Immigration in the United States 1865-1915 13.5 million immigrants arrived in America

1. Immigrationin the United States1865-1915 13.5 million immigrants arrived in America S ee handout

2. Immigration • Reasons for immigration to U.S.: • Post Industrialization era led to overcrowding in many European countries. • Mechanization Less jobs • 80% came from Europe >1840-1920 37,000,000 came to U.S.

3. Why Get out ? • 1. Overcrowding Europe (Industrialization) • 2. Natural Disasters • 3. Economic opportunity $$$$ • 4. Political unrest in homeland (Political Refugee)/Wars • 5. Religious Persecution • Romance & Adventure

4. Why U.S.? • Cheap land (Oklahoma Giveaway) • Myths/legends of U.S. • Fast Growth in Cities • Religious Tolerance • Rules for harmony. • Economic Opportunity • Last Hope

5. Many Immigrants brought the entire family, some would send just 1 or 2 family members in hope they would “make it” and then send for the rest. Many times they spent their entire life’s savings to get to America. Most came steerage class (3rd class); cheap, uncomfortable, unsanitary, and crowded; disease and even death was not uncommon.

6. Ellis Island, New York City (1892-1954) 12 million immigrants would come through here. 70% of all European immigrants passed through Ellis Island. 2% were rejected.

7. Travel to America • In 1905 an extra $20 would buy you the status of cabin class. That would exempt you from being processed in America. • 3rd class passengers quickly learned that money caused you to be treated differently in America. • “Isn’t it strange that we are coming to a country where there is equality, but not quite so for the poor newly arriving immigrant.” Quote from 3rd class passenger

8. Inspection Center • The inspection was often the most anxious part of the whole trip as this is where you found out if you were accepted or rejected

9. Inspection Station Ellis Island • Long Lines –2 minutes per inspection, marked with chalk and seperated by the ailment they were suspected to have. • 32 questions • Lines divided into languages the immigrants spoke. • Names were often changed as the spelling was a struggle

11. Old Immigrants - Northern European – Prior to 1880 • English/German/Irish • W.A.S.P = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant • Owner’s/Bosses • Superior attitude • “Know Nothing party” designed to discriminate against Roman Catholic immigrants. • Believed they were a superior race.

12. New Immigrants -Southern and Eastern Europe – After 1880 – Beginning of the clash • Italians, Slavs, Greeks and Jews. • Different in beliefs and ideals. • Long-stem hatred from ancestry in Europe. • Different beliefs and customs. • Competition for work also fueled the resentment.

13. Discrimination • “ The immigrants are an invasion of venomous reptiles… long haired, wild eyed, bad smelling , reckless foreign wretches, who never did a day’s work in their lives”

14. Discrimination • Literacy Tests • Low wages, unsafe conditions, paid for mistakes or behavior. • No Overtime, worked Sundays. • Uneducated and had no way out. • No civil rights.

15. Immigration and Politics • Creation of political machines. • Ward Bosses • Supplied money, jobs, advice and favors = votes. • City councils dominated by Bosses

16. Cities/Slums • First low income housing • Inadequate sanitation and ventilation • Overcrowded, crime filled, and disease infested • By 1900 4 out of 5 residents of New York City were immigrants or children of immigrants. • “1,231 people in a 120 room apartment”. • New York City had twice as many Irish as Dublin, More Italians than Naples, more Germans than Hamburg.

17. Cities • Established ethnic neighborhoods: “little Italy, Chinatown” • New York City built of Immigrants. Still today a city of diversity. People felt more comfortable with people of similar values and customs. This also made it easier for stereotypes to exist.

18. “5 cents a spot” Immigrant tenement housing

19. Immigrant Working Conditions • Took jobs nobody else wanted and for a fraction of the pay; textiles mills, steel mills, stockyards, and coal mines. • Average pay 10 cents per hour 55 hours a week. • Between 1880 –1900 35,000 people were killed on the job.

