American Immigration Dbq Essay

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The promise of America is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That promise, unless one was a white male, was often not fully available or available for many people. By 1900 there were still many things in the way of people having full access to the promise of America with problems related to suffrage, racial divisions and prejudice, the ignorance of poverty, and non-European immigrant bias. In 1900, there were still many problems related to suffrage rights. When America gained independence, it was stated that citizens could vote, but the citizens of america took that to mean that the white males of the country could vote. By 1900, it had been passed into the constitution that both white men and black men could vote, but it took a …show more content…

As the amount of non-European immigrants entering the US increased, there was a dramatic increase of people who became very opposed to them entering. Americans believed that these new non-European immigrants were bringing in their own cultures and that those customs were going to negatively affect America. Natives also realized that the new immigrants that were coming to america were willing to do more unpleasant jobs for less than the Americans, thus putting the immigrants on higher demand for jobs. Hense, americans began to limit the freedoms that immigrants had; which businesses to go in, where they had job placements, where they lived. And while americans did not actually limit where the immigrants could live, they acted so coldly and limited their monetary income so much that the immigrants had no choice but to get unpleasant housing, and even if they could afford better housing in better places, the immigrants felt so segregated that they felt they had to find others from their country/region in hopes to feel some sense of belonging. These factors prevented many immigrants from non-European countries from having the ability to really further their …show more content…

Poverty was a very prominent thing in America when the industrial age hit and the idea of social darwinism was not thought of as wrong. The rich believed that if someone was poor, it was because they deserved it, and to help those poor people would disrupt the economy. This idea caused many problems not just because it gave the rich the ability to not help the poor and not face any consequences, but it also was an idea that started to become the norm to many people. Also at this point of time, no one really felt that it was necessary to check on the lives of the poor people, because they assumed that if the rich are having contentful lives, then the poor must too. When people did take a moment to look into the lives of the poor, it was quickly figured out why many of them were never able to follow the american dream or get out of the situation they were in. Jacob Riis made a very clear statement about the difficulties that poor people would have to overcome for any hope of furthering their lives with his article “How the Other Half Lives”. The article states “the hall is dark and you might stumble over the children pitching pennies back there. Not that it would hurt them; kicks and cuffs are their daily diet. They have little else”. The article is trying to bring to light that the ‘other half’ of people, including many immigrants, was full of constant battles for them to

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