering economy due to the industrial revolution and job losses. The reason they came to the United States and saw it as a better way of life was because of the freedom that was offered, economic opportunity and the abundance of land. One of the groups that immigrated to the U.S was the Irish. A majority