Immigration into the USA

Immigration into the USA

My essay is a nation of immigrants in the United States which is about German, Irish, Jewish immigrants in the 1800’s or early 1900’s. I’m a Asian so I know about Asian immigration. But I didn’t know about Europe immigration very well. So I chose it among many topics. I know that I will find about aspect of immigration important and I will fall into interest of this history.

A continuing high birthrate accounted for most of the increase in population, but by the 1840’s the tides of immigration were adding hundreds of thousands more. Before this decade, immigrants had been flowing in at a rate of 60,000 a year ; but suddenly the influx was tripled in the 1840’s and then quadrupled in the 1850’s. During these two feverish decades, over a million and a half Irish, and nearly as many Germans, swarmed down the gang planks. Why did they come? The immigrants came partly because Europe seemed to be running out of room. The population of the Old World more than doubled in the nineteenth century, and Europe began to generate a seething pool of apparently "Surplus" people. They were displaced and footloose in their homelands before they felt the tug of the American magnet. Indeed at least as many people moved about within Europe as crossed the Atlantic. America benefited from these people churning changes but did not set then all in motion. Nor was the United States the sole beneficiary of the process : of the nearly 60 million people who abandoned Europe in the century after 1840, about 25 million went somewhere other than the United States.

Yet America still beckoned most strongly to the struggling masses of Europe, and the majority of migrants headed for the "land of freedom and opportunity". There was freedom from aristocratic caste and state church; there was abundant opportunity to secure broad acres and better one’s condition.

The introduction of transoceanic steam ships also meant that the immigrants could come speedily, in a matter of ten or twelve clays instead of ten or twelve weeks. For a generation, from 1793 to 1815, war raged across Europe. Ruinous as it was on the continent, the fighting brought unprecedented prosperity to the long-suffering landsmen of Ireland. After 1815, war-inflated wheat prices plummeted by half. Hark-pressed landlords resolved to leave vast fields unplanned. Assisted now by a strengthened ...

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... American Congress during the last few decades, millions of people are still coming to this country. Although these people are native of many different countries, each natural group is comparatively small. We see, immigrants come from different countries, speak different languages, have different religious beliefs. But what is different is not necessarily worse, and probably the main thing that distinguishes immigrants is their attitude towards their future. Recent immigrants generally earn less than native Americans. There are many obvious reasons for this reduced income, including language difficulties, short American work experience, lack of funds and credit history to start their own businesses, and discrimination in employment!.

References

Dobbs Ferry. "The Jews in America", Oceana Publications, 1971 Page 105-116

William V. Shannon "The American Irish", The Macmillian Co. , N.Y 1964 , Page 131-151

Berliner Paul "American Judaism", Chicago University of Chicago Press. 1972 , Page 22-42

ARTICLE Dick Armey "The Impact of Immigration" Register , 5, July, 1994

Chairman Lamar Smith "Immigration in the National Interest Act of 1995" Register , 12, May, 1995