Through Ellis Island and Angel Island: The Immigrant Experience Chapter 15.
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Transcript of Through Ellis Island and Angel Island: The Immigrant Experience Chapter 15.
Through Ellis Island and Angel Island: The Immigrant Experience
Chapter 15
Why Europeans Immigrated
• “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
• Where did immigrants come from?
Push / Pull Factors
• What is a push / pull factor?
• PUSH: population growth, hunger and religious persecution
• Pogroms – organized, anti-Jewish attacks
• PULL: opportunity, jobs, land and the sometimes misleading America letters
• “land of milk and honey…streets paved with gold…”
The Trip
• What too three months now took two weeks due to steamships
• Seasickness, spoiled food and filthy toilets
• Separation on the ship by class• What did third class passengers face?
Ellis Island
• “Six second exam”– Marked clothing with chalk (L,H,X and E)
– Faced possible deportation
• 29 Question Exam– “Do you have work waiting for you?” / Foran
Act of 1885
• About 2% of immigrants were denied entry– Ride on ferry to NYC
Urban Populations Explode
• Most immigrants settled in places like New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, etc.– Lived in areas with those who spoke the same
language – Riis’s imagined map of the city (p. 192)
American Response
• New immigrants had to “find their own way” financially
• Who could they rely on?– “pass the hat”
– Settlement Houses – established as a community center to help guide immigrants
• Political Bosses –
• Assimilation / Americanization• Happened with children at school, needing to fit in
American Response
• Cultural differences created backlash – Anarchy / Socialism
• Nativisim spreads like wildfire– Religious and cultural differences and economic
downturn fueled the fire
• By the 1920’s Congress had passed legislation to slow immigration– Became based on quota
Immigration from Asia
• Immigrants, mainly from China, came to strike it rich on Gold Mountain (California)– Majority were men, most ended up staying in
the US– Friction between white men and Chinese
immigrants grew over labor – Chinese worked for less
Immigration from Asia
• “…utter heathens, treacherous, sensual, cowardly, cruel…” - Henry George
• Chinese “could never be Americanized”– Mob violence towards Chinese– Economic woes blamed on Chinese– Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) – no
immigration of Chinese for 10 years
Angel Island
• “Ellis Island of the West”
• Detained for questioning– Asked extremely specific questions to prevent
Chinese from forging their way into the country
– Could be detained for weeks, months, even years
• Angel Island = miserable place
Other Asian Immigrant Groups
• Immigrants came as farm laborers and service industry workers from:– Korea, Philippines, and Japan
• Anti-Asian feelings caused segregation – led to a Gentleman’s Agreement between TR and Japan
• Japanese allowed emigrants, with certain family demands
Immigrants From North and South
• As immigration slowed from Asia, farmers found new laborers from Mexico– Higher wages and plentiful opportunity –
Mexican Revolution was also a push factor– Faced similar segregation and racist attitudes from white
people
• Canadians immigrated without many problems – hard to tell them apart
Three Great Waves
• What affects immigration?– Political and economic turmoil; grass is
greener theory
• Immigration has defined the US in its history