negative impact of immigration

• Negative Impact of Immigration


  • Social division and tension
  • Gangs
  • Hate crime
  • Xenophobia
  • Sectarianism-Little Italy, China Town, Jewish Ghetto in Lower East Side
  • Districts of big cities became 'Irish', or 'German', or 'Chinatown'
  • Gang warfare-for example the Orange Riots between Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics in New York in 1870 and 1871
  • Anti immigration feeling from WASPs and Nativist groups
  • Strain on resources-jobs and housing (spread of disease particularly in Ghettos)
  • Strike breakers
  • Fear and distrust of Russian and Eastern European immigrants due to the Russian Revolution 1917
  • Exploitation of immigrants by bosses
  • By 1890, 68% of cigar makers and 52% of laundry workers were immigrants
• The suburb of Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati in Ohio became a community of unmistakably German cultural traditions
• Milwaukee in Wisconsin became a German American city of breweries and German language newspapers
• Powerful Irish gangs dominated Chicago's South Side from the 1870s, terrorising immigrant groups who arrived in the city, such as Italians, Jews and Poles
• Some immigrants not contributing to the economy as they are sending surplus money back home
• Lots of immigrants worked 'cash in hand' - so not paying tax thus not contributing to the economy
• Black Market links - not contributing to the economy
• Prohibition was blamed on immigrants by WASPS-led to immigrant gangs selling illegal alcohol
• US taxes funding immigrant education
• Immigrants accused of taking jobs which native born Americans could have done e.g. Catholic Italians employed in large numbers on the New York subway
• Immigrant workers were forced into occupations no one else wanted
• 1877 the Irish Working Man's Party rampaged through China Town destroying 25 Chinese laundries
• There was a particularly strong reaction against ChineseAmericans, with newspapers and politicians campaigning fiercely to stop the "Yellow Peril' of Chinese immigration
• Chinese workers provided half the labour force for San Francisco's key industries: boots and shoes, wool textiles, tobacco and cigar-making, and sewing
• Chinese workers were cheap, hard-working and caused few social disturbances
• The economic depression that followed the 1873 stock market panic also accentuated fears that cheap Chinese labour would undermine white workers
• By 1879, President Hayes was warning America about the present Chinese invasion'
• The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress three years later. The Act was the first-ever restriction on immigration to specify a particular ethnic group
• Government Response to Immigration


  • 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
  • 1891 Immigration Act
  • 1908 Japanese immigration banned
  • 1917 Literacy Act
• Immigrants contributed to the development of the economy as they provided labour for key industries
• Housing in cities was often poverty stricken and full of disease

  e.g., nee york