Immigration Facts

1. Immigration Facts Focus Question: How did “New Immigration” Affect American society?

2. Immigration between 1880 - 1920 • The Age of the “New” Immigration • Between 1880 – 1920 • Almost 24 million immigrants arrived in the U.S. • They came from Southern and Eastern Europe • Italy • Croatia • Poland • Greece • Czechoslovakia • Hungary • Russia

3. 1882 • Immigration reaches an all new high • 788,992 persons arrive in the U.S.

4. II. Push Factors for “New” immigration • Population of Europe doubled during the 1800s • Challenges of industrialization (rise of urbanization and manufacturing) • Upset the fragile lifestyle and stability of the peasant class • Urbanization refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire population lives in cities and the suburbs of cities • Decline in agriculture • Low wages • Unemployment • Disease • Forced military conscription • Religious persecution (pogroms - An organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews

5. Quick Review • How many immigrants arrived in the U.S. between 1880 – 1920? • Categorize the Push Factors for “New” immigration. • Cultural/Political • Economic • Environmental

6. III. “Land of Liberty” • Assimilation is the social process of absorbing on cultural group into harmony with another • “New Immigrants” faced difficulty assimilating into American culture • Most could not speak English • Most were not literate in their own language • Distrustful of government • Crammed into cities in the Northeast • Created small ethnic communities to protect their culture • Created newspapers, specialty grocery stores, restaurants, churches, synagogues, and schools

7. IV. Life of “New Immigrants” • Settled into cities along the eastern seaboard • Entered low-paying, wage labor jobs • Construction • Factory labor • Sewing • Arrived with little or no money • Forced into substandard housing in the worst sections of overcrowded cities

8. V. Problems created by “New immigrants” • Sanitation • Overflowing sewers • Uncollected garbage • Overpopulation • Overcrowding • Crime rate rise • Native-born Americans blame “New Immigrants” • The unsettling situation in the cities • Taking over “their” nation

9. Quick Review • What is assimilation? • Why did “New Immigrants” have problems assimilating into American culture? • Where did “New Immigrants” settle? • Describe the life of “New Immigrants” • What problems were caused by the wave of “new” immigration? • Why did native-born Americans have a problem with the “New Immigrants”?