This document provides a historical overview of immigration to the United States. It discusses the successive waves of European immigration from the 16th to 19th centuries from countries like Spain, France, England, Germany, and Ireland. In the late 19th century, there was a large influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe which led to nativist sentiment and policies restricting immigration. The document also outlines push/pull factors for immigration and debates around illegal immigration and exclusion policies targeting specific ethnic groups.

1. A Land of Immigrants
support of immigrants' rights Dec. 18 in New York City.

2. January 30, 2017

3.  Successive waves of immigration
 More than 60 million newcomers
entered the country since its early
days.
 In the past centuries, 80% of new
comers were from Europe.
 Today only 15%

4. Why immigrate to America:
Push Factors
1. Population growth.
2. Agricultural changes
3. Crop failures.
4. Industrial Revolution.
5. Religious and political turmoil.

5. Pull Factors
 1. Freedom.
 2. Economic opportunity.
 3. Abundant land.

6. First European Settlements

7. Early Immigrants
 Spanish explorers established in the south during the 16th century
Christopher Columbus 1492
 Motives for exploration: wealth, religion and power

8. Early Immigrants
 French fur traders travelled
down from Canada to the
Mississippi establishing trading
posts.

9. The Pilgrim Fathers
 British settlers: Most numerous group
 Left the country for religious reasons
 Puritans : radical Protestants:
- They wanted to purify the Church of
England of its remaining Catholic
practices.
(called the pilgrim fathers), formed their
own churches.

10. Early Immigrants:
The Pilgrim Fathers
 They were harassed by the government
-> they had to leave England.
->The Pilgrim fathers, left for the New
World in 1620, on the Mayflower.

11. Arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower

13. Puritanism
 Puritanism was a way of life
 Puritan spiritual life stressed self-
discipline
 Puritans saw their lives as a “divine
mission”: God gave them the New World
for they were his chosen people
 This idea is the precursor to the concept
of Manifest Destiny

14. Hard Work & Self-Discipline
 To the Puritans, a person was sinful by
nature and could achieve good only by
severe discipline.
 Hard work was considered a religious
duty.

15. Puritans & Education
 Puritans were highly
literate people
 Education was highly
valued as a way to
fight atheism and to
instill in children the
value of hard work

16.  1636: The Puritans founded Harvard, the first
college in America

17. 17th & 18th Centuries
 Permanent settlement on the East
Coast
A majority of British
Northern Europeans: Germans,
Swedes, Dutch

18. 19th Century’s European
Waves
1st wave: Mid 19th Century
1840 ->1860: 10 million immigrants poured into
America
Northern Europe: British, Dutch, Scandinavians
Common culture, similar languages &
religion
Homogeneous population
Birth of the WASP concept
Starting from the 1870’s Central, Eastern and
Southern Europeans started to be
overrepresented

19. Irish Potato Famine
 By 1854, between 1.5
and 2 million Irish had
fled their homeland and
came to America.
 1845 : a disease attacked
Ireland’s main food crop (potato)
causing a famine.
 The Irish Potato Famine killed 1
million people and forced many
to emigrate.

20. 19th & early 20th Century
The Second European Wave
2nd Wave: 1870 to the
1920s
 20 million Europeans :
4.5 Italians, 4 Austrian
Hungarians, 3.4
Russians and Poles
 Central and Eastern
Europe over-
represented

21. The Second European
Wave

22. The Second European
Wave
 Newcomers had different cultures, origins and
were not protestants
Regarded with suspicion
Considered as a potential threat to social
cohesion
+ They were often poor, illiterate and unskilled
and looking desperately for a job
Blamed for lowering wages
Accused of taking jobs from “old stock”
American workers

23. The Second European Wave:
Impact
Impact twofold:
Economic: Boosted US industry which
was to become world leader
Worked in manufacturing & building railroads
Social: the number and difference created
problems
 Revival of nativist feelings.
 The Ku-Klux-Klan reappeared

26. The New Immigration
 Immigration continued
at a high rate.
 From 1850s-1870s, more
than 2 million per decade
 1880s - Five million.
 Until the 1880s most
immigrants integrated
into American society
relatively easily
Journey across the Atlantic

27. New Immigrants
 They Integrated
differently. Why?
 Were browner, more
Jewish, more Orthodox
Christians
 Poorer and not used to
democratic governments
 More illiterate
 Did not come looking for farming opportunities
 Came looking for work, and were comfortable
living in cities working industrial jobs.

