Lesson 1: A New Wave of Immigration

Question 1

Acculturation Definition

Answer 1

process of holding on to older traditions while adapting to a new culture

Question 2

Chinese Exclusion Act Definition

Answer 2

1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States

Question 3

Nativist Definition

Answer 3

an American who sought to limit immigration and preserve the country for native-born, white Protestants

Question 4

Pogrom Definition

Answer 4

in Eastern Europe, an organized attack on a Jewish community

Question 5

Pull Factor Definition

Answer 5

a condition that attracts people to move to a new area

Question 6

Push Factor Definition

Answer 6

a condition that drives people from their homeland

Question 7

Statue of Liberty Definition

Answer 7

a large statue symbolizing hope and freedom on Liberty Island in New York Harbor

Question 8

Steerage Definition

Answer 8

on a ship, the cramped quarters for passengers paying the lowest fares

Question 9

Between 1865 and 1915, how many immigrants entered into the United States? How does Andreas Ueland’s, a Norwegian author, quote show the feelings of immigrants coming to America?

Answer 9

Between 1865 and 1915, more than 25 million immigrants poured into the United States. They came full of hope and excitement but also with anxiety, as this quote from a Norwegian immigrant shows:

There was left the choice to stay home and wait for something to turn up, go out as a laborer or to learn a trade, or to sea, or to America! … Then west by train on road and route not known to us. We saw mountains, which must have been the Alleghenies, and felt much depressed. Was that America? Had we been fooled? We expected to see flat ground with no timber or boulders to clear. When we came far enough to see that kind of country our spirits rose again….

—Norwegian author Andreas Ueland, from Recollections of an Immigrant

Question 10

What were push factors? What were pull factors? What was a popular pull factor for immigrants during the 1865-1915 time period?

Answer 10

Immigrants such as Ueland came to the United States for many reasons. Push factors are conditions that drive people from their homes. Pull factors are conditions that attract immigrants to a new area. For example, an industrial boom in the United States had created a huge need for workers that drew many immigrants.

Question 11

How did scarcity of land, religious and political persecution, and political unrest serve as push factors for immigrants?

Answer 11

European immigrants were often small farmers or landless farmworkers. As European populations grew, land became scarce. Small farms could barely support the families that worked them. In some areas, new farm machines replaced farmworkers. Political or religious persecution drove many people from their homes. In Russia, the government supported pogroms (POH grahmz), or organized attacks on Jewish villages. Persecution and violence also pushed Armenian Christians out of the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey). Political unrest was another push factor. After 1910, a revolution erupted in Mexico. Thousands of Mexicans crossed the border into the southwestern United States.

Question 12

What were some pull factors for immigrants? What was the predominant one? How did Americans advertise immigration?

Answer 12

Industrial jobs were the chief pull factor for immigrants. American factories needed labor. Factory owners sent agents to Europe and Asia to hire workers at low wages. Steamship companies offered low fares for the ocean crossing. Railroads posted notices in Europe advertising cheap land in the American West. Often, one family member—usually a young, single male—made the trip. Once settled, he would send for family members to join him. As immigrants wrote home describing the “land of opportunity,” they pulled other neighbors from the “old country.” For example, one out of every ten Greeks immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s. The promise of freedom was another pull factor. Many immigrants were eager to live in a land where police could not arrest or imprison them without a reason and where freedom of religion was guaranteed to all by the Bill of Rights.

Question 13

What conditions did immigrants have to endure on their trips to America?

Answer 13

Leaving home required great courage. The voyage across the Atlantic or Pacific was often miserable. Most immigrants could afford only the cheapest berths. Shipowners jammed up to 2,000 people in steerage, the airless rooms below deck. On the return voyage, cattle or cargo filled the same spaces. In such close quarters, disease spread rapidly. An outbreak of measles infected every child on one German immigrant ship. The dead were thrown into the water “like cattle,” reported a horrified passenger.

Question 14

For most European immigrants, where did their journey end? What did the Statue of Liberty, dedicated in 1886, become a symbol of? How did the poem carved at its base portray its symbolism?

