Transilvania University of Brasov Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures (Faculty of Letters) Department of English

ASPECTS OF AMERICAN IMMIGRATION

Supervisor: Oana-Andreea PIRNUTA Senior Lecturer Ph. D

Student: Oana-Diana CHIRITA

BRASOV 2011

SENTENCE OUTLINE

I. INTRODUCTION Presenting general aspects about immigration Importance of immigration for the American society II. CONTENT Waves of immigration: + The delimitation of the main waves of immigration + Aspects about the nationalities of immigrants and the most important immigration laws.

Wartime policies:

+ Aspects concerning the displaced persons and refugees + Reasons for imposing limits on newcomers

The Americanization

+ The definition of the process + Modalities of imposing it on immigrants

III. CONCLUSION The presentation of the important role of the immigration and its implications ABSTRACT
The present academic paper has in view some pieces of information about the influence of immigration in the history of US. The complex ethnic mix of America consists of indigenous people as well as immigrants who came in America from all over the world. They were, in fact, those who gave birth of the concept called assimilation asserted that all ethnic groups could be incorporated in a new American national identity. The process of immigration still continued till nowadays and the newcomers are still coming searching for a better life. I hope I covered all the important aspects about immigration, even if this topic is a complex one.

KEY WORDS: newcomers, immigration waves, The Quota Act, Americanization

1. INTRODUCTION One of the most important aspects of US history is the story of immigration. Immigration is responsible for the so-called American mosaic, described as American diversity that have created a culture that, despite its largely European roots, is clearly not only European, but also African, Amerindian, Asian, Latino, Caribbean. So, many tens of millions of people have come from all over the world in America, believing in the American Dream. The main reason was the fact that they wanted to create a better life for themselves and their children. They changed their life, their homelands and their family histories, but they changed also America. It is said that the newcomers produced the so-called social disorder and conflicts. The mixing of cultures has fuelled widespread discrimination, violent anti-foreign movements, economic exploitation. Another aspects linked to these problems are the never-ending debates over opportunity, equality and national identity. Ordinary Americans actually do not accept the idea of pluralistic society and the assimilation, the homogenization caused by the newcomers. It is well known that it is not possible to understand the history of Americans without studying Americas immigrants. For example, Harvards Oscar Handlin affirmed: Once I thought to write a history about the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history. It is impossible to imagine what America would be like if no immigrants had come. The American people are a product of what they have been, and where they have come from, as well as of what has happened to them in the United States. 2. WAVES OF IMMGRANTS Attracted by all the economic opportunities and political and religious freedom, immigrants from many other countries came in the United States in increasing numbers. The history of immigration to the United States can be divided most conveniently into four distinct periods: The first wave, the formative era, up to 1815; The second wave, the so-called "long" 19th century stretching from 1815 to 1924; The third wave, the era of restriction, 1924-1965; The fourth wave, the era of renewed immigration, since 1965.

2.1 THE FIRST WAVE OF IMMIGRATION After 1660 the English government adopted a new policy and as a consequence the first wave of immigration was possible. In 1662, King Charles II accepted the Royal African Slave Company as the sole supplier of slaves to English colonies. The next century 140, 000 Africans arrived after surviving the brutal treatment and conditions on slave ships. Even initially the Crown opposed emigration from England and Wales, the immigration was encouraged by the appalling conditions in their homelands. The largest group of immigrants were the Scots-Irish. They left Scotland for Northern Ireland in the 1500s. They were encouraged by the English and a quarter of a million of them left Northern Ireland after 1680 because of the discrimination by the English people. Their friends and relatives paid their passage across the Atlantic and when their term of service as servants was finished they settled on the frontier were land was cheapest. This moving had negative parts because family ties were broken and the settlements from western New England to the hill country of Georgia were scattered. Another important group of immigrants is that of Germans that met more hostility than the Scots-Irish in America. They wanted to save their religion and culture and because they were a non-English speaking group in the colonies they needed that their descendants learn German. Developing German-speaking towns, they didnt show interest in colonial politics and even if they lived on the frontier like the Scots-Irish, they stayed behind when settlement moved farther west. Germans in general were too successful thanks to their hard work, caution, farming methods and concern for their property. This prosperity produced also a kind of fear. Benjamin Franklin expressed the idea that they might Germanize us instead of us Anglicizing them. That period was so near the religious wars of the Reformation and the Germans were nonconformists or reformed Lutherans or Catholics. New ethnic groups added to the first wave of immigration. 50, 000 convicts and some 30, 000 poor people came in America as indentured servants. From Ireland came thousands of single, male, Irish Catholic having the same job. By contrast, the French Huguenots and Jews settled in port towns and engaged in trade. Their civil rights were limited by the English colonists and their churches and synagogues were attacked. As long as they converted to the religion of their

