On December 6th, 1865 the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified and slavery had officially ended. Even though slavery was now illegal and the slaves were free, most of them had nowhere to go, and this was the case for my family. Instead of moving away to explore their new “freedom”, they had no other choice but to remain working on the plantations in exchange for food and a place to live. For generations my ancestors worked in Fort Worth, Texas on the plantations. In 1917 my great grandmother, Clara Lewis was born. She worked on the plantation until the age of 5, when her family had finally saved enough money to buy their own piece of land in Erath, Texas. Clara Lewis married my great grandfather, William Bentley and had given birth to three children by the age of 23. They moved onto their own plot of land in a less fortunate part of town.
Like many people, when the Great Depression hit her husband, William lost his job. Desperate for a source of income, this growing family finally caught a break. In 1940, Henry J. Kaiser agreed to support the British government by building cargo ships. Kaiser decided that the shipbuilding site would be constructed in Portland, Oregon. Henry J. Kaiser would need to hire people to not only build the cargo ships, but to also construct the building sites. His need for
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laborers was high in demand, and he assumed that the city of Portland would provide temporary housing to accommodate his workers. Thousands of African Americans were hired, including William. The Bentley family packed up their home in Texas, and moved to Oregon that year. On the contrary to Kaiser’s assumption, the local housing authority had no intention of providing housing. On top of that, African Americans were restricted to a small part of the city called Albina which would not be able to accommodate all of the new comers. In order to ensure his employees with housing, Kaiser used federal funds to construct city on the floodplain outside of Portland. The cheaply built city would be named Vanport. Vanport was definitely not a part of the “American Dream”. Close to 40,000 people were housed in poor living conditions and even though it was an integrated city, racial discrimination and oppression still existed. After my great grandfather finished his job building the cargo ships, he and his family decided to stay in Vanport, Oregon. It wasn’t long before the Bentley’s were faced with devastation once again. The year of 1948, a flood destroyed the city of Vanport leaving my great grandparents and their children homeless. Although blacks were still restricted from living in Portland, some whites took the homeless in anyway providing them with food and shelter. This was the beginning of integration in Portland, Oregon (Bentley). The Mexican immigrants migrating to the U.S. are facing many of the same problems that blacks went through decades ago and have caused the United States to debate its immigration policy. Some United States citizens are welcoming to the idea of these immigrants, and do not see them as a threat. Others are in an uproar, and want to shut down the border, deporting all illegal immigrants and prevent future ones from entering. The biggest complaint these nay-sayers have is the claim that Mexican immigrants are stealing our (United States citizens) jobs. In reality, like my family, many Mexican immigrants just want to improve their quality of life. Mexico is infested with crime, including high homicide rates and drug related crimes. The rate of unemployment is also high, leaving 47% of the population living in poverty (Jackson). Immigrates moving from Mexico see the U.S. as the land of opportunity, even though most Americans would consider the quality of life they receive here to still be less than desirable. Illegal immigrates who are desperate for work, are more willing to take the low-paying jobs in order to provide for their families. The legal immigrants that are provided with higher paying jobs often still struggle because they send money to their families back in Mexico (Jackson). Due to low wages, or low budgets, the living conditions of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. are often poor. According to a study published by the New York Times, Mexican immigrants experience worse housing conditions than any other group in the city. Near 43% live in overcrowded households, and more than 35% spend more than half their income on rent (“Mexican Immigrants…”). These lifestyle conditions still surpass the conditions in Mexico, pushing its citizens to migrate to the U.S. Similar to my family’s struggle in the World War II era, job availability in the U.S. is a large pull factor for Mexican immigrants, but they are not coming here to “steal” jobs. In order for a person to steal something, it would have to be owned or occupied by someone else first. Mexican migrants often take the low paying, basic jobs that most Americans do not want to do (I.E. farming, construction, and other manual labor jobs). Since the unemployment rate in America is now rising, Americans are willing to take these low paying jobs but since many of the positions are already occupied by the migrants Americans believe the jobs have been stolen. Without United States citizenship/naturalization, it is hard for Mexican immigrants to obtain higher paying jobs, or even a higher education.
