Immigration from Southern Europe started in 1880. The US experienced an economic boom due to cheap immigrant labor (Steinberg, 1981). Once enough immigrants arrived in the US, immigration laws became strict once again. The distinction between skilled and unskilled jobs created immediate disadvantages for immigrants since most were semi or unskilled. With this distinction their initial place in society was determined, however, some groups were admitted to the white community and experienced its privilege. The influx of different immigrant groups from Europe and the migration of blacks from the south led to the questioning of who is American. A redefining of whiteness occurred, and Anglo-Saxon Protestant was no longer the only requirement. Anglo-American, …show more content…
French, German, and Swedish women were viewed as white while the Irish and blacks were viewed as a dirtier, inferior race who was incapable of skilled wage labor. The Irish was not considered white until the 1930s. Irish women escaped low wage work sooner than black women due to their status as being white. In Europe, domestic service work was viewed as a livelihood for rural, single women before their employment in textile factories. Individuals who were in the middle class were expected to have servants. Agencies in the country of origin and the US payed for transportation of poor young women and placed them in their new homes as domestic servants. Transportation of young, poor girls then became a business since agencies received monetary compensations for their services. Employers benefited since they could pay these servants less since they were less likely to leave due to not having other job choices or a place to go. Domestic service was usually the only passage into the US for most women. In 1870 there was 960,000 female domestic servants, by 1910 there was 1,830,000 female domestic servants (Katzman, 1981). The examination of Irish and black domestic workers will explore how colonialism and racialization is connected. Women usually worked in areas that were extensions of their traditional gender roles. Employment was typically in domestic work, the needle trade, or textile mills. Needle trade workers could return home after their shift while domestic servants stayed in their employer’s home and were always on call. Women often worked in factories that were unsanitary for up to sixty hours a week (Steinberg, 2001). Factory workers could organize a union and demand higher pay, domestics did not have this option. The domestic servant sector has been around since the 17th century. Technologies developed in the 18th century decreased the amount of time needed for keeping up a household. Middle class white women were then in search of skilled labor or leisure activities to take up this free time while nonwhite women were looking for more unskilled employment (Kessler-Harris, 1982). Forty percent of the Irish women who arrived between 1899 and 1990 reported their occupation as servant while only 6 percent of Italian and Jewish women did. Italian and Jewish women were the majority within the needle trade. Italian and Jewish women refused to work in the domestic sector even if they needed the money, their pride took precedence. Italian family organization took on a traditional role. Men did not want their wife working outside the home and if they did only certain jobs were acceptable (Steinberg, 2001). Domestic servants often worked seven days a week from sunrise to sunset. Domestic workers did not receive any leisure time. Therefore, almost all accounts on domestic servants were written form the employers point of view. Also, most domestic servants had a low level of education and were illiterate. Domestics usually eat the family left overs or ate while prepping food (Phillips, 2012). The servants were separated from the family as much as possible, homes had servant and family areas. Employers wanted to distance servants and keep them in their place, so they often lived in the attic or basement with no heating or cooling options. Servants quarters were crowded and had little furniture. Separation led to the development of two different lifestyles occurring in the same home. Servants rarely had reason to be in the family area of the home. All items that were needed were in their area of the home. Domestic servants had to make cleaning products since there was not any commercial products at the time, therefore, cleaning took a lot of time, Laundry was the hardest task since more clothes were worn in the 19th century and clothes were hand washed with minimal technology to aid in the task. Due to isolation that come with the job, most servants did not quit if they were unhappy (West ,1992). Anglo-Americans were against servitude and slavery but hired Irish domestic servants. Domestic work was viewed as humiliating, and native-born women refused to do it. The use of servants also combined the public and private sphere of the employer. With the house work taken care of, employers where then free to gain more education and participate in leisure activities. In the late 19th century, Irish and black women migrated to the north in pursuit of the American dream. Irish women had cemented their place as domestic in the north and blacks in the south. Irish and black women were limited from other occupations due to discrimination and lack of skill. Employers took on a paternalistic role with domestic servants regardless of their age. Domestic servants were often called ‘girl’, ‘help’, ‘servant’ or by their first name, employers did not view them as an equal. Blacks who traveled to the north were viewed as a new group who could be paid even less than the Irish for their services. Hostility and competition and arose between both groups that refused to work together and had arrived in large numbers. Most black women who were in search of domestic work were unmarried like Irish women or widows. Irish and Black women were often thought to have deviant behaviors that set them apart from white women (Phillips, 2012). Employers often thought domestic servants brought diseases with them and had poor hygiene habits. Employers also had a different standard of cleaning or expected the servant to have more skills. The rise of college classes for domestics in the 19th century shows how much of an issue it has become since training programs were needed. However, the domestic point of view was never in the discussion about the servant’s problems (Katzman, 1981). Hawaii is often seen as a diverse multiracial population in complete harmony, but this is not true. Race played an important role in all aspects of life. Citizenship was often not attainable for immigrants until birthrate by citizenship occurred. In the racial hierarchy whites are at the top followed by non-white groups. Interracial marriages are not illegal and occurred often between all groups except the Japanese. Interracial marriages occurred to create alliances and due to an unequal sex distribution within each race. Increases in sugar production, in the 1870s, created a need for workers which led to male contract labor from Asia. Japanese eventually became the numerical majority and achieved some mobility. A racial divide occurred between the Japanese and the Haloes. Haloes viewed this mobility as the Japanese being difficult, unwilling to accept their lower position. Equal pay was not given for the same work and limitation in mobility occurred within occupations. Japanese women soon had to enter the field for sixty hours a week while receiving two thirds less than Japanese men pay. Japanese men earned less when compared to all other groups. However, Japanese women made up 80% of women in field labor and was thought to be a suitable group for the job and employers saved more money (Glenn, 2002, p. 197). Japanese women were still expected to care for their kids even though they worked the same amount of time as men.