20. Child labor at a textile mill.

21. Child Labor at a Lumber Mill

22. “Newsies”

23. Child Labor at a textile mill

24. Chinese Immigrants Settled on the West CoastThey came through Angel Island in San Francisco. • Many escaping the same problems facing the European immigrants, famine, overpopulation, civil warfare but also romance of “Gold”. • 1877 17% of CA’s population was Chinese. • 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act forbade Chinese to immigrate.

25. Melting Pot: Assimilate into “American” culture. English Language must be spoken and American traditions observed. Salad Bowl: Keep own native culture. Customs and traditions are kept alive and nurtured. Native language spoken 2 Cultural Theories of Immigration

26. U S. Immigration Laws 1740- 1998 1740 naturalization act for America required residence for seven years, sworn loyalty to the Crown, evidence of Christianity; Catholics were excluded from applying. 1774 immigration to the colonies prohibited 1790 naturalization restricted to "free white persons." Required two-years residency. 1795 residency extended to five years 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. Resident aliens suspected of being subversives could be expelled. Residency extended to fourteen years. 1802 reinstated five-year waiting period 1808 federal government made slave trade illegal 1819 Steerage Act regulated conditions on ships entering American ports 1862 American vessels forbidden to transport Chinese immigrants to the U.S. 1868 Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

27. Immigration Laws Cont. • 1875 Page Law. Prohibited transporting convicts and prostitutes to America. Strict interpretation barred Chinese wives as well as prostitutes. • 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act (repeal 1943); not even for family reunification. Ten year exclusion period for Chinese laborers. • 1882 general immigration act barred paupers, criminals, insane; levied a tax on each immigrant arriving by vessel at a U.S. port • 1884 all Chinese travelers carry official documents showing profession and destination • 1885 87,88,91 Alien Contract Labor Laws prohibit people from entering to work under contracts. 1888 no reentry for Chinese laborer or former resident without wife, children, parents, or property • valued over $1000 in the U.S. • 1891 Immigration Act--medical inspection of immigrants and exclusion of polygamists, those suffering from a dangerous disease, or convicted of moral turpitude. • 1892 Chinese Exclusion Act extended for another ten years; Chinese laborers in U.S. required to • have certificate of residence • 1902 Chinese Exclusion Act extended indefinitely • 1903 Immigration Act barred anarchists and those who believe in the overthrow by force or violence of the government.

28. Immigration Laws Cont. • 1908 unwritten diplomatic agreement, Japan would not issue passports to Japanese laborers wishing to come to the U.S. There would also be no immigration from Japan's protectorate in Korea • 1917 Immigration Act. Set literacy test for reading English "or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish." Created Asiatic Barred Zone which excluded immigrants from India, Indochina, the East Indies, Polynesia, parts of Russia, Arabia, and Afghanistan. Kept out anyone likely to become a public charge. • 1918 Anti-Anarchist Act excluded subversive aliens • 1920 Anti-Anarchist Act--deportation of those with materials advocating violent overthrow of government • 1921 National Origins Act-separate quotas for people from each nation based on 3% of the total foreign-born population in the U.S. in 1910. Excluded from quota tourists, diplomats, minor children of citizens, and Asians already excluded. There was no restriction on those from the Americas. • 1924 Amendments to National Origins Act--No persons ineligible for citizenship (including Japanese) were allowed to enter. Quotas were revised downward to 2% of the foreign-born population. Still no restriction on the Americas. Fully implemented in 1929, 82% of the visas went to northern and western Europe, 16% southern and eastern Europe, and 2% to the rest of the world. Persons ineligible to become citizens were barred.