These illegal migrates are often stereotyped as uneducated, and inferior to legal U.S. citizens. Just like African Americans, they are living under oppression. In order for a Mexican immigrant there are several steps they must take. Many have troubles gaining citizenship because of the financial costs, and the citizenship test they must take. I accessed the official U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website and took the practice test. I am a U.S. citizen, born and raised and I only scored a 50% on the
test.
Following the success of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas in the early16th century, the Spaniards, French and Europeans alike made it their number one priority to sail the open seas of the Atlantic with hopes of catching a glimpse of the new territory. Once there, they immediately fell in love the land, the Americas would be the one place in the world where a poor man would be able to come and create a wealthy living for himself despite his upbringing. Its rich grounds were perfect for farming popular crops such as tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton. However, there was only one problem; it would require an abundant amount of manpower to work these vast lands but the funding for these farming projects was very scarce in fact it was just about nonexistent. In order to combat this issue commoners back in Europe developed a system of trade, the Triangle Trade, a trade route that began in Europe and ended in the Americas. Ships leaving Europe first stopped in West Africa where they traded weapons, metal, liquor, and cloth in exchange for captives that were imprisoned as a result of war. The ships then traveled to America, where the slaves themselves were exchanged for goods such as, sugar, rum and salt. The ships returned home loaded with products popular with the European people, and ready to begin their journey again.
Former slave, Jourdon Anderson, was given a second chance in life whereas so many slaves did not see the day emancipation became legal. Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, Anderson’s former master, like most masters would be, did not agree with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. When Colonel Anderson found the whereabouts of his former slave and his family, who had worked on his land for over twenty years, he wrote a letter to Anderson begging him to come back. In this letter to Colonel Anderson, Jourdon Anderson was able to express his concerns and issues in a confident, yet sarcastic way about his past of more than thirty years of living under Colonel Anderson. Anderson was not shy when it came to voicing his opinions and what he “wanted” if he were to come back to Big Springs, although knowing he would never return to that horrific place (Anderson, 473-474). The most
As a child in elementary and high school, I was taught that President Abraham Lincoln was the reason that African slaves were freed from slavery. My teachers did not provide much more information than that. For an African American student, I should have received further historical information than that about my ancestors. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity or desire to research slavery on my own until college. And with my eagerness and thirst for more answers concerning my African American history, I set out to console my spirit, knowledge, and self-awareness of my ancestors’ history. I received the answers that my brain, mind, and soul need. Although Abraham Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, courageous African American slaves were the real heroes and motivation of the movement.
When reading about the institution of slavery in the United States, it is easy to focus on life for the slaves on the plantations—the places where the millions of people purchased to serve as slaves in the United States lived, made families, and eventually died. Most of the information we seek is about what daily life was like for these people, and what went “wrong” in our country’s collective psyche that allowed us to normalize the practice of keeping human beings as property, no more or less valuable than the machines in the factories which bolstered industrialized economies at the time. Many of us want to find information that assuages our own personal feelings of discomfort or even guilt over the practice which kept Southern life moving
They face many issues such as economic instability, depression, loneliness, fear of being alone and feeling betrayed. Children feel depressed in cases like this because even at a young age they know that things are not okay. They also suffer from fear and being betrayed, they suffer fear because they 're scared of what is going to happen to their family since they 're so used to having their family together. Many times children who face this situations feel like they’ve been betrayed because they don’t know why their mother or father have gone away and not came back. The psychologist mentions that it’s very normal for children to feel this way and conduct a different behaviour than usual because just like everyone else they don’t seem to understand
Slavery was the main resource used in the Chesapeake tobacco plantations. The conditions in the Chesapeake region were difficult, which lead to malnutrition, disease, and even death. Slaves were a cheap and an abundant resource, which could be easily replaced at any time. The Chesapeake region’s tobacco industries grew and flourished on the intolerable and inhumane acts of slavery.