spouses the intercultural marriage was possible and as a consequence the colonial Huguenots and Jewish communities virtually vanished. In conclusion all those groups of immigrants changed the demography of the colonies, but the cultural, political and economic dominance of AngloAmericans had a very important role. 2.2 THE SECOND WAVE OF IMMIGRATION It is well known that immigration slowed to a trickle between 1776 and 1820. Most ethnic groups were assimilated because they found the Americanizing process irresistible. In the 1820s were aware of the colonial enclaves and the situation was unprecedented. Europeans left their homelands because of the religious persecution, the political unrest and especially because of the economical factors. The Europeans, especially the northern and the western ones, called old immigrants, came in America. During the old immigration almost 15.5 million people settled in the US. The most important groups were Germans, Irish, Britons, Scandinavians, French, Chinese and others. They were attracted by the promises of cheap fertile farms and jobs with wages higher than they could earn at home. They worked as domestic servants, mill and factory workers, sailors, miners, fishermen and construction workers. British immigrants were appreciated especially because they had a culture much like AngloAmericanism. They spoke English and they brought the knowledge of the industrial revolution. Protestant and White, Scandinavians had problems in the process of learning English but faced comparatively mild problems of adjustment. Germans were most respected at that time due to their technical knowledge and industry. By contrast, German Jews were excluded from education, the professions and many social circles. The Irish were also discriminated and considered lazy and drunken. The discrimination turned soon into a anti-foreign agitation. In the 1850s the American Party proposed restricting immigrants voting rights and they could hardly gain US citizenship. 2.3 THE THIRD WAVE OF IMMIGRATION Between 1880 and 1920, almost 24 million immigrants arrived in the United States. These "New Immigrants" were primarily from Southern and Eastern European nations - Italy, Croatia,

Greece, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, and Russia. There were also Mexicans, Syrians, Japanese, Filipinos. The peak year of European immigration was in 1907, when 1,285,349 persons entered the country. The main reasons for immigration were: low wages, unemployment, disease, forced military conscription, religious persecution. Immigrants were inspired to come to America by its reputation as the "Land Of Liberty" also by the letters of friends and relatives already in the United States. Most of those who came were the so called birds of passage stayed long enough to save money and buy land or a small business back home. The improvements in technology made it possible for people to travel faster and cheaper. Many people died on ships due to the miserable conditions. Immigrants could be bared from entry if doctors detected cholera, tuberculosis, epilepsy, or trachoma. Those who appeared sick were taken to Ellis Island Hospital for observation and care. If the disease was determined to be incurable, the passenger was returned to their steamship line and transported back to their port of departure. However, unsanitary conditions and epidemics in immigrant ghettoes had been a focus of alarm and reform since before the Civil War. In 1875 the federal government decided that they should start a campaign of restriction. So, they considered that the undesirable groups of immigrants were: convicts and prostitutes, anarchists, people with specific contagious disease, illiterates and Japanese. The first general limitation was passed by Congress in 1921. It was introduced the principle of national origins quotas and, this way, the annual number of European newcomers was set at 358, 000. In 1924, the Oriental Exclusion Act ended Asian immigration. Later, in 1929 the final national origins quotas went into effect and countries like Syria received the minimum of 100 visas. Britains was 65,361, while Italys was 5,802. 2.4 THE FOURTH WAVE OF IMMIGRATION Between 1961 and 1990 almost 20 million people came in the US, mostly being Latino, Asian or European immigrants. They continued to come even after the 1965 Act and starting with 1996 almost 7 million immigrants had arrived. The difference between the others waves and this one is the minority of professional workers as engineers, doctors and nurses. A large number of Latino women were accepted for working as servants and especially as nannies. The Asian immigrants were called the model minority due to their high level of

