From 1865-1900, large numbers of immigrants came to the United States from China, Japan, and Eastern and Southern Europe due to poverty, overcrowding, and religious persecution in their home countries. Chinese and Japanese immigrants settled primarily on the West Coast in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Eastern and Southern European immigrants settled in Northeast cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. However, many found similar conditions of poverty and discrimination in America as in their home countries, with Asian immigrants facing the harshest discrimination through laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act. European immigrants often lived in poor, overcrowded ethnic ghettos in urban areas.

1. From A Rural to an Urban America
1865-1900

2. What caused this shift?

3. Chinese, Japanese, Eastern and Southern European
immigrants, in search of a place void of poverty,
overcrowding and religious persecution, decided to
embark on a journey from their native and distant
countries, to the U.S.

4. Where did the newly arrived immigrants take up
residency?

5. Chinese and Japanese began to settle on the Westcoast, specifically Los
Angeles and San Francisco.
Eastern and Southern Europeans settled in the Northeast section of the
United States in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia and New York.

6. Unfortunately, for the newly arrived immigrants,
they found their situation pretty much similar to the
conditions they left behind.

7. The current american citizens viewed the arrival of
these new citizens as threats to their livelihoods.
Opposition to the new immigrants were especially
harsh for Asian Americans.

8. The .

9. Chinese immigrants on the Westcoast faced
strict discrimination in the form of
legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion
Act. This act was designed with the intent to
restrict Asian immigration.

10. For Eastern and Southern European immigrants,
although they did not face discrimination to such an
extent as Asian Americans, their aspirations of leaving a
life of poverty was unfortunately not reality in the New
World. Many of them found themselves mirred in a life of
poverty as they dwelled in apartment complexes in areas
that were known as "Ethnic Ghettos."

11. Ethnic Ghettos consisted of large
apartment complexes (that saw a
transformation from lavish homes) were
created in an effort to accommodate such
a large influx of people.

13. Grade Eleven
History-Social Science Content Standards
11.2 Students analyze the relationship
among the rise of industrialization, large-
scale rural-to-urban migration, and
massive immigration from Southern and
Eastern Europe.

14. http://us.history.wisc.
edu/hist102/lectures/lecture08.
html

15. http://www.discoveryeducation.
com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/the-great-
migration.cfm