IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Section 1: Immigration to the USA
In this booklet I am going to find out about:





Immigrants and the USA
– Push and pull
– Where immigrants came from
Is the USA a ‘melting pot’ or a ‘salad bowl’?
– A ‘melting pot’
– A ‘salad bowl’
Was the American Dream real?
Old and new immigrants
– WASPs
– New immigrants
Changing attitudes to immigration
In this booklet I am going to:
Investigate sources of evidence in order to explain historical
developments and events.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Topic 1: Immigrants and the American Dream
Immigrants are people who move from one country to another. If it is in
the past, then it would be people from the past (ancestors) who moved
from one country to another. The vast majority of white people living in
the United States of America (USA) today are either immigrants
themselves or their ancestors came to the USA as immigrants.
There was a huge increase in the number of white people in the USA
between 1800 and 1920. In 1800 there were 2 million people. By 1920,
there were 100 million people.
In this unit, you will investigate why so many people went to the USA.
The USA – the land of opportunity
In 1900, people thought the USA was the land of opportunity. They
believed in ‘the American Dream’.
The American Dream was that if they worked hard they would become
rich.
When they came to the USA, heading towards Liberty Island, the first
thing they saw was the Statue of Liberty.
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Activities
1.
What was the ‘American Dream’?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
2.
What kind of people did the Statue of Liberty welcome to the
USA? (Look at the box at the bottom of page 2.)
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
3.
What did the Statue of Liberty promise these people?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
4.
You must work with a partner to answer the follow questions. In
your pairs, discuss and then write down in the space below:
Why do you think the promises made on the Statue of Liberty
would attract people to the USA?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Push and pull
People leave their homes for two main reasons

They feel pushed away by things they do not like in their own
country.

They feel pulled by things in another country which attract them
there.
Activities
5.
Look at your answers to Questions 2 and 3 very carefully. These
provide reasons why people moved to the USA.
Which of these reasons do you think are ‘push’ factors and which
do you think are ‘pull’ factors? Beside each one factor, write down
why you think immigrants were ‘pushed’ or ‘pulled’ to the USA.
Factor
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Push or pull?
Explain
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Source A: An Italian immigrant gave these reasons for going to the USA.
I left Italy to make money. If I could have made money in Italy, I would
have stayed there, but I could not.
I was told the USA is the land of opportunity, so I came here.
6.
Write down three reasons this man had for going to the USA.
Beside each write down if it was a ‘push’ or a ‘pull’ reason.
(a)
(b)
(c)
7.
Explain why Source A is useful evidence about why people went
to The USA.
Using the information about Source A, decide which three
statements of the six below are accurate.
A.
Source A is a Primary Source.
B.
Source A is a Secondary Source.
C.
The purpose of Source A is to explain why the author left
Italy.
D.
The purpose of Source A is to explain the opportunities
people had in Italy.
E.
Source A gives useful information about the USA being the
land of opportunity.
F.
Source A gives useful information about how to make money
in Italy.
Write a letter in each of the boxes.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
The Magnet of Hope
This diagram shows people being attracted from Europe to the USA.
Activities
8.
How did people travel from Europe to the USA?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
9.
Complete this paragraph by using words from the box below it.
Between 1830 and 1930 many people from Europe went to the
USA. They were attracted by the American _________ or by the
Magnet of __________. They thought that if they worked hard
they would become _________. They knew that if they stayed in
their own country they would remain __________.
rich
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poor
Hope
Dream
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Which countries did immigrants come from?
Here is a list of countries that people left to go to the USA between
1851 and 1860:
Ireland
Germany
Austria
Britain
Italy
Poland
Russia
10. (a)
900,000
950,000
2,000
250,000
9,000
1,000
1,500
Which country did most people come from between 1851 and
1860?
__________________________________________________
(b)
Which country did the fewest people come from between
1851 and 1861?
__________________________________________________
Here is a list of countries that people left to go to the USA between
1881 and 1890:
Ireland
Germany
Austria
Britain
Italy
Poland
Russia
650,000
1,500,000
350,000
650,000
300,000
52,000
213,000
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
11. (a)
Which country did most people come from between 1881 and
1890?
__________________________________________________
(b)
Which country did the fewest people come from between
1881 and 1890?
__________________________________________________
Here is a list of countries that people left to go to the USA between
1911 and 1920:
Ireland
Germany
Austria
Britain
Italy
Poland
Russia
12. (a)
140,000
140,000
450,000
250,000
1,000,000
1,000,000
1,000,000
Which country did most people come from between 1911 and
1920?