As with the Anglo-Americans in the rest of the US, having domestic servants was a marker of status. Servants were usually Chinese men in the late 19th century followed by Japanese in the start of the 20th century. Women did not become servants until many Japanese women immigrated. However, it took about 13 years for the domestic service sector to be feminized. Eventually Japanese mothers and daughters would be working together as domestic servants. Employers then seen Japanese women as being naturally subservient and was surprised anytime this was not true. When families moved from plantation, after the end of their contract, jobs were only available in the domestic, agricultural, and service sector. In the past girls had to become domestic servants and neglect their education. If the family refused problems could occur since the family lived on the plantation. Since movement off the plantation occurred girls could get higher education and pay for it by becoming live in domestics. The servant employer relationship was not as rigid as it was with Irish women. Japanese servants were not as removed from the family as Irish domestics, but employers did not have much interest in their servant’s life. However, each group were meant to remain nearly invisible when company arrives. Japanese’s domestics were not afraid to quit their job, but they had options since they …show more content…
had families within the state to return to. In the United States, the sociology of migration is a story that begins with colonization and immigration.
The first settlers, who were WASPs, viewed themselves as emigrants and everyone else afterwards as immigrants who should assimilate fast into their culture. America is a nation built by immigrants who received different treatment depending on their origins. WASPs were the settlers and had privilege in all aspects of life. Immigrants were needed to populate the lands that was captured from the native populations in America since Britain limited immigration to the US. Immigration policy in Britain changed the US immigration policy by making it more liberal. The arrival of non-British groups led to xenophobia. A racial hierarchy soon formed with WASP above all other groups. The need for more people led to indentured servants who paid their transportation by giving seven years of labor. The result of the importation of slaves was the transition from an agricultural to industrial economy. The development of textile factors and manufacturing brought in a large influx of immigrants. Economics, race, and employment soon became connected (Steinberg, 1981). Once Slavery was ended, blacks remained in lower end in the racial and economic hierarchy. Majority of blacks migrated to find better economic and to escape racism in the south. Black women remained in the unskilled sector and most worked as domestic servants. However, it was competition within the domestic service sector
since majority Irish women also worked as domestic servants. Domestic service was a natural extension of women’s work due to gender ideologies of the time. Women who did not work as domestic had jobs that were extension of their gender roles such as teachers and seamstresses. Due to being in a stable marriage with the need to work, majority of Italian and Jewish women did not have to work nor was expected to until the late 19th century. Italian and Jewish women worked it was in any other area except domestic work for it was viewed as degrading work. However, domestic work was not always done by women and is more tied to socioeconomic status. Japanese men in Hawaii did domestic work even some years after women arrived. With the arrival of a large influx of women, domestic work eventually became femininized. The difference between these three groups of women is striking. Irish women typically worked as domestics for one generation while Japanese and black women worked in the domestic service sector for two or more generations. However, this difference is due to the Irish acceptance into the white community. Japanese, Irish, and black women started out in the same position, but black women remained at the bottom of the hierarch the longest due to racialization.
