More handpicked essays just for you.
Immigration in american history 1880 1914
Immigration in america history essay
Immigration in american history 1880 1914
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Erected in October of 1886, the Statue of Liberty stylized after the Roman goddess Libertas, with torch held high above her head and broken chain beneath her feet, became a symbol of freedom to immigrants arriving to the United States from abroad. This is epitomized in Emma Lazarus’s sonnet The New Colossus which describes how the Statue of Liberty welcomes those oppressed and homeless with open arms. However, while the statue did instill hope in many weary travelers, the socio-economic conditions in the United States told otherwise for many racial groups. The Statue of Liberty represented the core American ideology that was penned in the United States Constitution. Emma Lazarus uses the Statue to compare the Old World (Europe) and the New …show more content…
The Statue of Liberty described by Lazarus as the “Mother of Exiles,” was a symbol of an escape from persecution and poverty from the abandoned and orphaned. What most immigrants faced however, was a grim reality of racial and economic tensions in the slums of New York. After the close of the Civil War, many flocked to the industrial powerhouse cities in the North. In the 1880s, many of the 5.2 million immigrants settled in New York and fought for jobs and housing with 3rd and 4th generation immigrants, who were mainly Western European and Protestant, sparking enormous racial tensions particularly towards the Irish and Italians who were among the largest groups immigrating to the United States en-masse. These new immigrants lived in squalor with multiple families crammed into one unit. This issue was brought to light when Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark and photojournalist, published How the Other Half Lives which showcased the dark, squalid living conditions of the lower class immigrants. It also included photographs of the sweatshops these immigrants toiled in to make only a few cents a day, oftentimes in hazardous work environments. His piece started a new movement of “muckracking” journalism that attacked established institutions and the upper class and ultimately inspired many reforms to both the living and working …show more content…
These immigrants were just as scared and hopeful as the millions processed through Ellis Island but faced even greater persecution. Beginning in the 1850s, young Chinese men immigrated to California during the Gold Rush. Many supplied cheap labor to the Central Pacific Railroad Company. During the Railroad boom of 1865, Central Pacific had a hard time holding onto workers as railroad construction was physically demanding and dangerous leading to a high attrition rate among workers. Most of the early workers were Irish but later Chinese laborers began to fill the vacancies on the railroads. After the Central Pacific railroad connected with the Union Pacific Railroad in Utah, the now unemployed Chinese labor force returned to California where they began to compete with the Irish and other whites for low paying jobs. In 1887 during the Long Depression, tensions became so severe that a large mob of white men waged a two day pogrom against Chinese immigrants living in San Francisco. The result of this bout of ethnic violence lead to four deaths and $100,000 in property damages. Anti-Chinese sentiment quickly spread throughout the state and the rest of the country and ultimately resulted in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in
One particular ethnic group that suffered severe discrimination was the Chinese people. They first came to America for several reasons. One of them was the gold rush in California in 1849, in which they were included in a group of immigrants called the “Forty-Niners” (179). From gold mining, they switched to other jobs with resulted in the rise of anti-Chinese sentiments. People felt that Chinese people were taking the jobs away from them, because Chinese people worked for much smaller salaries that businesses preferred. This mindset gave way to the creation of The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, which prohibits more Chinese immigrants from coming to America. In addition, the act states “no State or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship”. Like the Naturalization Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act was created to hinder Chinese people from becoming citizens so that America could remain homogenously white (186). It also aimed to stop Chinese people from establishing a bigger community in the country in hopes of eliminating the threat of competition to their white counterparts (186). Like African-Americans, Chinese people were considered racially inferior and have struggled to prove that they were worthy to be called true Americans, rather than
