Immigration, 1865-1924

1. Immigration, 1865-1924 Freedom, Coercion, and the Immigrant Experience

2. Major Issues/Questions • Myths and realities of immigration • Why did immigrants come? Stay? • Attitudes towards immigrants in wider society? • Freedom or coercion once here? • Assimilation or ghettoization? • Immigrant community-building • Forms of collective power and resistance • In-between people: immigrants and U.S. racial system

3. Immigration Figures, 1821-1940 • 1821-1830 – 143,439 immigrants arrived • 1831-1840 – 599,125 • 1841-1850 – 1,713,251 • 1851-1860 – 2,598,214 • 1861-1870 – 2,314,825 • 1871-1880 – 2,812,191 • 1881-1890 – 5,246,613 • 1891-1900 – 3,687,564 • 1901-1910 – 8,795,386 • 1911-1920 – 5,735,811 • 1921-1930 – 4,107,209 • 1931-1940 – 532,431 – --------why the drop off? New Immigrants

4. New Immigrants • Majority of immigrants after 1890 came from new areas: southern and eastern Europe • 2 million EE Jews from 1881-1920 • 2 million Italians from 1910-1920 • Different in many ways from previous immigrants: religions, languages, cultures, labor skills • Jewish and Catholic • Non-English speaking • Unskilled or peasant laborers

5. Why Did They Come? • Myth of Freedom – (powerful belief assumed to be true regardless of facts) – that immigrants came for freedom AND got it once here • For these groups, political or social freedoms were paramount: • Liberal Revolutionaries of 1848 from Germany • Jews fleeing persecution, pogroms in Russia • Radicals – democrats and socialists

6. Economic Reasons • Myth: typical story of immigrants: unknowing, w/o purpose, travel by sea, end up on U.S. coast • Realities: most immigrants came for economic reasons • Made conscious decision, not “tossed” to U.S. • Had belief in individual social mobility • Pushed by bad economic circ. at home • Pulled by economic growth in U.S. • Immigration followed business cycles: rose during booms, fell during busts – strategic

7. Economic Reasons (continued) • Most wanted to save $ and return home to buy land – high percentage actually went back, so did not give up attachment to home quickly or easily • U.S. was only one alternative, among many • Chain migration: from one village in Europe to neighborhood in U.S. city – much more controlled and purposeful than usually depicted • Men came first, then women (1899-1910, 75% of SEE immigrants were adult men)

8. Community-building: Freedom of Association vs. External Forces • Formed tight ethnic neighborhoods/ communities • Formed ethnic-based organizations: mutual aid societies, fraternities, clubs, unions • Fought for national-language churches • Politically active and engaged • Used political machines to gain services and political influence, measure of power • All of these examples show agency – freedom to form bonds, but also resistance to external coercion

9. External Forces (Coercion?) • Forces beyond immigrants’ control • Limited job options – place in new industries = low-skilled, low-paid • Competition with other groups for jobs • Limited housing and neighborhood options • English language pressures even though no formal U.S. language • Religious pressures – how to maintain former beliefs in new society • Lack of government assistance • Anti-immigrant forces

10. Immigrants = In-between People • Where did immigrants fit into American society?: up in the air where they would fit racially, religiously, in workplaces, their loyalty to country • Social Darwinism and racial hierarchy – immigrants challenged racial hierarchy and system – in-between levels • Eugenics movement • Not-quite-white, but not black – didn’t quite fit • Customs, religion, language, work, appearance held against them • Associated with radicalism, anarchism, communism • European-ness an advantage • Similar to earlier Irish experience

11. Fears about immigrant assimilation - Will immigrants melt?

13. New Immigrants assumed to be radicals, anarchists, and trouble-makers

15. Madison Grant “The Passing of the Great Race” • “We Americans must realize that the altruistic ideals which have controlled our social development during the past century, and the maudlin sentimentalism that has made America ‘an asylum for the oppressed,’ are sweeping the nation toward a racial abyss.

16. Madison Grant, continued • “If the Melting Pot is allowed to boil without control, and we continue to follow our national motto and deliberately blind ourselves to all ‘distinctions of race, creed, or color,’ the type of native American of Colonial descent will become as extinct as the Athenian of the age of Pericles, and the Viking of the days of Rollo” (Immigration Docs, pg. 141)

17. Eugenicists believed that a person’s intelligence correlated with the measured size of the skull = brain size. Anglo-Saxons supposedly had larger skulls and brains, thus they must be more intelligent. In reality, average skull and brain size are the same across ethnic lines.

18. Chart on “Inventiveness by Racial Stock in the United States 1927” Who’s the most Inventive? – French, Swedish, Dutch, Danish… The least = Polish, Belgian, Latin Am., African

23. Winners of the Fitter Family Contest, Kansas State Fair, 1920

27. Eugenics Movement focused on urban immigrant commun- ities, neighborhoods, and tenements as “degenerate” and criminal

28. States with Eugenic Sterilization Laws, 1935

29. Power of Racial Ideology • During late-19th and early 20th-c., racial hierarchies were intensifying, not weakening • Jim Crow, lynchings, blacks lost ground in south • Status of new immigrants was up in the air, had to choose • Fed. actions cemented hierarchy: cut off Chinese immigration, Japanese, and New Immigrants • Those Europeans in U.S. had choice to make

31. Late-19th-century racial hierarchy – not much difference between Italians and Chinese

32. Efforts to Limit Immigration and Naturalization • 1870  Naturalization Act limits American citizenship to "white persons and persons of African descent," barring Asians from U.S. citizenship • 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act • 1907  Expatriation Act declares that an American woman who marries a foreign national loses her citizenship • 1907 Gentleman’s Agreement cuts off Japanese immigration to continental U.S. (only Hawaii allowed) • 1923  In the landmark case of United States v. Bhaghat Singh Thind, the Supreme Court rules that Indians from the Asian subcontinent could not become naturalized U.S. citizens

33. Efforts to Limit Immigration (continued) • Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 cut immigration to 2% of 1890 pop. – Why? • Immigration Figures

34. Average Annual Inflow of Immigrants Immigrants from Northern and Western Europe Other Immigrants (New Immigrants) 1907-1914 = 685,531 Quotas under 1921 Act  = 158,367 Quotas under 1924 Act  = 20,847 • 1907-1914 = 176,983    • Quotas under 1921 Act  198,082    • Quotas under 1924 Act  = 140,999 

35. New Immigrants – Choosing Whiteness • Started with “black” jobs, but allowed to move up • Eventual access to whiteness (politics, unions, social mobility, armed forces) • Had a choice to make: become white, embrace “Americanism,” leave, or fight system • Many chose “Americanization” strategy: English language, exclude blacks and newer immigrants, nationalism and patriotism • Forced to choose: unite with or exclude others: • During wars • In institutions – unions, politics • Neighborhoods

36. Patronizing, but at least they are allowed to join.

37. Major Themes & Conclusions • New Immigration • Myths and Realities: Some Freedom, but also Forces of Coercion • Immigrants fit into new industrial labor hierarchy – unskilled labor caste • Racial ideology a major force on immigrants • In-between people • Had to choose where to fit • Result: access to social mobility and political rights for immigrants; hardening racial prejudice and discrimination against blacks

38. Question • What does The Godfather tell us about the immigrant experience? • (Relate film to history)