The Immigrant Experience

1
The Immigrant Experience

• EQ Should the United States be a melting pot
  or a salad bowl?

2
Basics

• Immigration
• Process by which millions of people left their
  home countries and moved to the United States.
  Process also includes the reaction to the
  immigrants by the U.S.
• Push/Pull Reasons why immigrants come to the
  United States
• Push People forced to leave their home country
• Pull People drawn to the United States for
  certain reasons

3
Pushes and Pulls
RECREATE THIS PUSH-PULL MAP!
Pushes
Pulls
Freedom, job opportunities, more opportunities in
general
Poverty, religious persecution, shortage of land,
lack of jobs
Disease, Drought, Famine
More space, abundance of natural resources
Unstable government, shunned criminal
Stable economy, justice, fresh start
continued . . .
4
Where are they Coming From?

1. c. 1815-1860----5 million mainly English, Irish,
   Germanic, Scandinavian, others from northwestern
   Europe
2. c. 1865-1890----10 million mainly from
   northwestern Europe
3. c. 1890-1914----15 million Austro-Hungarian,
   Turkish, Lithuanian, Russian, Jewish, Greek,
   Italian, Romanian

5
The Early Immigrants Western Europe
6
The Later Immigrants Eastern Europe
7
How many are coming?

8
The Journey

• Most immigrants traveled to America via steerage
  (ships lower level where steering mechanism is
  located)
• Trip long, uncomfortable, unsanitary!

9
Not Lookin So Comfortable!
10
Ellis Island The Gateway to America
11
Immigrants Unloading _at_ Ellis Island
12
Ellis Island

• Ellis Island welcomed new immigrants beginning in
  1892
• Immigrants experienced a battery of tests upon
  arrival
• Mental illness, trachoma, physical disabilities,
  cholera, TB

13
Families Awaiting Their Fate on Ellis Island
14
Where are People Going?

• Individuals tended to follow their group and
  settled close to their extended families

15
What happened once they got here?

• Culture Shock
• Problem faced by all immigrants trying to get
  used to the new culture
• Assimilation
• Abandoning the old culture and completely
  adopting the American culture ( to conform)
• Accommodation
• Refusing to abandon the old culture, language,
  etc. and instead incorporate the old with the new
• Melting Pot
• U.S. ideal everyone brings a little bit and it
  melts into one new U.S. culture

16
Immigrant Life

• Immigrants settled in clusters of familiarity
• Tenements poorly built, overcrowded apartments

17
Immigrant Work

• Long hours / low pay
• 10 hrs a day, 6 days a week
• Harsh conditions
• Many unskilled in manufacturing
• Construction, garment, steel
• Wherever the heat is mostscorching, the smock
  and soot most choking - Hungarian Immigrant

18
Benevolent Societies

• Aid organizations, aka, settlement houses -
  founded to provide help in cases of sickness,
  unemployment, and death

19
How did the United States React?

• Nativism
• Favoritism towards native-born Americans
  socially acceptable discrimination against
  non-natives

20
Immigrant Restrictions

• Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) - prohibited Chinese
  people from immigrating to the U.S. for 10 years
• Immigration Restriction League (1884) - All
  immigrants prove they could read and write before
  allowing entry
• Hoped to limit immigration from Eastern and
  Southern Europe and preserve immigration from
  Western and Northern Europe.

21
Your In-Class Assignment!

• Put yourselves in the shoes of an immigrant (if
  they had shoes) and, in your notebook, write four
  journal entries from his or her perspective.
• 1st Journal Entry Conditions in home-country
• 2nd Journal Entry Journey to America
• 3rd Journal Entry Ellis Island Experience
• 4th Journal Entry New life in America
• Each entry should be AT LEAST a half-page of
  quality, relevant thoughts of what an immigrant
  might have been thinking and feeling during this
  time!
• Dont forget to label each entry
• 15 pts per entry!