Melting Pot or Salad Bowl

1. American Immigration Melting Pot or Salad Bowl

2. America as a Nation of Immigrants • “Give me you tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore sent these the homeless, the tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Emma Lazarus France gave this as a gift to America in 1886 – It welcomes people to Ellis Island

3. Why America? • Freedom from political oppression • Melting pot (all welcomed) • Opportunity • Stratification escape

4. Who are we? • 24 million from 1860-1920 • Old immigrants • pre-1880, 85% from Western and Northern Europe • New Immigrants • Post 1880 80% from Eastern and Southern Europe • More New Immigrants • Approximately 1 million from Asia 1850-1934 • Approximately 1 million from Latin American, mostly after 1910

6. Push Factors • Economic motives • Global expansion of capitalism • “The capitalist form of production under which goods are produced for sale in order to make the largest profit possible and workers receive wages for selling their labor.” • Scuheng Chan • Agricultural economies disappearing • “After the 1850’s the spread of industrialization and commercialized agriculture led to further declines in the number of landholding that could support families.” John Bodnar – The Transplanted

7. Push - Political Upheaval Pogroms - Anti-Jewish sentiment 1.4 million in New York’s Lower East Side by 1915 The assassination of Tsar Alexander II inspired "retaliatory" attacks by Christians on Jewish communities in present day Ukraine and Poland. 1881-1884 Jewish bodies lined up for burial. • Mexican Revolution 1910-1911 • 1900-1930 Mexican American population in Southwest grew from 375,000 to 1,160,000

8. Families Decide Males come first to establish work and living conditions… Next the balance of the family comes…sometimes it took years for families to be reunited… Housing found in urban areas around the country… The Tenement House Commission described tenement houses as “centres of disease, poverty, vice, and crime, where it is a marvel, not that some children grow up to be  thieves, drunkards, and prostitutes, but that so many should ever grow up to be decent and self-respecting”[

9. Pull Factors – Gold Mountain The name "Gold Mountain" was initially applied to California. Ships full of immigrants docked in San Francisco to disembark passengers, initially bound for the gold fields, but later they remained in the growing Chinese settlement in San Francisco (working serving the gold miners with food and laundry services). The labor was needed and at first the Chinese were welcomed. They also worked for the railroads in the most dangerous of jobs because they were considered disposable! Discrimination began early on when other settlers did not accept the cultural differences of the Chinese. 1892 Chinese Exclusion Act Immigration through Angel Island .

10. American Economic Opportunities The labor market segmented – immigrants were given the lowest paying jobs, in the worst conditions possible. Cheap labor – same work for less pay Nativists resent immigrant workers – claim they were taking away jobs. Jobs should be for Americans! Jobs are also intended for men NOT women. Different nationalities had different stereotypes---Irish and Germans like to drink…