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Kalapodas 8 Dec. 1999 History 101 Dr. Tassinari Immigration: The New American Paul Kalapodas 8 Dec. 1999 Immigration For many, immigration to the United States during the late 19th to early 20th century would be a new beginning to a prosperous life. However there were many acts and laws past to limit the influx of immigrants, do to prejudice, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. Later on into the 20th century there would be laws repealing the older immigration laws and acts making it possible for many more foreigners to immigrate to the United States. Even with the new acts and laws that banned the older ones, no one can just walk right in and become a citizen. One must go through several examinations and tests before he or she can earn their citizenship. The Immigration Act of March 3, 1891 was the first comprehensive law for national control of immigration. It established the Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department to administer all immigration laws (except the Chinese Exclusion Act). This Immigration Act also added to the inadmissible classes. The people in these classes were inadmissible to enter into the United States. The people in these classes were, those suffering from a contagious disease, and persons convicted of certain crimes. The Immigration Act of March 3, 1903 and The Immigration Act of February 20, 1907 added further categories to the inadmissible list. Immigrants were screened for their political beliefs. Immigrants who were believed to be anarchists or those who advocated the overthrow of government by force or the assassination of a public officer were deported. This act was made mainly do to the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. On February 5, 1917 another immigration act was made. This Act codified all previous exclusion provisions and added the exclusion of illiterate aliens form entering into the United States. It also created a ?barred zone?(Asia-Pacific triangle), whose natives were also inadmissible. This Act made Mexicans inadmissible. It insisted that all aliens pay a head tax of $8 dollars. However, because of the high demand for labor in the southwest, months later congress let Mexican workers (braceros) to stay in the U.S. under supervision of state government for six month periods. A series of statutes were made in 1917,1918, and 1920. The sought to define more clearly which aliens were admissible and which aliens were deportable. These decisions were made mostly on the aliens? political beliefs. They formed these statutes in reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which led to a Russian economic recession and a surge of immigrants used to communistic ideals bringing along with them a red scare. The Immigration act of May 26, 1924 consolidated all of the statutes and laws in the past. It also established a quota system designed to favor the Northwestern Europeans because others were deemed less likely to support the American American Immigration Policy Immigration has held a major role in shaping our country. Immigrants have provided many things such as customs, manufacturing, inventions, and entertainment. Many people today don’t realize how greatly we have been affected by immigration. A survey was given to ten people. The survey contained a list of people who were all immigrantsGermany?s loss was America?s gain. The hand of Germans in shaping American life was widely felt in still other ways. The Conestoga wagon, the Kentucky rifle, and the Christmas tree were all German contributions to American culture. Accustomed to the “Continental Sunday” and uncured by Puritan tradition, they made merry on the Sabbath and drank huge quantities of an amber beverage called bier (beer), which dates its real popularity in America to their coming.
The migration of eastern European Jews reveals still a different pattern. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one-third of the Jew living in eastern Europe left there, and 90 percent of those came to the United States. The largest number of eastern European Jews came from Russia, comprising nearly one-eighth of all immigrants after 1900. Overpopulation, industrialization that reduced the demand for skilled craftsmen, and legal constraints on Jews all contributed to the choice to leave. Religious persecution, however, was undoubtedly the most important single reason for their migration. Pogroms occurred sporadically throughout these decades, notably in Russia in the early 1880?s and from 1903 to 1906. This religious dimension marked Jewish immigration as different: whole communities chose to emigrate, including businessmen, professionals, and intellectuals as well as works and farmers. They became the most urban of immigrant groups, setting initially in the ci!
ties of the Northeast, especially New York, where half of all eastern European Jews in the United States resided in 1914.
Before 1920, Jews had arrived in two stages – a trickle from Germany in the mind – nineteenth century followed by a torrent from Eastern Europe in the years between 1890 and 1920. Unusual among the New Immigrants, Eastern European Jews had migrated as families and without a thought of return. By 1935 even these late arrivals had entered the middle class. Children of immigrant tailors and peddler, they had risen to white-collar jobs, meanwhile founding numerous institutions to ease adjustment to American life. Countless immigrant women found their first American employment in shops.
Despite such successes, the American Jewish community was not prepared for the catastrophe of Hitler?s Holocaust in Europe. Jews had long fought to convince their fellow Americans of their loyalty, and many now reared that a old advocacy of intervention in Europe during the isolationist 1930s would undo their years of effort. The circumspect American Jewish Conference, dominated by wealthy German Jews, clashed with the more aggressive American Jewish congress, made up mostly of Eastern European Jews. Such internal bickering compromised the political effectiveness of the American Jewish community, hampering its efforts to persuade the Roosevelt administration to rescue the European Jews or to open safe havens for them in the United States and Palestine profit-seeking.
During the written essay, I know that even now the phenomenon of immigration over and over again
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