Immigration to the Untied States
America as we know it today was founded on immigration, and during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, there was an even greater and more diverse influx of people searching for better opportunities in America:
Overview:"The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the 1880s to 1920. Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while some, such as the Pilgrims in the early 1600s, arrived in search of religious freedom. From the 17th to 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands of African slaves came to America against their will. The first significant federal legislation restricting immigration was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Individual states regulated immigration prior to the 1892 opening of Ellis Island, the country’s first federal immigration station. New laws in 1965 ended the quota system that favored European immigrants, and today, the majority of the country’s immigrants hail from Asia and Latin America."
You can read more from History.com by clicking the link below: |
Who Was Coming to America, and WhyDuring the late 1800's and early 1900's, there was an influx of people coming to America from all across the globe, but oddly enough they were mostly here for similar reasons. Not having enough land for a family, , poverty, persecution, and political turmoil drove people to leave their native countries. What made America so attractive to these immigrants and refugees was the promise of a better life, work, cheap land, and freedom. A large number of immigrants were coming from Eastern Europe, and a smaller portion was coming from Asia. All these immigrants sought out new lives in America, and you can learn more about their stories by clicking on the links below:
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America's Main Port: Ellis Island"When Ellis Island opened, a great change was taking place in immigration to the United States. As arrivals from northern and western Europe–Germany, Ireland, Britain and the Scandinavian countries–slowed, more and more immigrants poured in from southern and eastern Europe. Among this new generation were Jews escaping from political and economic oppression in czarist Russia and eastern Europe (some 484,000 arrived in 1910 alone) and Italians escaping poverty in their country. There were also Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs, Slovaks and Greeks, along with non-Europeans from Syria, Turkey and Armenia. The reasons they left their homes in the Old World included war, drought, famine and religious persecution, and all had hopes for greater opportunity in the New World." You can read more from History.com by clicking on the link below:
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So what does it take to become an American citizen?Most people don't think about the challenges that immigrants face to become U.S. citizens, but they often feel proud and patriotic for being American. If past generations were able to join the "melting pot," the immigration test can't be that hard... can it? Test your knowledge by clicking on the link below to take the immigration test and find out if you would be allowed into the United States: |