Immigration Myths of Immigration or Facts Political and religious freedom Economic opportunity Melting Pot mixture of different races Immigrants are Europeans Immigration and Nation key to who we are as a nation Periods of Immigration 1 1815 1860 5 million immigrants Irish Scandinavian Northern Europeans 2 1860 1890 10 million more same as first wave but more 3 1890 1924 15 million New Immigrants now from southern and eastern Europeans Italians Turks Russians Jews etc Reason for Immigration Push Factors o Religious persecution o Political conflicts o Economic downturn in the 1890s unstable so encouraged people to leave Pull Factors o Economic opportunities jobs and maybe land owning but became harder to do so industrial jobs lead the way o Family connections someone that can help getting a job and learn the language Transportation o Sailboats weren t very large so it was cramped unsanitary low food and very expensive o Steam ships cut the time in half from 6 weeks to 3 weeks bigger ships bigger engines food was better price dropped conditioned got better ship owners send agents around Europe encouraging people to come to America Greatly increased the number of immigrants The Immigrants Experience Who Came First and second waves Third Waves o Some families Middle class people o Birds of Passage By 1900s 75 were single young men that wasn t looking to move here but looking for money Came here to make money and then after making enough went back home and came back to America when the money ran out Employers loved these guys Didn t join strikes or unions because only temporary The Immigrant Experience The Question of Assimilation and the Construction of Race Americanization o Assimilation to Anglo core o Food and clothing were hard to replicate o Children went to American schools where they learned English making the language go away o Various forms of discrimination Discrimination between the different immigrants Construction of Race o Not an absolute o Changes over time race was viewed differently ethnicity now was race then o Who is White The process of becoming American becoming White Immigration Control Up to 1880 First attempt o 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act o 1892 New Screening keep out mental deficiency and diseased White doctors screened Kept out the most different races Questions over Asian Immigration o 1907 Gentlemen s agreement American government and the Japanese government Americans cannot bar Japanese immigration If Japanese did they had to have passports Japanese government issued the passports so they decided who can go and who can t middle class was the largest immigration o 1910 Angel Island Japanese immigration National Origins Act of 1924 Causes o Nativist backlash o Lack of need for labor o Concerns of unions Key Components o Limited the total number of immigrants to 165 000 year Come up with a formula The percentage of what is in the US is the percent that is let in Used the 1890 census to exclude the immigrants that they didn t want in No Asians were allowed in Ended in 1965 o System of national quotas o Excluded East Asians entirely