Immigration has been the major source of population growth in the United States, especially in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In most American textbooks, the United States is referred to as a nation of immigrants. Looking over our 200+ years we find that to clearly be true, with approximately 1 million immigrants coming to America during the 17th and 18th century. Almost 3 million arrived during the 1860s, and another 3 million in the 1870s.
¶ … American Immigration
Globally, the United States has been known as "a nation of immigrants" almost from its inception. Beginning in the 1600s with English Puritans and continuing today, America is a melting pot of culture and ethnicity. In fact, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigration was the major source of U.S. population growth. Looking over our 200+ years we find that to clearly be true, with approximately 1 million immigrants coming to America during the 17th and 18th century. Almost 3 million arrived during the 1860s, and another 3 million in the 1870s. In the next four decades, the number of immigrants rose to over 25 million people, most from various European nations, most arriving in New York or one of the Eastern seaports (Damon, 1981). Despite the politicization, as of 2006, the United States actually was the number one country globally to accept legal immigrants into the country, with a current immigrant population of almost 40 million (Terrazas and Batalova, 2009). In fact, the peak of immigration was 1907, when over 1.2 million Europeans entered the country -- beginning a push towards legislation limiting immigration in the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1924 and the 1921 Congressional Quota Act. These immigrants came for two sociological reasons: the push factor (wars, famine, persecution and overpopulation) and the pull factors (jobs and the promise of freedom). Most came by ship, and a passage often cost the equivalent of an entire life's savings causing many families to send one or two members to America, hoping these people would save and send for more of the family (Volo, 2007).
There were various reasons for this push in immigration. Many Europeans left their home countries because of changes in their circumstances, others the promise of the "American Dream" in a new land with newer opportunities and, they heard, social benefits. America was viewed as being more open and tolerant of religious and ethnic differences, and stories of great wealth from jobs on the Eastern Seaboard poured back into Europe. In fact, many immigrants did find a better life in America, but many did not. Many stayed in squalid ghettos in the major U.S. cities, but many moved West to help settle the new frontier (Volo).
From the U.S. perspective, though, prior to 1890, most (over 80%) of the immigrants came from north and Western Europe. After 1900-1905, though, more immigrants came from Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe; had different languages and skill sets that previous immigrants, and increased animosity and prejudice so greatly that Congress limited immigration from certain areas. Many of the European groups actually found conditions in America to be intolerable -- they were ghettoized, harassed, found themselves disenfranchised from the language and socio-political developments, and prey from immigrant "thugs" who controlled neighborhood tenements. Ghettoization of language and culture provided the support mechanism that family structure would have in other cases. Certainly, the American urban environment and the abject poverty many immigrants experienced often led to the entire family working simply to make ends meet. In many cases, as soon as a child was old enough to handle a machine (8 years of age or so) they were forced to work. In other cases, the prospect of continued poverty and urban squalor broke up families by either forcing the children to find other work in other geographic areas, for many young men of the time period entering the military, or the continued view that pushing into the West would provide great opportunity and resources (Anderson, 2010).
The United States, in fact, has experienced four major waves of immigration:
1st Wave
2nd Wave
3rd Wave
4th Wave
1600s with first colonists, majority from England.
1820s-1870s; mostly from North and Western Europe; 1/3 Irish, 1/3 German
1881-1920 Largest influx of about 35 million, mostly from Eastern and Southern Europe
Begins in 1965, built upon new immigration reform laws.
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