New Immigrants in a Promised
Land
• Why did millions of immigrants decide to make the
difficult journey to the United States?
• What problems did the “new immigrants” face in
adapting to American life?
• Why were some Americans opposed to increased
immigration?
Chapter 21, Section 1
Why Immigrants Came
Push Factors
• Scarce land
• Farm jobs lost to new machines
• Political and religious
persecution
• Revolution
• Poverty and hard lives
Pull Factors
• Promise of freedom
• Family or friends already settled
in the United States
• Factory jobs available
Chapter 21, Section 1
The New Immigrants
• The voyage across the
ocean was often miserable.
• Ship owners jammed up to
2,000 people in steerage,
the airless rooms below
deck.
• For most European
immigrants, the voyage
ended in New York City,
where they were greeted by
the Statue of Liberty, a
symbol of hope and
freedom.
• First, immigrants had to
go through a receiving
station.
• After 1892, the receiving
station in New York was
on Ellis Island. Here
they had a medical
inspection. The few who
appeared unhealthy
were sent home.
• Often, if American
officials had trouble
spelling immigrants’
names, they simply
changed them
• After 1910, many
Asian immigrants
entered through
Angel Island in San
Francisco Bay.
• To discourage
Asian immigration,
new arrivals were
often delayed on
the island for a long
time.
•
Immigrants from both
Europe and Asia
faced a new land
whose language and
customs they did not
know.
• Many immigrants had
unrealistic expectations
about what they would
find in the United States.
They had to adjust to
reality.
• In large American cities,
immigrants packed into
city slums. The
immigrants tended to
settle in their own
neighborhoods, where
people spoke their own
language and carried on
their own customs.
• Newcomers were
faced with learning
American ways.
• They struggled
with acculturation,
the process of
holding on to older
traditions while
adapting to the
ways of a new
culture.
• Children
acculturated more
quickly
•
Even before the Civil War,
nativists tried to limit
immigration and preserve the
country for native-born white
Protestants.
•
Nativitists argued that
immigrants would not fit into
American culture.
•
Many workers resented the
immigrants for working for low
pay.
•
Other people feared them
because they were different.
•
Nativists targeted Jews and
Italians in the Northeast,
Mexicans in the Southwest,
and Asians on the Pacific
Coast.
• In the West, as the
Chinese population
grew, so did prejudice
and violence against
them.
• Congress passed the
Chinese Exclusion Act,
which barred Chinese
laborers from entering
the country. No one who
left could return
• It was the first law to
exclude a specific
national group from
immigrating. It was
repealed in 1943.
• In 1887, nativists formed
the American Protective
Association to work for
restricted immigration.
• Congress responded by
passing a bill that denied
entry to people who
could not read their own
language.
•
Vetoed by Grover Cleveland