__________________________________________________
(b)
Which country did the fewest people come from between
1911 and 1920?
__________________________________________________
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Study this map of Europe.
Use different colours to shade in the country that most people came
from


between 1851 and 1860
between 1911 and 1920.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
13. Describe how immigrants to the USA changed between 1851 and
1920. You should write one sentence starting ‘In 1851 …’ and a
second sentence starting ‘In 1920…’.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Source B is a report from the New York Police Department written in
1920.
These new immigrants are different from the people who came here
twenty years ago. Then, most of the immigrants spoke English or
German.
Now, we have Italians, Poles and Russians. We never heard these
languages twenty years ago!
14. (a)
Which languages did the Police Report say immigrants spoke
most in the past?
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
(b)
Which languages does the Police Report say immigrants
speak most in 1920?
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
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(c)
What changes were there in the languages immigrants spoke?
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
(d)
Write down two reasons why you think Source B gives useful
evidence about how immigrants changed in the 20 years
before 1920.
(You should think about reasons like who wrote the source, is
it a primary or a secondary source, why was it written, and
what does it tell us?)
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Topic 2: Is the USA a ‘melting pot’ or a ‘salad bowl’?
The ‘melting pot’
The idea of a melting pot is that lots of things are put into it and they
all melt to create something different and new.
It’s rather like melting sugar, butter and cream to make to ffee.
Some Americans like to think of the USA as a ‘melting pot’ with all
different nationalities living together and mixing in the one country.
Activities
1.
What is a ‘melting pot’?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
2.
In your own words explain why many Americans think of the USA
as a ‘melting pot’.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Source A In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson said:
America is made up of people from all over the world. I hope that the
different groups will all mix together to become American.
3.
What did President Wilson hope would happen in the USA?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Source B is what Thomas Jackson, another American politician said in
1920.
America is like a huge melting pot. Here, we mix all the races together
and create a new one – Americans.
4.
What did Thomas Jackson hope would happen in the USA?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
5.
Copy this diagram of the American ‘melting pot’ and write beside
it what you think it means.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Is the USA a ‘salad bowl’?
A salad bowl contains lots of nice things like lettuce, tomato, crunchy
carrots and onions. They are all mixed up, but each thing keeps its own
taste.
Some people think that the USA is more like a salad bowl because there
are lots of nationalities there but each is different.
Source C is what one person said in 1925.
Americans? There ain’t such a thing. Americans are a mix of every
people in the world!
Activities
6.
Does the author of Source C think there is such a thing as
Americans?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Give a reason for your answer.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
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Source D is what another person wrote at the same time.
We all had our own areas in the city. We called our area ‘Little Italy’
because all us Italians lived there. Just round the block was ‘Little
Poland’ and then there was ‘Little Russia’.
We spoke and ate and sang and prayed just like we had back home.
7.
Why does the author of Source D call his area ‘Little Italy?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
8.
Which other parts of the city does Source D mention?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
9.
Write down four things that kept these people different from each
other.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
10. Explain why some people thought of the USA as a ‘salad bowl’.
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
11. Complete this paragraph using the words in the box below.
There were two ideas about the USA in the 1920s. Some
Americans thought it was a Salad __________ where people would
keep their __________ but share being American. The other idea
was that The USA was a Melting __________ where people would
mix together to become __________.
Pot
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Bowl
American
differences
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flag
IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Topic 3: The American Dream
The American Dream was based on the idea that everyone c ould
become rich if they worked hard. It did not matter where they came
from or what their job was, they could become rich.
The American Dream: ‘old’ and ‘new’ immigrants
People had been moving to the USA for hundreds of years.
Old immigrants
‘Old immigrants’ were people whose families had lived in the USA for
many generations. Over the years, many of these families had made
money and they were well-off.
At first, most of the immigrants came from the north of Europe, from
the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. People from these countries are
called ‘Anglo-Saxons’ because they come from tribes of people who
were called Anglo Saxons.
Most of these immigrants were Protestant. There were some Roman
Catholics, especially from Ireland, but most were Protestant.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Most of the old immigrants had given up the language of their ancestors
and spoke English. As a result, the USA was an English-speaking
country.
These ‘old’ immigrants were often described
as ‘WASPs’.
They thought that all Americans should be
just like them.
Activities
1.
