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The impact of immigration on American culture
The impact of immigration on American culture
The impact of immigration on American culture
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Anti Immigrant Hysteria
America has always let immigrants, especially germans come into “free country”. Even though the people who found this country was an immigrant as well. But that's besides the point. Germans and Austrians. The 2 biggest immigration group were definitely 2 of the untrustable ethnicity groups that US did suspicious of. But mostly Germany.
During the late 1800s a lot of German immigrants came to United States to have better lives and better opportunities for families and for themselves. Since America was going to be in war Germany a lot of false rumors are gonna happened. Most of Americans actually believe it and started persecuting Germans and also harassing them. They got so petty and started “Americanizing” stuff.
Most people came to the United States from other countries as immigrants, whether it was
During the 1900’s, it was common for people to immigrate to America. They saw it as a land of freedom and opportunity. Some thought that this was a great way for the US’ economy to boom, but some thought otherwise. With the shortage of jobs, many believed that the immigrants were stealing their precious jobs. Because of the competition over jobs, immigrants became the new public enemy to many. Immigrants such as the Japanese. The Japanese had already been through some racial discrimination, but it wasn’t until World War II that it got much worse. During the war the US decided it was best to be neutral, but the longer the war went on for, The more the US’ neutrality was on the verge of breaking. It wasn’t until December 7, 1941, that the US
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many American nativist groups opposed free unrestricted immigration. Although racism is a main reason, there were many others. Economic, political, social and moral standards seemed to be threatened by these newcomers. The immigrants were unfamiliar of the language and customs that we take for granted in our everyday lives. The fear that gripped the nation was why people reacted so strongly against immigrants. The people feared change might distort the course of our prospering country. We did not want to become what those immigrants were fleeing.
The United States had an open door policy on immigration from the nations beginning until 1921. During that time, between 1790 and 1920, the population grew by 102 million. That’s about one million new immigrants each year for 130 years. Most of these immigrants were from European countries. In 1921 Congress passed the Quota Act which put a cap of 360,000 new immigrants per year. Congress did this because the public was concerned about the number of new immigrants and how it would affect the country. This act also favored immigrants from England, Germany, France, and Scandinavia over those from Asia, Africa, and southern Europe.
The treatment of Germans during WWI and Arabs and South Asians post 9/11 are perfect examples of the mistreatment in America by the public. During WWI, the country was trying to wipe the German culture clean out of the country. One action was change names of places and streets named after a German place or German name to non German name or place. For example, the town of Berlin, Michigan, was changed to Marne, Michigan to honor the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Marne. Many schools had stopped teaching German but the City College of New York continued teaching German courses, but limited the number of credits students get for them. In Cincinnati, the public libraries asked to remove all German books from its shelves. German vocabularies were changed as Sauerkraut was hanged to "liberty cabbage", German measles changed to "liberty measles", hamburgers changed to "liberty sandwiches" and dachshunds changed to "liberty pups". Like the Germans, post 9/11 Middle Easterners and South Asians had been victims of too many to account vandalism, arson, assault, shootings, harassment, murder and threats as the two groups were perceived to be Muslims. Sikhs were victims of various hate crimes due to many Sikh males wearing turbans, which are stereotypically associated with
As other immigrant groups of non-English descent started arriving in America, there was an immigrant phobia towards the newcomers. During the mid-1700s, Benjamin Franklin said that the Germans, who were the new immigrants, were “excessively fertile, reluctant to assimilate, lazy and unwilling to learn English” (History 324, 10/19/10).... ... middle of paper ... ...
In the eyes of the early American colonists and the founders of the Constitution, the United States was to represent the ideals of acceptance and tolerance to those of all walks of life. When the immigration rush began in the mid-1800's, America proved to be everything but that. The millions of immigrants would soon realize the meaning of hardship and rejection as newcomers, as they attempted to assimilate into American culture. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the existing American population.
