Immigration policy and contemporary issues

Immigration

The United States is known as the "nation of immigrants." The reason for this is not hard to find: the economic opportunities and the "American Dream" have attracted waves of immigrants from different parts of the world to make America a mosaic of diverse cultures. While America has lived up to its reputation as the "land of opportunities" and provided new settlers with the freedom and means to achieve their dreams, people who have adopted U.S. As their country have also played their part in making America great. This essay focuses on why the immigrants from Europe wanted to come to America in the early 1600s and from the 1820s to 1914; what were their expectations and what did they achieve in their adopted country.

The Early European Settlers

The history of European settlement in America started with a group of 214 Englishmen, belonging to the Virginia Company, arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 and established the first permanent English settlement.

Soon thereafter, they started cultivation of tobacco in the low-lying fertile areas around Chesapeake Bay and along the rivers of the coastal plain to the south. Their objective was to export the tobacco to Europe as it was a highly profitable business. The settlers braved numerous hardships in the beginning; they were harassed by the local Indians who inhabited the area and by the vagaries of the weather. A particularly harsh winter in 1909 reduced the population of the settlers to only 60. One other problem that the new immigrants faced was the shortage of labor to work on the farms. This was partially fulfilled by "indentured servants" -- people who had been convicted of petty crimes in England were sent to the American colonies and were forced to work for a period of four to seven years before regaining their freedom. Indentured servants from Africa also started to be transported to Virginia in 1919 to fulfill the demand of laborers

. The colony at Jamestown, thus, began to thrive as export of tobacco to Europe and trading with some local Indian tribes proved highly profitable.

The earliest settlers were followed by a group of Puritans, known as "Pilgrims," who set sail for New England in 1920 and established Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. A larger settlement of English Puritans was founded in Massachusetts Bay in 1629, and between 1629 and 1640 approximately 21,000 English colonists crossed the Atlantic Ocean to settle in New England. Other smaller groups of early European immigrants included the Dutch and the Swedes who established the colonies near present-day New York and Delaware only to lose them to the British who took over these colonies in 1664. ("U.S. Immigration History")

Reasons for Early European Immigration:

Most early settlers came to escape harsh economic conditions or religious prosecution in their homeland. Immigrants from continental Europe were mostly fleeing wars, plague, and famine in their homelands. The Puritans were escaping religious prosecution. Famine in Northern Ireland also triggered an exodus of Scots-Irish to the North American colonies in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. A smaller number of individuals immigrated simply for adventure or for other personal reasons. (Dinnerstein)

What did they Achieve?

The largest group of early European settlers in America was the English Puritans. Because of their Protestant "work ethic" which valued hard work, education and commercial success, they greatly influenced the culture of the American colonies and later of the United States. They also achieved economic prosperity for themselves and were in the forefront of the American struggle for independence.

The Second Wave of Immigrants (1820s to 1914)

After the early wave of European settlers during the colonial period, the rate of immigration from Europe declined to an extent in the 1770s. The second influx of European immigrants gathered pace in the 1840s and continued unabated until the start of WWI. In this period there was a more even distribution of immigrants from places as varied as Germany, Italy, Ireland, Scandinavia, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, England, Wales and Scotland. Most immigrants between the 1840s and the 1870s were Germans and Irish while people from Southern and Eastern Europe, e.g., Italians, Jews, and Slavs predominated after 1896. (Ibid.)

Reasons for Immigration:

The reasons for immigration from Europe in this period were largely the same as for the earlier migration, i.e., political turmoil and wars, as well as famines and religious prosecution. An added factor was the Industrial Revolution in Europe which started in Britain in the late 18th century and spread to France, Belgium and Germany in the mid 19th century; it later spread to Scandinavia and Southern Europe as well. The rapid economic and social changes that accompanied industrialization forced a number of people from these countries to relocate and the vast lands of America seemed an attractive destination. The Irish immigration was prompted by a severe famine in the 1830s and 1840s rather than industrialization.