Answer 14

For most European immigrants, the voyage ended in New York City (Ellis Island). Sailing into the harbor, they were greeted by the giant Statue of Liberty. Dedicated in 1886, it became a symbol of hope and freedom. A poem of welcome was carved on the base:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

—Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”

Question 15

What were the protocols of the new receiving station on Ellis Island opened in 1892? What happened to a small percentage of immigrants who could not meet the protocols?

Answer 15

In 1892, a new receiving station opened on Ellis Island. Here, immigrants had to face a dreaded medical inspection. Doctors watched newcomers climb a long flight of stairs. Anyone who limped or appeared out of breath might be stopped. Doctors also examined eyes, ears, and throats. The sick had to stay on Ellis Island until they got well. A small percentage who failed to regain full health were sent home.

Question 16

Why were the names of immigrants changed on Ellis Island in order for officials to fulfill the medical examination?

Answer 16

With hundreds of immigrants to process each day, officials had only minutes to check each new arrival. To save time, they often changed names that they found hard to spell. Krzeznewski became Kramer. Smargiaso ended up as Smarga. Even the first name of one Italian immigrant was changed, from Bartolomeo to Bill.

Question 17

Why did the presence of family in America deem some immigrants lucky?

Answer 17

Lucky immigrants went directly into the welcoming arms of friends and relatives. Many others stepped into a terrifying new land whose language and customs they did not know.

Question 18

On Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, what did Americans do to discourage Asian immigration, which grew rapid after 1910? How did poetry scratched in walls by the Asian immigrants portray their feelings?

Answer 18

After 1910, many Asian immigrants were processed on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Because Americans wanted to discourage Asian immigration, new arrivals often faced long delays. Many Asian immigrants scratched their feelings in poetry on the wall.

Lin, upon arriving in America, Was arrested, put in a wooden building,

And made a prisoner.

I was here for one autumn.

The Americans did not allow me to land.

I was ordered to be deported.

—Taoist from the Town of Iron

Despite such obstacles, many Asians were able to make a home in the United States. Many, however, faced a difficult adjustment.

Question 19

Why did the Statue of Liberty become a symbol of hope and freedom?

Answer 19

The Statue of Liberty became a symbol of hope and freedom because it indicated that the long journey across the ocean was over and instilled a sense of the possibility that better opportunities awaited the immigrants.

Question 20

When immigrants arrived, how did they shift their expectations to their reality? How was this seen with American roads, as one immigrant described?

Answer 20

Many immigrants had heard stories that the streets in the United States were paved with gold. Once they arrived, they had to adjust to reality. “First,” reported one immigrant, “the streets were not paved with gold. Second, they were not paved at all. Third, they expected me to pave them.”

Question 21

As soon as immigrants landed they looked for work. Which people and agencies helped them find jobs?

Answer 21

Newcomers immediately set out to find work. European peasants living off the land had had little need for money, but it took cash to survive in the United States. Through friends, relatives, labor contractors, and employment agencies, the new arrivals found jobs.

Question 22

Where did immigrants often stay? What happened as city slums became packed with immigrants?

Answer 22

Immigrants often stayed in the cities where they landed. Cities were the seat of industrial work. City slums soon became packed with poor immigrants. By 1900, one neighborhood in New York’s Lower East Side had become the most crowded place in the world.

Question 23

How did immigration patterns change in the late 1800s? (People)

Answer 23

Immigration patterns changed in the late 1800s. Most earlier immigrants had been Protestants from northern and western Europe. Those from England and some from Ireland already spoke English. The early wave of English, Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians became known as “old immigrants.” At first, Irish Catholics and other groups faced discrimination. In time, they were drawn into American life. After 1885, millions of “new immigrants” arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe. They included Italians, Poles, Greeks, Russians, and Hungarians. On the West Coast, a smaller but growing number of Asian immigrants arrived, mostly from China and, later, from Japan. There were also a few immigrants from Korea, India, and the Philippines. Few of these new immigrants spoke English. Many of the Europeans were Catholic, Jewish, or Eastern Orthodox. Immigrants from Asia might be Buddhist or Daoist. Set apart by language and religion, they found it harder to adapt to a new life.

Question 24

How did settling into their own neighborhoods help immigrants?