The United States is a nation of immigrants but also a nation of Americans, when exactly does it happen that an immigrant becomes an American? Most of the people in the United States came from Europe or their ancestors came from Europe. Many immigrants were poor, day laborers who chose to live in the city. They came to America in hope of a better economic life. Many lived in sections of the city that suffered from severe poverty. They often lived in run down tenement houses that were unsafe. All the while, they clung to the cultures of the “old world” they just left. It was not until the 1880s that things began to change. Jane Addams, a middle class woman, decided to help the impoverished immigrants. She opened a settlement house and she called it Hull House. It was the first settlement house in the United States. She focused on Chicago’s most poverty-stricken area. The Hull House became the social center for immigrants. It offered night school for adults, kindergarten classes, clubs, a public kitchen, an art gallery, a coffeehouse, a gym, a bathhouse and so much more. Hull House helped immigrants become part of the social world in America. It also tried to Americanize the immigrants and encouraged them to assimilate into the American culture. In short, when Jane Addams founded the Hull House she wanted to help immigrants become part of the American culture and she persuaded them to leave the customs of the “old world” in their past.
Society was changing in the late 1800’s. Women and children entered the work field and competition was very high to get jobs. Even though more women worked during this time than ever before companies still preferred males for most jobs of authority or higher pay. It was impossible for women and children to make anywhere near as much as males. Also, African Americans faced struggles while searching for jobs. This ethnicity was often stuck in unskilled labor tasks and women of this race had extremely limited job options, commonly domestic servants and laundresses. African Americans living in the north did indeed gain better social and economic positions compared to living in the south. The main discriminating factor during this time was white vs. blue collar jobs. White collar jobs would consist of higher class citizens who would earn higher pay and often had more education. In comparison blue collar jobs could be obtained by almos...
The 18th Century was a time where most immigrants were of Irish, British, and German descent. From the 1890’s, through the next couple decade, Italians, and Jews would be the cause a new wave of immigration. Between 1900 and 1915, 3 million immigrants would take the journey, and travel to America. They would come through the famed “Ellis
In the years from 1860 through 1890, the prospect of a better life attracted nearly ten million immigrants who settled in cities around the United States. The growing number of industries produced demands for thousands of new workers and immigrants were seeking more economic opportunities. Most immigrants settled near each other’s own nationality and/or original village when in America.
During American colonization, the economy of the south became predominantly dependent on the tobacco plant. As the south continued to develop, they shifted their focus to cotton. Indentured servants as well as African slaves were used for these labor-intensive crops because their labor was decent and cheap (Shi and Tindall 39). Young British men were promised a life of freedom in America if they agreed to an exchange between a free voyage and labor for a fixed number of years. Many willing, able-bodied, and young men signed up with the hopes of establishing a bright future for themselves in America. Unbeknownst to them, indentured servitude was not as easy as it was made out to be. Many servants endured far worse experiences than they had ever imagined. The physical and emotional conditions they faced were horrible, their masters overworked them, and many had to do unprofessional work instead of work that enabled them to use their own personal skills. Young British men felt that because they faced such horrible circumstances, the exchange between a free voyage to America in exchange for servitude was not a proper trade.
Before the 1680's, indentured servitude was the primary source of labor in the newly developed colonies. There were both white and black indentured servants. White servants had even outnumbered black servants three to one. Some black indentured servants were able to complete there time of service, and even had land and servants of their own. After the 1680's, the population of white indentured servants decreased exponentially. There were a number of different reasons why the population of indentured servants had decreased. For whatever reason, indentured servitude was a form of labor that was declining, and the need for labor increased rapidly. #
Immigration has existed around the world for centuries, decades, and included hundreds of cultures. Tired of poverty, a lack of opportunities, unequal treatment, political corruption, and lacking any choice, many decided to emigrate from their country of birth to seek new opportunities and a new and better life in another country, to settle a future for their families, to work hard and earn a place in life. As the nation of the opportunities, land of the dreams, and because of its foundation of a better, more equal world for all, the United States of America has been a point of hope for many of those people. A lot of nationals around the world have ended their research for a place to call home in the United States of America. By analyzing primary sources and the secondary sources to back up the information, one could find out about what Chinese, Italians, Swedish, and Vietnamese immigrants have experienced in the United States in different time periods from 1865 to 1990.
Immigration, the act of coming to live permanently in a foreign country. Throughout the United States’ history, immigrants faced various challenges and especially after 1880. Most immigrants moved to achieve the American dream of having a better life and pursuing their dreams. But, this experience as they moved, was different for every immigrant. Some lives improved while others did not. Immigrants such as Catholics, Italians, and the Chinese were not welcomed into America in the late 19th century and early 20th century because of their differences in beliefs and cultures.
Between 1880 and 1920 almost twenty-four million immigrants came to the United States. Between better salaries, religious freedom, and a chance to get ahead in life, were more than enough reasons for leaving their homelands for America. Because of poverty, no future and various discrimination in their homelands, the incentive to leave was increasing. During the mid-1800's and early 1900's, the labor and farm hands in Eastern Europe were only earning about 15 to 30 a day. In America, they earned 50 cents to one dollat in a day, doubling their paycheck. Those lower wage earners in their homeland were st...