28. New Immigrants
 Lived together in mini-
cities within cities.
 Consequences?
 Americans began to fear
that US a dumping ground
for Europe’s refuse.

29. Immigration from Asia
1. Gold Rush and Railroad Work pulled
Chinese to America.
2. Worked for less pay which created
conflicts.

30. Exclusion Act: Shutting the Doors
on the Chinese
 Blamed Chinese for 1870s Depression.
 Mob Violence
 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
 Prohibited immigration for 10 years

31. Anti-immigration
organizations
 Racist attitudes and fear of foreign workers
 Creation of Anti-Chinese groups:
• Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL)1905 Cal.
• Immigration Restriction League (IRL) in 1894 (East
Coast businessmen)
 Aim is to stop Japanese, Korean, and Chinese
immigration
 Preventing them from integrating US society

32. Anti -Japanese
Movement
 Movement pushed for laws to prevent
immigrants from becoming legal residents,
owning land, or owning business
 racially inferior and products of repressive
governments who would be unable to
participate in a free, democratic society

33. The Literacy Test
 IRL petitioned Congress to require
immigrants to show that they could at
least read the Literacy test in 1917
 In the 1920s, restrictions on immigration
increased. The Immigration Act of 1924
was the most severe
 Nativists feared the newcomers were
likely to be criminals, and even
anarchist or Bolshevik terrorists

34. The Quota Acts 1920’s
 Legislation to limit new entries
 Imposed quotas according to country of origin
and number of residents already in the US.
 Objective: restore an ethnic balance
 Restrict immigration from Southern and
Eastern Europe and ban Japanese
 “Old Stock” immigrants (Anglo-Saxon origin)
were welcome
43% immigrants from Great Britain
Birth of the idea of preferential immigration

36. New trends in immigration
Since 1960s: radical shift.
 Leading immigrant group: Mexicans around
27%
 Settlement pattern: Sunbelt states
(California, Texas & Florida)

37. The Family Reunification Act
of the 1960’s
1965 : legislation named ‘brothers and
sisters act’:
 Preference to family reunification
 Family oriented policy vs. merit oriented
policy:
 Skilled workers with no relatives would seek
asylum in Canada or Australia where
qualification is a priority
US lost educated immigrants

38. The Immigration Act of
1990
Designed to balance the previous Act:
Visas are divided between:
 Family immigrants (immediate relatives)
 Employment-based immigrants (favoring
skilled workers)
 Diversity
immigrants
(annual lottery
of 50,000 green
cards)

39.  Unemployment
 Economic
hardship
 Lack of
opportunity
 Famine
 Poor education
 War
 Natural disaster
 Persecution

40. Origin of Illegal Immigrants

42. Illegal immigrants
 Settlement: Same as legal immigrants :
Sunbelt states + New York
 Related issues:
 Many Americans consider aliens as parasites
taking advantage of social protection.
 However, mostly are underpaid seasonal
workers who don’t rely on social services.

43. Illegal immigrants
The US has a 2000 mile border with Mexico
An increasing influx of illegal aliens.
 They cross the Rio Grande (called
Wetbacks)
 Many pregnant women cross the border to
deliver their babies in the US
 Hundreds of underground birth clinics.

44. Wetbacks on the Rio Grande River

46. The Immigration Debate
 Immigration issues
regularly appear in the
media.
 The debate centers
around:
 The costs and benefits
of immigration
 The cultural impact of
immigration
 Border security
 Knowing who’s within
American borders

47. Immigration Ban on Specific
countries : Lessons from
History
 A presidential commission after World War II
found that Japanese exclusion helped motivate
Japan’s attack on the US in 1941.
 When quotas were passed in 1924, the press in
Japan declared a “National Humiliation Day”.
 In 1941, as the Japanese navy steamed toward
Pearl Harbor, Japanese commander stated that
time has come to:
“teach the US a lesson for the exclusion of
Japanese immigrants…”

48. Trump’s Order
 White House argued that the temporary
suspension of entries from Iran, Iraq,
Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and
Yemen are a reasonable measure to
allow time for a new system of vetting to
be introduced.
 Denied the idea that the measures are a
ban on Muslims…

49. Trump’s Racist ‘Slur’