John Higham explains in "Racism Immigration Restriction" that in Americans at the turn of the century already had a dislike for the new immigrants and now with more entering America after World War I, the personal dislike intensified. He writes: "...the transformation of relative cultural differences into an absolute line of cleavage, which would redeem the northwestern Europeans from the charges once leveled at them and explain the present danger of immigration in terms of the change in its sources." (Doc 1) People believed these immigrants could not adapt to the "standardized" way of American living, as the Northwestern or Nordic immigrants did. These new immigrants' presence in America stirred up religious racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
It was unjustified for congress of the United States to pass the Immigration Act of 1924 to limit the immigration in 1920s. During 1917, congress of United States passed a law that every immigrants whoever want to entry into United States Also people should be accepting to the immigrants because the United States was a place that thirteen colonies overthrew the British government and created United States. All Americans are immigrants because no American is native to United States. People all came here from other places. People should not have discrimination to any immigrants.
The Nativists feared the immigrants because Americans were outnumbered, outvoted, and overwhelmed. The Nativists established the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which demanded restrictions on immigration and even promoted violence against immigrants. This soon transformed into the American Party, also known as the Know- Nothings. The American Party claimed the immigrants were a threat to American values and democracy. For example anti-Irish feeling was high for several reasons. The Irish were poor and the cities they lived in eventually developed into slums. The American people blamed the Irish for the crime, disease, and corruption taking place. To take another case in point, The Irish were Catholic and many Americans were Protestant. The American belief was Catholics could not be trusted because they were more loyal to the Pope than the United States Government. The Germans were seen as anti-American for preserving their culture and language when they emigrated to America. The truth that many Americans failed to see was immigrants created a racially and ethnically diverse
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...
During the years of the war, America’s immigration policy and the restriction of Jewish immigrants was very apparent. The January 1943 Telegram Confirming Reports of Mass Executions of Jews in Poland talks about the Immigration Reform Act of 1924 and how it passed tight quotas on immigration. In 1924, the Unites States passed the Immigration Reform act. This act granted as little as two percent of the immigrating population a visa they needed to enter the U.S. Getting a visa could mean life or death for many immigrants. Instead of America helping the Jews escape Germany and Hitler, they blocked them out with more strict immigration policies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other officials warned that stricter controls on immigration were needed to prevent foreign threats from invading our nation. But innocent Jews trying to escape death don’t seem that harmful to most people. They also refused to, “ raise their immigration quotas in order to accept large numbers of refugees” (Lichtheim and Riegne 1). Because of this, many European Jews were not expected into America and in return harshly affected by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Some even died a horrible deaths in concentration camps just because America was afraid of giving out too many visas. Because of actions like these, the Jews were turned down in their time of need, especially when they
Illegal immigrants in the United States (US) have long been a topic of debate for policymakers and the public. The rationale about them is that they do not pay taxes; they add to the costs of taxpayers and use up funds in resources meant for assisting citizens and legal immigrants (the legal citizens). Therefore, they are perceived as a threat to the US economy. The true impacts of illegal immigrants on the US economy are discussed by debating over the economic benefits as well as economic costs of these immigrants. The negative impacts, discussed first, presented the decreases in low skilled jobs’ wage rates for legal immigrants and citizens instigated by illegal immigrants, the social services such as educations and healthcare that they utilize and add to taxpayers. Then contrary to the negative impacts, the positive impacts reveal benefits of low production costs, increases in the local market sales, undocumented tax generation, impact on growth and employment brought forth by illegal immigrants. These impacts, both negative and positive, are independently analyzed and weighed against each other. The discussion does show a slight net positive impact on the US economy in contrast to the normal belief about illegal immigrants.
By the twentieth century over two million Germans have immigrated to the United States. Regardless of where they settled they came from a multitude of areas and for a variety of reasons. They were a highly diversified group in terms of regional origin, religious and political orientation, education, and socioeconomic standing.
Many wish to stay for a short time and then return to their home. In fact, many