Theme 2. American People

• Why do people migrate or immigrate?

  • Refugee/asylum (người tị nạn) (religious, political, disaster, etc.)
  • Economic difficulty at home
  • Family
  • Professional development

  *Much immigration occurs for economic reasons.

  E.g. Japan and Germany needs Vietnamese nurses because of their aging population

  U.S needs Indian skilled workers from India for IT jobs
• The first Americans

  • At least 14.000 years ago, the first American immigrants were Asian hunters getting to America across a land bridge where the Bering Strait is today. 
  • About 1.5 million Native Americans lived in America before 1492.
  • Native Americans got the name ‘Indians’ because Christopher Columbus named the discovered land the ‘West Indies’, which means ‘India in the West’. 
  • We call these people the ‘indigenous people of the Americas’, or native American Indians.
• The first European explorers & early settlers

  • Columbus's first foot (1492)

  => The British pilgrims (Người hành hương) (Puritans) (người Thanh giáo) escaped religious persecution (sự đàn áp tôn giáo) from Great Britain and arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620

  => Jan 1776: Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense: "Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum (nơi trú ẩn) for the persecuted (bị bức hại) lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe."
• European Immigrants

  • 1st wave (16th-18th centuries): mostly settlers from the British Isles attracted by economic opportunity and religious freedom
  • A mix of wealthy individuals and servants 
  • Mostly Puritans (người Thanh Giáo) (English Protestants) (Người Anh theo đạo Tin Lành)
  • 2nd wave (1840s-1850s): Irish, German, and Scandinavian immigrants
  • Fled famine (chạy trốn nạn đói), religious persecution (đàn áp tôn giáo), and political conflicts 

  Mostly Catholics (người Công giáo)
• 1790: Naturalization Act (Đạo luật Nhập tịch) allowing any free white person of “good character” living in the U.S. for two years or longer to apply for citizenship
• 1815: Immigrant influx (làn sóng nhập cư) from Western Europe
• 1819: Many newcomers arrive sick or dying from their long journey across the Atlantic (Đại Tây Dương). The immigrants overwhelmed (tràn ngập) major port cities (thành phố cảng lớn), including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston. In response, the U.S. passed the Steerage Act (Đạo luật Chỉ đạo) of 1819 requiring better conditions on ships carrying immigrants.
• 1849: America’s first anti-immigrant political party - Know-Nothing Party - formed as a backlash (phản ứng dữ dội) to the increasing number of German and Irish immigrants
• 1875: Following the Civil War (1861-1865), some states passed their own immigration laws. In 1875 the Supreme Court (Tòa án Tối cao) declared that it was the responsibility of the federal government (chính phủ liên bang) to make (ban hành) and enforce (thực thi) immigration laws.
• Slavery in America assumedly (được cho là) started in 1619, when 20 African slaves seized (bị bắt bởi) from a Portuguese slave ship were brought ashore (đưa lên bờ) in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia
• Throughout the 17th century, the forced migration (cuộc di cư cưỡng bức), called the Middle Passage, brought enslaved Africans as a cheaper, more plentiful labor source for European settlers (người định cư)
• The years 1830 to 1860 were the worst in the history of African-American enslavement.
• American Civil War (1861-1865): brought freedom to black slaves
• The Underground Railroad (Tuyến hỏa xa ngầm) (late 18th century to the Civil War)

  • A vast network of individual people - many whites but pre-dominantly black - who helped fugitive slaves (những nô lệ chạy trốn) escape to the North and to Canada
  • Effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year
  • The South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850
• Cotton was highly profitable (đem lại lợi nhuận cao) but extremely labor-intensive (tốn nhiều công sức)

  ⇒ Native Indians (Người da đỏ bản địa) driven out of their land and African slaves brought in
• The Trail of Tears (1838) removed the native Indians from the South, resettling (tái định cư) them to ‘Indian Territory’ to give the richest cotton soil to the white. This removal, following the Louisiana Purchase, created vast lands for cotton.
• The number of slaves needed in the new cotton states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana demanded slave labor traded at more than tripled price (rising from $500 in New Orleans in 1800 to $1,800 by 1860, the equivalent (tương đương) of $30,000 in 2005)
• The dominant motto of the era (Phương châm chủ đạo của thời đại): “Cotton is King!”

