RETAKE 7.1 Immigration

7-1

The New Immigrants

10. Immigration, internal migration,
& urbanization
transformed American life.

Learning Objective and Key Terms

OBJ: Students will be able to describe how immigration

from Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, and Mexico

reached a new high in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Key Terms:
Immigrant

Ellis Island

Angel Island

Melting Pot

Chinese Exclusion Act

Nativism

Gentlemen’s Agreement Deportation
Alien
Legal- Visa, green card, Tourist, student, work,
Illegal - Denied, Didn’t ask, just came,Green Card Expired

Immigrants

•People from other countries
moving to the US

to seek better lives;
others for temporary jobs

•Europeans

• 1870-1920 – 20 million arrive in US
• Steamship trip took one week from Europe
• Flee religious persecution

• Jews from Russia by pogroms
• Holocaust in 1930s & 40s

• Population growth

• Lack of farmland &industrial jobs

why leave their home?
Why come here?
why live in the city?

What is the difference between a legal & an illegal alien?

European Immigration

1870–1920

•20 million Europeans come to the US

Before 1890 - northern & western Europe

After 1890 - southern & eastern Europe

East Coast Immigration

•Ellis Island

•Chief U.S. immigration station in New York Harbor
•Immigrants given physical exam by Dr.

• seriously ill not admitted (quarantined & possibly deported)

•Inspected documents

•1892-1924 – 17 million immigrants processed (32 years)

West Indies &

Mexico

•West Indies & Mexico

• 260,000 immigrants – West Indies – industrial jobs
• Mexico has 700,000 immigrants from political turmoil
• National Reclamation Act creates farmland draws Mexican farmers

West Coast Immigration

•Angel Island

•Immigration processing station in San Francisco Bay

•Endure harsh questioning, long detention for admission
•500,000 Chinese immigrants

•Chinese & Japanese

• Chinese
300,000 Chinese

arrive – gold rush

• Worked on
railroad,

farms,
mines

•Japanese

• Work on Hawaiian

plantations

• 1920 on West Coast

20,000+

Cooperation for Survival

•Immigrants must create new life:

• find work, home learn new ways

•Many seek people who share

• cultural values,
• religion,
• language
• Results in ethnic communities forming

•Friction with native born Americans

• Immigrants willing to work for less
• Takes jobs away from ‘Mericans

•Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Havana,

Slavic Village, etc.

Immigration Restrictions

•Melting Pot

• U.S. people blend by abandoning native culture

•Desire to be “an American”

• Especially younger immigrants

•Immigrants don’t want to give up cultural identity

• Especially older immigrants

Nativism

• Overt favoritism toward native born Americans

• Believe Anglo-Saxons superior to other ethnic groups
• Object to religions – Catholics and Jews
• 1897 Congress passes literacy bill for immigrants (G. Cleveland vetoes)
• 1917 similar bill passes despite President Wilson veto

Anti-Immigration on West Coast

•Fear of Chinese immigrants working for less $ grows

•Labor groups add political pressure to limit Asian immigration
•1882, Chinese Exclusion Act bans entry to most Chinese

•Excluded – students, teachers, merchants, tourists, & govt officials
•Not repealed until 1943

Gentlemen’s Agreement

•Nativist fears extend to Japanese as well

•San Francisco segregates Japanese school children

•Gentlemen’s Agreement

•Japan limits emigration (people leaving country)
•In return U.S. repeals Japanese segregation (T. Roosevelt)