Greek Americans In The 1800s

When the Greeks arrived in America, many of them opened restaurants and stores. They did have some hardships they had to overcome, but by doing so they

America is a country with a history founded on people looking for a new start and emigrating from the old world to fulfill their dreams. Immigration is not always happiness, rags to riches, and the American dream. Major immigration periods happened from 1607, 1820-1870 and again in the early 1900’s. Immigrant numbers were growing so exponentially that the National origins Act of 1921 and 1924 was enacted to put a quota limit that blatantly discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Immigrants that made it in faced many hardships such as learning new languages, abandoning family, and accepting the American values.

Out of the 7.6 million Europeans that arrived between 1900 and 1909, 72% came from Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy. Ellis Island in New York was the major port for immigrants crossing the Atlantic Ocean during 1892, and Angel Island in California for those arriving through the Pacific Ocean. Americans began to worry about the rapid expansion of immigrants, whose customs seemed strange to most of the native population. As a result, anti-immigrant movements and the uprising of nativism arose. Immigration reached its peak from 1900 to 1915 when nearly 15 million people entered the U.S; that is as many as in the previous forty years.

Imagine being forced out of your home by a war only to have to travel on a long journey to a completely new place because you heard it was safe there. For many immigrants, this was a reality. While not every immigrant came to America because they were forced out of their homes, some did. Others came to America for the opportunities that they were promised. Work was a major pulling factor, in the early 1900s, when America was still growing, jobs became rapidly available and many immigrants used this as an opportunity to come and start a new life.

Many families came to America is search of a better life and looking for a better future for themselves and their children. In 20th century, a million new immigrants arrived to America . Families have brought in their own culture and their own believes, influencing the lives of the ordinary Americans in Chicago. Partly because of urban-to rural migration and immigration, in 1920, for the first time in the American history, the vast majority of the people lived in cities of more than 2,2500 citizens.

Immigrants, fleeing their homeland to escape oppression for religion or to find better opportunities for employment, were drawn to the booming American land of industrialization and urbanization. Old immigrants from Western Europe entered the country prominently in the 1880’s. But from the 1890’s to the outbreak of World War I, New Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe flooded the country. These immigrants, bringing with them lesser-practiced customs and religions that could shape the culture of America, mainly congregated with people of similar nationalities in ethnic neighborhoods in the growing cities, thus limiting their assimilation into American society. Another factor limiting the influence of immigration on America was the resistance of the “native” Americans to the New Immigrants.

Immigration and The American Dream Immigrants from the mid 19th century and early 20th century consisted of mainly Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Immigrants motivations, experiences, and impacts shaped what an immigrant had to go through being a different person from another country. Although Americans dislike foreigners who came to the United States, immigrants had a role in political, economic, cultural, and social aspects of immigrants because of their motivations, experiences, and impacts in America. New Immigrants did not have it easy and went through obstacles natives, political figures, bosses and others had thrown at them.

The mid-19th century saw an unprecedented wave of immigrants coming into the country. At its peak, Ellis Island, the main processing station for immigrants, handled an astounding 5,000 people every day. Because of the language and culture barriers faced by each group of people, they often settled amongst themselves. Very quickly, country-specific neighborhoods began popping up throughout New York and the surrounding area. This helped to alleviate the stresses with moving to a new country; however, most immigrants came to the United States penniless and lived in low-income housing as their jobs rarely supported themselves let alone their families.

Throughout the years of American history there has been an abundance of groups that have decided to immigrate to the United States from other countries. The Irish people, Italian and Jewish groups of people departed from their country and moved to have their chance to experience the “American Dream.” These groups moved over and experienced a numerous amounts of stereotypes, discrimination, and finally assimilating into American culture. The Irish people came to the United States to attempt to start a new life and attempt to succeed.

In the early 19th century, millions of immigrants from Europe had traveled to the United States to escape difficulties faced in their native lands such as poverty and religious persecution. Italian, German, Irish, and many other eastern European immigrants sought the prosperous and wealthy lifestyle advertised in the land of opportunity, the United States. However, after settling down they often faced the difficulties they had fled from as well as sentiments of prejudice and mistrust from the American people. Most immigrants were discriminated against due to their religious beliefs as well as their language barriers which fostered the beliefs that they were intellectually inferior to Americans.

In the time between 1877 and 1920 America saw another significant change to its landscape; this time in the make-up of its inhabitants. With industrialization immigrants increasingly came from Eastern and Southern European countries, Canada, Japan, and even Latin America. By 1910, some 70 percent of the immigrants entering the country were Southern and Eastern Europeans. In fact, in many cities the immigrated population outnumbered the native born citizens. Many states, especially those with meager populations, actively pursued immigrants by offering jobs or land for farming.

The evolution and the come about of immigrants migrating to America has transformed and expanded in a major way. Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while others arrived in search of religious

Migration DBQ The United States of America has, and will always be, a country where immigrants and refugees can migrate to, internally and internationally, to vastly improve their lives. During the late 19th century in the US, there was a massive influx of immigrants from all over the world, as well as movement of people already living in the US to different areas. These people were primarily seeking better job opportunities due to numerous economic issues in foreign countries and social tensions in the post-Reconstruction US.

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

Opening in 1892, Ellis Island quickly became the most active immigration station (and largest in America) for Immigrants entering the U.S.; mainly from Europe. For these Immigrants, Ellis Island was the entrance point to "the land of opportunity" and they had worked hard and spent a lot of hard earned money to get there. The immigrants that came to the America were coming partially because of the prospect and promises of prosperity and happiness and that America was “the land of opportunity”, but mainly because of drought, famine, war, and religious persecution in their home countries. From 1892 to 1954, Ellis Island processed over 12 million immigrants. For most people, Ellis Island was a wonderful place that would be the entry point beginning of their new life, but for some others it was a miserable experience.