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 …show more content…
An example of success by an immigrant was Andrew Carnegie who went from “rags through riches” by practicing discipline and being “honest, truthful, fair-dealing” (Doc D). He advocates basic principles to lead other immigrants to success by telling them to work hard, aim high, be diligent and wise with their money. Instead of being pulled into the life of crime, immigrants are responsible for their own success and should put in work to integrate themselves into and thrive in society. Furthermore, there were many institutions made to help immigrants make proper adaptations to American life, such as the one founded by Jane Addams. Addams critiqued the teachers’ ways of forcing a type of acculturation unfit for immigrant families and instead used the education system to force foreign children to assimilate through American learning (Doc H). Another advantage to immigrant assimilation was the use of political machines as it linked immigrants to a better society and served as a pathway for greater social mobility and assimilation. According to William Riordan’s Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, political machines helped families in need and “fixed them up till they got things runnin’ again. It’s philanthropy, and it’s politics, too” (Doc I). These political machines greatly aided the immigrants to get back on their feet and got them closer to assimilation through gaining citizenship in exchange for their vote. Furthermore, as immigrants continued to pile into America, the younger kids not yet affected by labor and foreign differences were put into American schools and gained the “freedom of education” (Doc J) to greater advance their assimilation into American culture as the next generation. Overall, education, political machines and the motivation of success helped the new settlers advance in their conformity to
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.
“Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882,” by Roger Daniels analyzes the United States’ immigration policy as one that has forever been flawed. Roger Daniels puts forward a clear yet through criticism of how racism, blind politics, and ignorance have all overtaken the immigration legislation since the past 140 years. Specifically, he claims, immigration laws have had an evocative effect on the immigrants during all eras and the issue has been magnified by the foreign threat nativist believe outsiders are bringing in. The prevailing belief during periods of restricted immigration to the United States was that alien groups, due to their innate inferiority, are not capable of absorbing the United States’ values and ideologies, and are a threat to the political institutions. Moreover, an increased flow of immigrants will trigger a loss of jobs that are rightfully for native citizens, will bring lower living standards, and overall annihilation of American values.
When we are facing with the natural disaster, all beings are suffering; nevertheless, we are still floundering in a sea of despair in order to be alive. During the 1930s, the Great Dust Bowl and the Great Depression caused lots of troubles in the world. Actually, “during the Dust Bowl years, the weather destroyed nearly all the crops farmers tried to grow on the Great Plains” (Farming in the 1930s. n.d.).
'' Every immigrant has enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life" a quote from John F. Kennedy. This is one of the perfect examples that explains what occurs when immigrants come over from a war-ridden, economically poor country. They immigrate and while settling, improved their own cultures into ours, although can change for them drastically or not at all.
The “discovery” by the United States that Europe had inferior and superior races was a result of the large amount of immigration from southern and eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century (Brodkin, 1994). Before this wave of immigration took place, European immigrants had been accepted into the white population. However, the European immigrants who came to the United States to work after 1880 were too numerous and too concentrated to scatter and blend in. Rather, they built working-class ethnic communities in the United States’ urban areas. Because of this, urban American began to take on a noticeably immigrant feel (Brodkin,
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
During the 19th century, immigrants contributed to providing
The period between 1865 and 1910 in America was a time of not only great pain and destruction but also great transition and perseverance. Various ethnic groups and different demographics suffered immense discrimination and tragedy, such as different movements put in place to put an end to different Native American peoples or the lack of gender equality during everyday life for women and men of any race/ethnicity. On top of this, as some corporations came onto a great amount of wealth and prosperity, millions of the country’s working class population, which soon included a second wave of European immigrants, lived under poverty with seemingly no social mobility. Despite these negatives, there were still some benefits to come out of this time
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.
As a nation built on immigration, the history of citizenship in America can be seen as a series of immigration waves from different ethnic groups, and their initial struggles in the United States, resulting in eventual assimilation into American society. Each immigrant group, whether the English, Irish, Italians, Germans, Vietnamese, etc., began life in their new nation on the bottom of the social ladder, but eventually mostly overcame the hardships of immigrant life en route to assimilation. German immigration to America peaked during the Civil War era, in which approximately 1.5 million Germans came to the United States between 1840 and 1860, making them the most prolific ethnic group to immigrate to America during this time. This paper will
The Irish in America: Alienation and Assimilation Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the greatest wave of Irish immigrants made a transatlantic journey to America in the hopes of starting a successful life abroad. The post-famine era brought not only physical change as mass exodus occurred, but also social, economic, and political change that had never before been observed. Colonial, Pre-famine, famine, and post-famine immigrants all made the same journey with comparable intents of improving their socio-economic standings. However, the attitude and demographic of post-famine individuals differed in that they were all self-determined and self-sufficient individuals, whereas the majority of pre-famine and
IC: What immigrants have done for our country physically QOAC: Struggles of immigrants James Madison once said, “America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity”. Two essays that highlight that very well are “Quilt Of A Country” by Anna Quindlen and “The Immigrant Contribution” by John F. Kennedy. Both writings talk about the importance of immigration when it comes to the growth and health of our United States. But, despite their similar themes, Quindlen and Kennedy offer different strategies of highlighting the struggles that immigrants have endured whilst shaping our country.
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.
Bigotry is the product of ignorance, and the quintessential features of intolerance are blindness and prejudice. The tolerant course has always been an accommodation of diversity, but each generation forgets the anguish of those who suffered from bigotry. In the United States, tolerance has never been easily achieved. Rather, it has been accompanied by pain and shame.
Driven by industrialization and urbanization, the United States in the late 19th century was developing in an astonishing speed, and soon became the “promised land” in the eyes of millions of immigrants from different nationalities (Oskar 1). This wave of new immigrants started from 1880 and ended in 1914, the start of the WWI, and mainly consisted of people from southern and eastern Europe, including Italians, Hungarians, Russians and Greeks (Aboukhadijeh 2). To what extent did these immigrants assimilate into American culture is always a controversial topic. In my opinion, between two prevailing models, melting pot and salad bowl, the latter is a more accurate description of the immigrant cultural situation * in this era.