In todays society no one worries about their children being sold to a plantation hundreds of miles away. People do not stop to think about getting married the marriage be recognized by the government. As children complain about being forced to attend church, or complain about having to go to school everyday, slave children were not afforded these opportunities. For decades slaves were denied certain rights, which many of us take for granted. After the war former slaves worked to locate family members that had long been separated. As the former slaves struggled to get on their feet many returned to work for their former masters, this time as hired help. Taking a brief look in to the life of Jourdan Anderson, a man that valued his family above
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Though he rarely visited Oregon, Henry Kaiser was an influential industrialist whose successful ventures in manufacturing and health care significantly impacted the state. In the year of 1914, he founded the Henry J. Kaiser Company, which specialized in road paving. He expanded his industrial empire over the years and, by the time of President Roosevelt's administration during the period of the 1930s, it was one of those well-known companies that attracted lucrative federal contracts. In the year of 1913, Kaiser was working for a gravel and cement dealer in Washington when one of his clients, a Canadian road-building company, went out of business. He got a loan to take over the company’s project and finished it with a profit. During the period
...ork many jobs in order to survive, in order to just get a small taste of the dream. They also face discrimination struggles. Many American do not want these immigrants to have the opportunities. The area that is it mostly seen is in education. Children with immigration background often work harder to achieve the American Dream. Despite all the obstacles, these immigrants believe in the American Dream and will find a way to achieve it.
The conclusion of the Civil War in favor of the north was supposed to mean an end to slavery and equal rights for the former slaves. Although laws and amendments were passed to uphold this assumption, the United States Government fell short. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were proposed and passed within five years of the Civil War’s conclusion. These amendments were to create equality throughout the United States, especially in the south where slavery had been most abundant. Making equality a realization would not be an easy task. This is because many problems were not perceived before and during the war. The reunification of the country would prove to be harder than expected, and entry into a new lifestyle would be difficult for both the freedmen and their former oppressors. The thirteenth amendment clearly prohibits slavery in the United States. All slaves were to be freed immediately when this amendment was declared ratified in December of 1865, but what were they to do? Generations of African-Americans had been enslaved in America, and those who had lived their whole lives in slavery had little knowledge of the outside world. This lack of knowledge would not be helpful in trying to find work once they were released. Plantation owners with a lack of workforce were eager to offer extremely low pay to their former slaves. In addition, the work force of the plantation would often live in the same quarters they did while enslaved. These living condition...
Most people say that migration of Mexicans to America is a big problem in our country. They say that every immigrant is bad and all they bring to America is drugs. Well that is not true because immigrants actually help this great country. Today we are going to focus on Mexican immigrants. We will talk about different views that people have on it. We will talk about what an immigrant really is. Also define how people think immigration is a problem, causes of why people migrate from one country to another, consequences, and ways we can deal with immigration.
Mexican immigration in the early 1900's was a huge issue that impacted the United States. States in areas such as urban population, employment and many other areas. The mass number of Mexican immigrants that migrated to the United States from Mexico were at nearly half million. between the years of 1920 and 1929. Mexicans left their native land and moved to the United States not only to achieve financial prosperity, but to get out of the chaotic environment that Mexico was in at the time due to the Mexican revolution which began in 1910.
The four-year war between the states not only left the southern cities destroyed, economy in shambles and its people destitute, but it also introduced an overwhelming population of former slaves to be integrated into the folds of the victorious Union. Freedom for the blacks came slow and progress on their behalf was contaminated, inconsistent and feeble. Freedmen and women, accustomed to strife and adversity, desired only equality as citizens of the United States, however that status was going to come at a hefty price. Lincoln proclaimed the slaves freedom in the midst of the Civil War, but that freedom was neither instant nor accepted at war’s end. With great uncertainty and only the title of freedmen the black community immediately sought out their greatest needs no matter what brutality they faced from those that refused to accept their freedom.
My great, great, great, great, great grandmother was a slave. At the young age of 15 she was forced to leave her native land of Africa and start a new life of bondage. She was not able to pack her favorite doll or pictures of her family. Unlike other immigrants, she would not arrive at Ellis Island and be warmly welcome by other family members that arrived before her. On the contrary she would arrive in America scared without anyone to ease her fears of being in a strange land. She would never see her native land or family again. There would be no letters home encouraging other family members to rush to come t...