HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION

1. HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION

2. Stringing Beans in Baltimore

3. Shucking Oysters in Florida

4. Immigrants in a tenement

5. The Population of The U.S Unless you are a Native American, everyone has immigrants as their ancestors. Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

6. Immigration is a CHOICE • In most cases, immigrants make a conscious choice to UPROOT themselves and families from their current lives • “Immigrate or die” • Literally DIE in some cases (Irish Potato Famine, African slavery)

7. Questions • Where did the immigrants come from? • When did they arrive? • Why did they leave their home countries? • Where did they settle? • Where did they work? • What aspects of their culture did they bring with them? • What impact did immigrant cultural traditions have on the United States?

8. FACTS • Due to potato rot which began in 1845, the potato crop in Ireland began to fail. • From 1845 to 1850 there were famine conditions in Ireland. • More than one million people died of starvation. • One-fourth of the Irish population moved to the United States.

9. FACTS • Because of improved farming methods such as crop rotation-and therefore greater abundance of food-the population of Europe doubled between 1750 and 1850. • These improvements reduced the need for farm workers → many peasants were forced off land that they had lived on for generations

10. FACTS • The passage to the United States in sailing vessels took three months, on the average, at the beginning of the 1800s. • The passage in steamships (which began to be used in the mid-nineteenth century) took ten days.

11. FACTS • The Russian government began to carry out pogroms (organized attacks) against the Jews of eastern Europe. • A Norwegian worker could earn up to 4-5 dollars a day in the United States. • This was more than triple the wage that the same person could have earned in Norway at that time

12. FACTS • The U.S. Congress passed the Contract Labour Law in 1864 • Employers could make contracts with workers in other countries and many employers lent money to foreign workers to pay for their transportation to the United States. • After the workers arrived, they were required to pay the money back out of their wages.

13. Three great waves of immigration • 1815-1860: • 5 million immigrants - mainly English, Irish, Germanic, Scandinavian, and others from northwestern Europe • 1865-1890: • 10 million immigrants - again mainly from northwestern Europe • 1890-1914: • 15 million immigrants – mainly from Eastern Europe

14. Reasons for immigration • There are two types of motivation for immigration • PUSH factors (reasons to leave home country) • PULL factors (reasons for settling in USA)

15. PUSH FACTORS for immigration • Scientific farming/change in economy • Lack of political freedom in homeland • Religious Intolerance in homeland • Political Refugees fear for their lives • Starvation/lack of options • Forced Immigration (Slavery)

16. PULL FACTORS for immigration • Land plentiful, and fairly cheap. • Jobs were abundant, wages high. (comparitivly) • Industry and urbanization → increase • Notion that in America, the streets were, "paved with gold," • Religious and political freedom.

17. Reasons for immigration 1890-1914 • Jews came for religious freedom • Italians and Asians came for Work • Russians came to escape persecution • America had jobs • America had religious freedom • America was hyped up in many countries as "Land of Opportunity"

18. Who were the immigrants? 1890 - 1914 Look at the chart on page 489 for differences between OLD and NEW immigrants

19. Eastern/Southern Europe Immigrants • Immigrants from Southeastern Europe blamed for increasing problems • 1880 – 1920 →New York grew by 300%, Chicago → 400%, L.A→1000% • These newcomers were often described by what they were not: • Not Protestant • Not English-speaking • Not skilled • Not educated • Not liked. 

20. Living Conditions in America – not usually the American Dream • Filthy, dirty, diseases spread, cramped • Gambling, drinking, etc. • Ethnic Neighborhoods • “Ghetto” – Italian word for describing Jewish section, being trapped in at night by an Iron gate • Immigrants TRAPPED in to this lifestyle

21. Tenement Housing and Ethnic Neighborhoods • Tenement Housing: poor, rundown housing where many families lived in small, cramped conditions in the big cities • Ethnic Neighborhoods: • Helped embrace New World hardships • Continuation of OLD WORLD customs that weren’t as accepted in mainstream USA

22. Ellis Island and Angel Island • Ellis Island, NY • 1892 – immigration station • 112 million immigrants would pass through Ellis Island • Immigrants held for SICKNESS, tests of mental ability • Angel Island, CA • Chinese detained for weeks (Chinese Exclusion Act) • Prisonlike conditions • Accused of being SICK more often than European immigrants

23. Nativism • Feeling of hatred towards those not “American”

24. What is the message of this Cartoon?

25. The Irish • Settled in New York (too poor to travel) • Discriminated against • Poor living conditions (80% of Irish infants died in New York) • Took the jobs no one wanted • "Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let Irishmen fill their place..." • With the arrival of Eastern Europeans the Irish were no longer lowest class • Became policemen & firemen

26. How the Irish became American

27. Anti-Chinese Nativism Anti-Chinese immigrant feelings: • Chinese FLOODED to the U.S. after 1850s (100,000) • Chinese labor essential to American West industrialization (railroads) • ONCE projects were done they were NOT needed anymore • Nativists backlash against Chinese was widespread • They LOOKED different • Language, customs, etc were different • CHEAP LABOR

28. Chinese Exclusion Act • First Immigration law to ban a certain RACE of people from coming to America • 1884 - 1943

29. Americanization of Immigrants

30. Immigration Laws • 1790 → Naturalization rule establishes →a two-year residency requirement for immigrants wanting to become U.S. citizens. • 1875 → No convicts or prostitutes. • 1882 → Immigration from China is curtailed; ex-convicts, lunatics, idiots, and those unable to take care of themselves are excluded. A tax (50 cents) must be paid by immigrants. • 1892→ Ellis Island opens. • 1903 → No political radicals, epileptics, professional beggars. • 1907 → No feeble-minded, tuberculars, persons with physical or mental defects, and persons under age 16 without parents. Tax on new immigrants is increased ($8). • 1910 → No criminals, paupers, diseased. • 1917 → Immigrants over 16 years old must pass literacy exam.

31. Immigration Laws • 1917 → Immigrants over 16 years old must pass literacy exam • 1924 → immigration limited to 165,000 annually. • The nationality quota is revised to 2% of each nationality's representation

32. More Recent Immigration • Cuba → 1950’s – settled mainly in Florida • South America → Legal/Illegal immigrants → California • Asia

33. Melting Pot vs Salad Bowl • Melting Pot→All immigrants mixed together form the ”American” • Salad Bowl →All immigrants are American, yet keep their cultural heritage from their ”home”