Many came for gold and job opportunities, believing that their stay would be temporary but it became permanent. The Chinese were originally welcomed to California being thought of as exclaimed by Leland Stanford, president of Central Pacific Railroad, “quiet, peaceable, industrious, economical-ready and apt to learn all the different kinds of work” (Takaki 181). It did not take long for nativism and white resentment to settle in though. The Chinese, who started as miners, were taxed heavily; and as profits declined, went to work the railroad under dangerous conditions; and then when that was done, work as farm laborers at low wages, open as laundry as it took little capital and little English, to self-employment. Something to note is that the “Chinese laundryman” was an American phenomenon as laundry work was a women’s occupation in China and one of few occupations open to the Chinese (Takaki 185). Chinese immigrants were barred from naturalized citizenship, put under a status of racial inferiority like blacks and Indians as with “Like blacks, Chinese men were viewed as threats to white racial purity” (188). Then in 1882, due to economic contraction and racism Chinese were banned from entering the U.S. through the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese were targets of racial attacks, even with the enactment of the 1870 Civil Rights Act meaning equal protection under federal law thanks to Chinese merchants lobbying Congress. Chinese tradition and culture as well as U.S. condition and laws limited the migration of women. Due to all of this, Chinese found strength in ethnic solidarity as through the Chinese Six Companies, which is considered a racial project. Thanks to the earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco, the Chinese fought the discriminatory laws by claiming citizenship by birth since the fires
A human being is a complicated entity of a contradictory nature, where creative and destructive, virtuous and vicious are interwoven. Each of us has gone through various kinds of struggle at least once in a lifetime, ranging from everyday discrepancies to worldwide catastrophes. There are always different causes and reasons that trigger these struggles, however, there is common ground for them as well: people are different, even though it is a truism no one seems to be able to realize this statement from beyond the bounds of one’s self and reach out to approach the Other. The concept of the Other is dominant in Frederick Douglass’s text “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro”, for it determines the main conflict and illuminates the issue of intolerance and even blasphemy regarding the attitude of white Americans towards Negroes. The text was written as a speech to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and delivered at Rochester’s Corinthian Hall on July 5, 1852.
Gold Rush 1849 was the reason for such a frenzy. It caused people to migrate to California from near and far too dig for gold from the river. According to the film, The Chinese Exclusion Act Explained: US History Review, “This attracted Chinese entrepreneurs to try to make it rich”. The Chinese was one of the cultures that was one of the cultures that left their home to find a better life for their families. However, after being greeted in the United States, they were discriminated against them since they were feared by the Europeans. Racism towards the Chinese immigrant caused a lot of hardship on them in the Western civilization, enabling them to enter or exit without returning to the States.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” Though the immigrants to Ellis Island could not see Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus” within the base of the Statue of Liberty, “tired” and “poor” were overwhelming applicable to the desperate souls seeking new life in America. While Ellis Island has a reputation in popular culture for being the “processing center” for all those seeking to enter America on the East Coast, the sad truth is that primarily only steerage passengers who could just barely afford their ticket were the ones waiting in line at Ellis Island to gain admission into the United States. For those who could afford a luxury ticket, the immigration authorities boarded ships for them, and once given the all-clear, were then proceeded to be dropped off at New York.
As gold discoveries slowed down and the Civil War gradually came to an end, the First Transcontinental Railroad was finally completed between Omaha and Sacramento. Over time, unemployment began rising across the country, especially in California, where a vast majority of Chinese immigrants resided in. The welcoming of Chinese immigrants slowly began to wear off as the white working class perceived a threat to their livelihood that these immigrants could potentially cause, leading to an increase in racial tensions. These growing tensions culminated in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and eventually closed U.S. borders to all Chinese laborers, with the exception of ethnic Chinese individuals. This paper highlights the significant impact of large-scale Chinese immigration to California during the Gold Rush, the lasting contributions made by the Chinese towards Western ...
in large groups on the West Coast between 1850s and 1860s to work in the gold mines and railroads. They encountered a very strong opposition violent as riots and physical attacks forced them out of the gold mines (citation needed). The Central Pacific railroad hired thousands.But after the line was finished in 1869 they were hounded out of many railroad towns in states such as Wyoming and Nevada. “Most wound up in Chinatowns or areas of large cities which the police largely ignored. The Chinese were further alleged to be "coolies" and were said to be not suitable for becoming independent thoughtful voters because of their control by tongs. “The same negative reception hit the Asians who migrated to Mexico and Canada”.
After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Soon after the first wave, many more Chinese immigrants began to arrive into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived wanted to go home at some point, and therefore there was no push for naturalization...
