Immigration

• 25 million immigrants came between 1865 and 1915 searching for jobs
• Push factors are conditions that drive people from their homes
• Pull factors are conditions that attract immigrants to a new area
• Push factor: European small farmers/landless farm workers couldn't make enough money as the population grew and land grew scarce. Some farm machines also replaced workers
• Push factor: Political and religious persecution -- porgroms in Russia, persecution of Armenian Christians in the Ottoman Empire, political unrest (like the 1910 revolution in Mexico)
• Pogroms were organized attacks on Jewish villages
• Pull factor: industrial jobs -- factory workers were needed (used European and Asian workers for low wages), and steamship companies offered low fares for ocean crossing, and railroads (cheap American land was advertised in Europe)
• Pull factor: land of opportunity--1 in 10 Greeks came to the U.S. in the late 1800s
• Often one immigrant family member came first then brought the family -- Birds of Passage
• Pull factor: promise of freedom -- we have a Bill of Rights listing freedoms, including freedom of religion
• Immigrant's journey across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean was often miserable
• Most immigrants could only afford the cheapest berths, so 2,000 people were jammed in steerage
• Steerage are airless rooms below deck
• On the return voyage, cattle and cargo filled the steerage where people had been
• Disease spread rapidly in steerage -- a measles outbreak infected every single child on one German immigrant ship, the dead were thrown overboard
• Most European immigrants landed in New York City
• In NYC, immigrants were greeted by the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of hope and freedom dedicated in 1886
• In 1892, a new receiving station opened on Ellis Island
• At Ellis Island, there were dreaded medical inspections
• The Six Second Physical is when doctors watched immigrants at Ellis Island walk up the flight of stairs to the second floor, stopping them if they limped or seemed short of breath
• Doctors at Ellis Island examined immigrants' eyes, ears, and throats -- the sick had to stay on Ellis Island until they recovered, if they didn't fully recover, they would be sent home
• Hundreds of immigrants were processed at Ellis Island every day -- officials worked fast, and often changed the spelling of names they found difficult to spell.
• Some immigrants arrived to family, others were faced with a completely unknown land
• Many Asian immigrants were processed on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay after 1910
• Americans wanted to discourage Asian immigration, so Asian immigrants at Angel Island often faced long delays
• Many Asian immigrants were still able to make homes in the U.S. despite struggles at Angel Island, but they faced a difficult adjustment and lots of discrimination
• "Old" immigrants were the early wave of northern and northwestern Europeans from England, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia
• Irish and Catholic old immigrants were discriminated against at first, but were quickly drawn into American life
• Most "old" immigrants already knew English
• "New" immigrants were from southern and eastern Europe -- Italians, Poles, Greeks, Russians, Hungarians. There were also some Asian immigrants -- China at first, then Japan, Korea, and the Philippines
• Few "new" immigrants spoke English
• "New" European immigrants were Catholic, Jewish, or Eastern Orthodox, and many of the Asians were Buddhist or Daoist
• Set apart by religion and language, "new" immigrants found it more difficult to adapt to American life
• Immigrants expected American streets to be paved with gold, but they weren't, and immigrants were forced to work extra hard
• Immigrants immediately searched for jobs and cash after arriving
• Relatives, friends, labor contractors,and employment agencies helped immigrants find jobs
• Most immigrants stayed in the industrial cities to landed in
• City slums became packed with poor immigrants
• One neighborhood on the lower east side of NYC became the most crowded neighborhood in the world due to immigrants
• Various neighborhoods of Italian, Irish, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, German, Jewish, and Chinese immigrants were establsihed