What were WASPs?
W_____________
A______________
S______________
P_____________________
2.
Where had their families come from?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
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3.
Which language did WASPs speak?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
4.
Which country did WASPs think they belonged to?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
‘Old immigrants’ and ‘new immigrants’
WASPs often looked down on ‘new’ immigrants.
Most of the new immigrants came from Southern Europe (Italy or
Greece) or from Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia). If you look back
at the work you did on pages 7 and 8, you will be able to see this. Their
home countries were very different to those of the WASPs.
Few of these new immigrants spoke English. This made the WASPs act
negatively towards them.
Many of the new immigrants were poor. This also made the WASPs act
negatively towards them.
Few of the new immigrants were Protestant. There were Roman
Catholics, Jews and Orthodox Christians from Eastern Europe. WASPs
did not like these different religions.
Many of the new immigrants settled in areas with people from their
own country. So cities had areas called ‘Little Italy’, ‘Little Poland’,
and ‘Chinatown’. The WASPs thought that they looked different and
were not ‘American’.
There was a lot of tension between the WASPs and the new immigrants.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Activities
5.
Complete this chart to show the differences between WASPs and
new immigrants.
WASPs
New immigrants
Language
Religion
Where they were
from
Money
WASPs were very suspicious of people who were different from them.
WASPs did not know much about these people. They made up their
minds because of ‘prejudice’. This means they had judged new
immigrants without even meeting any of these people. In other words,
they had already made up their minds about them!
Mixed in with prejudice were snobbery, racism and ignorance.
Activities
6.
Use a dictionary to find out what each of these words mean.
Snobbery
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Racism
______________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________
Ignorance
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
‘New’ immigrants and the ‘American Dream’
Sometimes it was not so easy for immigrants. This cartoon shows some
of the problems.
This new immigrant has some difficult fences to climb before he gets
money!
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Activities
7.
List these difficult fences and beside each write down why it was a
difficulty.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Topic 4: Changing attitudes to immigration
Until the 1920s almost anybody could move to the USA. This changed
in the 1920s for a number of reasons.
1.
Americans thought that there were not enough jobs for everyone
and that new immigrants would ‘steal’ their jobs by working for
less money.
2.
Americans did not want anyone with a criminal record or any
lunatics in case they spoiled life in the USA.
3.
Americans worried that new immigrants would not understand
them unless they spoke English. They made them pass a test in
English before they were allowed into the USA.
4.
Americans were worried that new immigrants would not be
‘patriotic’ and support the USA all of the time. During the First
World War, many Americans supported Germany because their
family had come from there. Americans began to worry that the
USA might split up.
5.
Americans were worried that there were not enough houses and
that rents would go up because the new immigrants would offer
more money for a home.
6.
Some Americans thought that immigrants with different skin
colours as well as South European immigrants would make the
USA less ‘American’.
7.
Americans were worried that new immigrants would bring in
dangerous new ideas from abroad such as Communism. They
thought Communism was ‘un-American’.
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
8.
Americans thought that if new immigrants worked for lower
wages, all wages as a result would be reduced. This would make
everyone poorer.
Activities
1.
Eight reasons have been identified as to why the USA wanted
fewer immigrants. Some of these reasons were about money,
others were about making the USA different and others were about
immigrants causing danger in the USA.
Group these reasons under the headings below.
Money
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Making the USA different
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Dangers to the USA
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
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IMMIGRATION TO THE USA
Summary
2.
Complete this summary note using words from the box below.
In the 1800s and early 1900s many people felt life was hard and
they were being __________ out of Europe. At the same time, the
____________ Dream __________ them to the USA. They
expected to work hard and to become __________.
In the USA ‘old __________’ hoped that new immigrants would
become just like them. They thought the USA was a
‘____________ Pot’ of nationalities. However, new immigrants
were different. They did not come from the UK, __________ and
Scandinavia. Instead they came from places like Poland, Russia
and __________.
In the USA, they kept their old ways of life and said that the USA
should be like a ‘__________ Bowl’.
This upset old immigrants. They also thought that new immigrants
would steal their __________ and __________. They thought they
might not support the USA in time of war or they might spread
dangerous ideas like __________. They passed new laws to make
sure new immigrants spoke __________ and were not
__________.
football
flag
WASPs
religion
houses
immigrants
jobs
pulled
American
Communism
Melting
criminals
Salad
Germany
English
colour
France
pushed
Italy
rich
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