Answer 24

Immigrants eased into their new lives by settling in their own neighborhoods. Large American cities became patchworks of Italian, Irish, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, German, Jewish, and Chinese neighborhoods. Within these neighborhoods, newcomers spoke their own language, celebrated special holidays, and prepared foods as in the old country. Italians joined clubs such as the Sons of Italy. Hungarians bought and read Hungarian newspapers.

Question 25

How did religion impact immigrant family life?

Answer 25

Religion stood at the center of immigrant family life. Houses of worship both united and separated ethnic groups. Catholics from Italy worshipped in Italian neighborhood parishes. Those from Poland worshipped in Polish parishes. Jewish communities divided into Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative branches.

Question 26

How did the first generation of immigrants use the process of acculturation to fit in?

Answer 26

As newcomers struggled to adjust, they were often torn between old traditions and American ways. The first generation to arrive went through a process of acculturation. Acculturation is the process of holding on to older traditions while adapting to a new culture. Immigrants learned how to use American institutions such as schools, factories, and the political system. At the same time, they tried to keep their traditional religions, family structures, and community life. In their effort to adapt, immigrants blended old and new ways. For example, some newcomers mixed their native tongues with English. Italians called the Fourth of July “Il Forte Gelato,” a phrase that actually means “the great freeze.” In El Paso, Texas, Mexican immigrants developed Chuco, a blend of English and Spanish.

Question 27

Why did children adapt quickly to American culture?

Answer 27

Children adapted to the new culture more quickly than their parents. They learned English in school and then helped their families to speak it. Because children wanted to be seen as Americans, they often gave up customs that their parents honored. They played American games and dressed in American-style clothes.

Question 28

Who were nativists? What made nativists ideals highly popular during the new wave of immigration? What did nativists use as an argument against immigrants?

Answer 28

Even before the Civil War, Americans known as nativists sought to limit immigration and preserve the country for native-born, white Protestants. As immigration boomed in the late 1800s, nativist feelings reached a new peak. Nativists argued that immigrants would not fit into American culture because their languages, religions, and customs were too different. Many workers resented the new immigrants because they took jobs for low pay. Others feared them because they were different. One magazine described all immigrants as “long-haired, wild-eyed, bad-smelling, atheistic, reckless foreign wretches, who never did an honest hour’s work in their lives.”

Question 29

True or False: Wherever new immigrants settled, nativist pressure grew. Nativists targeted Jews and Italians in the Northeast and Mexicans in the Southwest. On the West Coast, nativists worked to end immigration from China.

Answer 29

True

Question 30

Since which gold rush had Chinese Immigrants been helping to build the West? What were their communities called? What did many Chinese, and other, immigrants hope to do in America? What ended up happening?

Answer 30

Since the California Gold Rush, Chinese immigrants had helped build the West. Most lived in cities in tight-knit communities called “Chinatowns.” Others farmed for a living.
Most Americans did not understand Chinese customs. Also, some Chinese did not try to learn American ways. Like many other immigrants, they planned to stay only until they made a lot of money. They hoped to then return home to live out their lives as rich and respected members of Chinese society. When that dream failed, many Chinese settled in the United States permanently.

Question 31

How did prejudice and violence against Chinese people grow? What was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882? What did it state and do? The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first law to do what in the United States? After multiple renewals, when was it finally repealed?

Answer 31

As the numbers of Chinese grew, so did the prejudice and violence against them. Gangs attacked and sometimes killed Chinese people, especially during hard times. Congress responded to this anti-Chinese feeling by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. It barred Chinese laborers from entering the country. In addition, no Chinese person who left the United States could return. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law to exclude a specific national group from immigrating to the United States. Congress renewed the original 10-year ban several times. It was finally repealed in 1943.

Question 32

In 1887, nativists formed the American Protective Association. What did they campaign for? Despite bills that tried to stop illiterate immigrants from entering America, how did President Grover Cleveland start the trend of vetoing such bills? After three later presidents did the same, when did Congress finally override President Woodrow Wilson’s veto?

Answer 32

In 1887, nativists formed the American Protective Association. The group campaigned for laws to restrict immigration. Congress responded by passing a bill that denied entry to people who could not read their own language. President Grover Cleveland vetoed the bill. It was wrong, he said, to keep out peasants just because they had never gone to school. Three later Presidents vetoed similar bills. However, in 1917, Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, and the bill became law.