29. Immigration Laws Cont. • 1929 became possible for illegal entrants in the U.S. since • 1921 to legalize their status • 1940 Alien Registration Act--unlawful to advocate overthrow of the U.S.; deport aliens who refuse to register and be fingerprinted. • 1941 refuse visas to aliens who would endanger public safety • 1943 repeal of Chinese Exclusion Act;Chinese eligible for naturalization for first time. • 1943 Bracero Program--temporary guest worker program allowed workers from Mexico in fields • and railways, those from British Honduras, Barbados, and Jamaica in factories. • 1945 War Brides Act allowed veterans to bring spouses and children above the quota numbers. • 1946 allowed entry of those engaged to veterans; immigration quotas for India and the Philippines; • Chinese wives of American citizens not part of quota • 1948 Displaced Persons Act--preference to Baltic states while excluding more than 90 percent of displaced Jews; those admitted to be deducted from future quotas • 1950 eliminated racial impediment to American citizenship for those from Guam; all born there since 1899 became U.S. citizens • 1950 Internal Security Act--kept out present or past members of a Communist or Fascist party or their affiliates

30. Immigration Laws Cont. • 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act/McCarren-Walter Act repealed and codified earlier laws; removed all remaining racial prohibitions, but retained quotas; felony to bring in illegal aliens; first 50% of quota to those with skills considered valuable to the'U.S., rest to relatives of citizens and residents. • 1953 Refugee Relief Act-214,000 visas to victims of war and disaster, not counted against individual quotas • 1958 permanent immigrant status for 30,000 Hungarian refugees • 1962 Migration and Refugee Assistance Act--facilitated resettlement of Cubans and other international refugees • 1965 Immigration Reform Act--the amendments abolished quotas, also eliminated restrictions on Asians. Stressed family reunification. Allowed 120,000 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere, 170,000 from the rest of world; outside the Americas no country was to exceed 20,000. A welcome for extended families from Latin America and Asia. • 1966 Cuban Refugees Act established procedures for Cuban parolees to become permanent legal residents.

31. Immigration Laws Cont. • 1973 ended preference for the Western Hemisphere; no country to exceed 20,000 at a time when 62,000 were coming from Mexico each year. • 1976 Immigration Act. Immigration limited to 20,000 for each country in the Americas • 1977 Indochinese Refugee Act allowed Indochinese refugees to become permanent resident aliens, rather than "parolees" under the Attorney General's emergency parole authority. • 1980 Refugee Act. Routine admission for 50,000 refugees annually. The number could be raised in consultation with Congress. Not just those fleeing communism or the Middle East, but anyone who fled because of a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group membership--ifthey were deemed of "special humanitarian concern to the United States." • 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act gave legal status to those in the U.S. since January 1, 1982, making them eligible for eventual citizenship. Also, anyone who worked in "perishable agriculture" for ninety days prior to May 1986 qualified for legalization. The law prohibited employers from hiring illegal aliens. Authorized up to 5,000 supplemental visas annually for two years for countries from which immigration had dropped since 1965. Set aside 10,000 visas for "adversely affected" countries; 36 countries were invited to participate in a lottery.

32. Immigration Laws Cont. • 1990 Immigration Act amended the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which remains the basic law. The new law raised the total number of numerically limited immigrants entering the U.S. annually in FY 1992-94 to 700,000 (excluding refugees whose admission numbers are announced annually and some others not subject to limitation). The visas were distributed as follows: 465,000 for family immigrants; 55,000 for the spouses and children of aliens legalized under IRCA [Immigration and Control Act of 1986]; 140,000 for employment- based immigrants; 40,000 for nationals from "adversely affected" countries. Beginning in FY 1995 the number dropped from 700,000 to 675,000. These visas were distributed as follows: 480,000 for family immigrants; 140,000 for employment-based immigrants; 55,000 for "diversity immigrants." Under the latter category, the allotment of FY 1995 visa numbers for each region was as follows: Africa 20,200; Asia 6,837; Europe 24,549; North America (Bahamas) 8; South, Central, and Caribbean America 2,589; and Oceania 817. • 1996. Strengthened border patrols, restricted judicial authority to review deportation cases, set greater penalties for the smuggling of immigrants and voting by noncitizens. 1997. Resident aliens with felony convictions may be deported. 1997. Refugees from civil wars in Central America exempted from deportation rules; illegal immigrants on track to become legal residents are able to apply for visas in the U.S. without going home