  • One of the greatest periods in economic expansion and profitability (lợi nhuận) in American history
  • Also took a costly Civil War and the loss of more than 600,000 lives to end it
• DACA

  Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
• DACA policy implemented under the Obama administration

  2012
• DACA

  • Allows certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation (Cho phép một số người nhập cư không có giấy tờ đã vào nước này khi còn là trẻ vị thành niên được gia hạn thời hạn hai năm hoãn bị trục xuất)
  • Provides eligibility for a work permit
• Dreamers


  Young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children
• To qualify for DACA, individuals must meet certain requirements related to their age, education, and criminal background
• DACA is aimed at providing temporary relief to young undocumented immigrants while a more permanent solution to their immigration status is sought (đang được tìm kiếm)
• From 1892 - 1924, immigrants reached Ellis Island in New York harbor by ship.
• An immigrant's health problems could disqualifying him/her from entering the country
• 20% of immigrants were kept and asked for more questions or sent back home.
• Accepted immigrants still had difficulty because a majority of them spoke little or no English and few of them had money.
• In the U.S., immigrants joined together to form communities.
• Over time, many immigrants went west to work on farms, in factories, set up new businesses and become skilled workers
• Thousands of people have moved to the southwest of the U.S. from Mexico and Central America.
• Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) & DREAMERS

  • June 15, 2012: Homeland Security announced that certain people who illegally came to the U.S. as children and meet several guidelines may request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal. They are also eligible for work authorization. DACA does not provide lawful status. About 800,000 applicants made their dreams in the U.S
• • September, 2017: Trump moved to terminate (chấm dứt) this Obama-era policy. 
  • January 20, 2021: President Biden issued a memorandum directing the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, to take appropriate action to preserve and fortify DACA, consistent with applicable law. (Tổng thống Biden ban hành một bản ghi nhớ chỉ đạo Bộ trưởng An ninh Nội địa, với sự tham vấn của Bộ trưởng Tư pháp, thực hiện hành động thích hợp để duy trì và củng cố DACA, phù hợp với luật hiện hành)
• Central American migrant caravans 

  • Migrants traveling from Central America to the Mexico–United States border to seek asylum 
• Central American migrant caravans 

  • The largest and best known of these organized by Pueblo Sin Fronteras (Village Without Borders) that set off during Holy Week in early 2017 and 2018 from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA)
  • In early 2021, first migrant caravans departed for the U.S. from Honduras
• Central American migrant caravans (Đoàn lữ hành di cư Trung Mỹ)

  • International Committee for the Red Cross: "The combination of COVID-19, social exclusion, violence and climate-related disasters that occur at the same time with a magnitude seldom seen before in Central America raises new humanitarian challenges.''

  (Ủy ban Chữ thập đỏ Quốc tế: “Sự kết hợp giữa COVID-19, sự loại trừ xã hội, bạo lực và các thảm họa liên quan đến khí hậu xảy ra cùng lúc với mức độ nghiêm trọng hiếm thấy trước đây ở Trung Mỹ đặt ra những thách thức nhân đạo mới.”)
• GO WEST: FROM A CALL FOR COLONIZATION TO A POP SONG

  “Go west, young man”

  • A call attributed to American politician and newspaper editor Horace Greeley in 1865 (Một cuộc gọi được cho là của chính trị gia và biên tập viên báo chí người Mỹ Horace Greeley vào năm 1865)
  • An appeal to the continued western expansionism that led European settlers west (Lời kêu gọi chủ nghĩa bành trướng phương Tây đang tiếp tục dẫn dắt những người châu Âu định cư về phía Tây)

  ⇒ Establishment of key pieces of the nation - California, for example - during the 19th century