In chapter thirty five, author Shelley Sang-Hee Lee explains that “Immigration is an important part of our understanding of U.S. social experience” (Hee 128). Asian immigrants bring their diverse culture, language and custom from various Asian countries. They help improve American economic development. Also, they play an important role in American society. The first Asian immigration flow is the Chinese Immigration in the mid-19th century to work in the gold mines and railroads. The Asian immigrant population grew rapidly between 1890 and 1910 (Hee 130). The increasing of population of Asian immigrants have brought a lot of problems. Many of them were facing the issue of ethnicity, discrimination, and the process of assimilation. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which banned the immigration of Chinese laborers and proscribed foreign-born Chinese from naturalized citizenship and the Asian Exclusion Act League in 1907 which limited the entry of Asian immigrants have reshaped the demographic of Asian immigrants in the U.S (Hing 45). With the rise of anti-Asian movements, many Asian immigrants were rejected from entering America or deported to their homeland. In the early history of immigration in America, the issue of deportation is an important part of the Asian American experience in the
In the Nineteenth century, most people had one goal that they wanted to obtain more than any other. It wasn’t immense wealth, health, or even material goods, even though that was probably what some had in mind. It was the freedom. There are numerous ways in which freedom could be defined such as: having the “rights” of a white adult male, having a voice in the community/ government, not being owned by another human, being able to speak, write, and practice whatever religion one may want without consequences. The list of what it was like to be free goes on and on. All of these qualities of being free still hold true today. Many of those who were not free spoke out against the oppression they were facing. Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs were two African American writers whose pursuit for freedom caught the eye of many Americans. These two writers attacked what Americans in the Nineteenth century painted freedom to look like and the reality of what it really was. They lived in a time where Americans talked about all men being equal, yet they owned slaves. Both being born into slavery, Douglas, Jacobs and other slaves were not meant to read and write like those of the white race. Something as simple as literacy was important root to the idea of freedom. Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs used their personal life experiences to show their readers why freedom was and still is so much deeper than the characteristics named earlier. These writers struck the hearts of Americans and redefined freedom as a treasure that allows one to be a self-governing, literate, and a self-reliant individual.
In 1890 Jacob Riis, a Danish migrant and New York Times reported introduced the immigrant problem to Americans using photojournalism in his book How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. This book provided insight into the harsh lives of the immigrants living in the slums of New York by giving photographic evidence that spoke to the hearts of many Americans. At the time many were unaware of the difficult challenges many immigrants faced and Riis brought up this social issue. Riis himself however has some bias and delineates these people into groups of the “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”. Despite his muckraking skills and attempts to reveal the hostile conditions of immigrants Riis has some racial prejudices
Foner, Eric. Give me liberty!: an American history. Seagull fourth ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2014. Print.
American poet Emma Lazarus’ Petrarchan sonnet “The New Colossus” symbolizes freedom, particularly the many freedoms offered by the United States (U.S.). Lazarus’ use of metaphors and symbolism are a reminder that the U.S. stands for the freedom of all. The speaker contrasts the Statue of Liberty to the ancient statue of Colossus and describes how the statue welcomes all the unwanted peoples of other countries to the U.S.. Ellis Island, where the statue stands, is a beacon of freedom and hope for many travelers seeking refuge in the states. The Statue of Liberty “lift[s] [her] lamp beside the golden door!” (14) The golden door symbolizes the opportunity for freedom that America offers to immigrants. To many who come to America’s harbor, it is
It is quite ironic that these "nativists" came to America for the same reasons as the immigrants who came in the time period of 1880-1925; however, they do not accept the immigrants who came in that period, just as they had once wanted to be accepted. Emma Lazarus’ "The New Colossus", which is on the Statue of Liberty, reads "Give me you tired, your poor, Your huddled mass yearning to breathe free," but in fact, many Americans, nativists, did not want these poor, huddled mass at all.
I chose to write about the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty serves as a symbolic fixture of the principles America was founded on. She represents freedom, liberty, and opportunity. The location of the Statue of Liberty is an amazing feat in itself, it is right in the middle of a very wide and a very deep Hudson river, and at the time it was brought there, with the limited technology, was amazing. Adding to the location, The State of Liberty as everyone knows is right next to the old customs ports where thousands of hungry, and poor immigrants fresh off the boat would pass through looking for a better life. The fact that Liberty is a woman is an ingenious idea because a woman tends to be more sympathetic and willing to help, if Liberty was a man the statue would seem more cold, stiff, and even militant. Throughout history statues have been built to represent a great moment but the Statue of Liberty was build to symbolize a great idea and country. At that time in history people were flocking to America because they were either being persecuted in their home countries or they were just disappointed at the status of their lives and wanted to come to “the land of opportunity” to start a new life.