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, three common goals immigrants came to America seeking with hopes of the promise to prosper and gain success. However, during the Gilded Age it seemed as though these were attainable only for the select few, while others left the land they knew to spend their lives toiling away in pursuit of the American dream, many never understanding how unattainable it really was. While the Gilded Age was a time of an industrial boom and a growing economy, those working by the sweat of their brow to make the success of this time possible, were not actually ever grasping this wealth, but rather putting right back into the pockets of the wealthy. The Gilded Age compromised the American Dream by limiting the chances of the immigrant working class, and thus creating a cycle of missed opportunities keeping the immigrants from progressing much further then when they came to America to begin with.
In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and famine, and make a better life for themselves. Forgetting their origins as persecuted and excluded people, the older and more established immigrants became possessive about their country and tried to exclude and persecute the immigrant groups from non-western European backgrounds arriving in the U.S. This hostile, defensive, and xenophobic reaction to influxes of “new” immigrants known as Nativism was not far out of the mainstream. Nativism became a part of the American cultural and political landscape and helped to shape, through exclusion, the face of the United States for years to come.
Following the 1890’s, the world began to undergo the first stages of globalization. Countries and peoples, who, until now, were barely connected, now found themselves neighbors in a planet vastly resembling a global village. Despite the idealized image of camaraderie and brotherhood this may seem to suggest, the reality was only discrimination and distrust. Immigration to new lands became a far more difficult affair, as emigrants from different nations came to be viewed as increasingly foreign. In the white-dominated society of the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the only way to truly count oneself as American was to become “white”. For this reason, the idea of race, a socially constructed issue with no real physical basis, has become one of the most defining factors which shape immigration and assimilation in the United States.
Starting in the late nineteenth century until the end of World War II, the immigration policy in the United States experienced dramatic changes that altered the pace of immigration. High rates of immigration sparked adverse emotions and encouraged restrictive legislation and numerous bills in Congress advocated the suspension of immigration and the deportation of non-Americans (Wisconsin Historical Society). Mexican American history was shaped by several bills in Congress and efforts to deport all non-Americans from the United States. The United States was home to several Spanish-origin groups, prior to the Declaration of Independence. The term “Mexican American” was a label used to describe a number of Hispanic American groups that were diverse and distinct from each other (Healey). Between 1910 and 1930, Mexican’s immigrated to the Southwest regions of the United States and began to work as low paid, unskilled physical laborers. Mexican immigrants took jobs as migratory laborers or seasonal workers in mines or on commercial farms and ranches. These jobs resulted in isolation and physical immobility with little opportunity for economic success (Mitz). Mexican Americans were not alone in their struggle to adapt to mainstream America and fight racial discrimination in education, jobs, wages and politics.
Immigration has always been a major part of America. In fact, without immigration the creation of America would not have been possible. The majority of immigrants came to America for religious freedom and economic opportunities. However, for the most part before the 1870’s most immigrants were Protestants from northern and western Europe. These immigrants often migrated to the United States as families and usually lived on farms with family or friends who had already migrated beforehand. A lot of immigrants came to America with a plan or goal in mind. They often had saved up money for the long immigration overseas, were skilled in a certain trade, or had already been educated at a high level. Sadly, this would not last. Immigration became so prominent in America between 1870 and 1900 that the foreign-born population of the United States had almost doubled. A lot of German and Irish Catholics had immigrated in the 1840’s and 1850’s, and more decided to immigrate after the Civil War. A portion of Americans were biased against Catholics. Thankfully, the Irish spoke English and the German Catholics reputation was improved because of their Protestant countrymen’s good reputation. However, their children often lacked any skill or education, but they were able to blend in quite well with the American society. More and more immigrants would migrate to the United States without any skill or education and on top of that they were usually poor. These immigrants were called “new” immigrants and they came from all over the world including Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary, and Russia. However, you cannot blame immigrants for migrating to America. Many immigrants faced religious persecution in their home countries which pushed them away, otherwi...
Until the 1860s, the early immigrants not only wanted to come to America, but they also meticulously planned to come. These immigrants known as the “Old Immigrants” immigrated to America from many countries in Northern and Western Europe, known as, Sweden, Norway, Scandinavia, Wales and Ireland. Some of them traveled to Canada, but most of them came to the U.S. seeking freedom they didn’t get in their own countries. Ireland had also recently suffered through a potato famine, where the citizens were left poor and starving. Most settled in New York City and other large cities, where they worked in factories and other low-paying jobs. The immigrants caused a great increase in population in these areas. The “Old Immigrants” tried not to cluster themselves with others of their own nationality. They would mostly try to fit in with Americans as best as they could. Many of them had a plan to come to America, so they saved their money and resources before they arrived so they could have a chance at a better life. On the other hand, another group of immigrants began to arrive