education. They were appreciated more than Latinos immigrants because they had a culture based on education, hard work and respect for parents. However, the illegal immigration problems continued to exist and the federal government had to pass the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. The law established sanctions for those who hired illegal immigrants, generally known as employer sanction, and offered amnesty for those who came before 1982 and remained and for those employed in agriculture in certain period between 1985 and 1986. The reaction caused by the Immigration Act of 1990 was not an enthusiastic one. Firstly, the authorities raised the annual number of visas by 200,000. They also increased the limit on entries from individual nations to 25,000 and doubled the annual number of asylum seekers. As a consequence the economy improved and the high level immigration rise, especially in states like California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Arizona and Illinois. There was also another immigration law in 1996, but it did not change a lot the situation. It provided for more border barriers, more immigration agents, penalties or even deportation of those who were living there illegal. This policy could not make a general change at all and immigrants continued to come in America from all over the world. 3. WARTIME POLICIES The steady stream of people coming to America's shores has had a profound effect on the American character. It takes courage and flexibility to leave your homeland and come to a new country. Immigrants enriched American communities by bringing aspects of their native cultures with them. They seemed to be also a danger for some Native Americans and they reacted by imposing some limits. The context of the two World Wars also contributed to the restricting process. The so-called voluntary mass immigration was stopped by the Depression of the 1930s. At that moment almost half million Mexican Americas were deported, even if many of them were US citizens. Another aspect of that time is that Congress admitted refugees as non-quota immigrants because of the Nazi and Fascist regimes, but there were also 20,000 Jewish children turned away. During the Second World War and the Cold War the policy was changed and US authorities considered that they need help concerning the wartime shortage of farm labor. So, they admitted the help of those from Mexico or even from China. Acts of the Congress admitted also

the so-called displaced persons because of the war. The number of non-quota immigrants reached 750,000 concerning the fact that during the Cold War there were also admitted refugees from communist countries. The Immigration Act of 1965 replaced the national origins quotas with hemispheric limits to annual immigration. There were also reserved about three-quarters of immigrant visas for relatives of American citizens or resident aliens. The brain drain was a concept that reserved 20 per cent of visas for those that US needed, while the refugees had 6 per cent of places. However, the authorities offered a large number of places for family and siblings, hoping that there would be a second wave of new immigrants. 4. AMERICANIZATION PROCESS In the United States, Americanization has had two meanings, one general and the other specific and historical. The general meaning describes a person or a institution becoming more American, while the specific and historic use of the term refers to the movement in the first three decades of the 20th century in which immigrants were urged to use English and to adopt American patterns of behavior called Anglo-conformity. The entry of the United States into World War I in April 1917 heightened American nationalism and induced an increase of nativism, opposition to foreigners. Private civil groups, some employers, the federal government, and many state and local government all joined in putting on pageant stressing Americanism, and numerous special educational programs were established to aid in Americanization process, what is sometimes called acculturation or assimilation. Kindergartens, for instance, could provide in their games, wholesome lessons in Americanism by encouraging immigrant children to feel that there is such a country as America and that they are part of it. There were some newcomers who articulated mythic notions of America, typified by stories of hard work, suffering, promise and achievement. Around 1918, some Romanian American amateur actors in Philadelphia put on a play in Romanian whose title translates as "The Matchmaker." The play addressed a major issue in immigrant life: how to find a mate in a strange land. Mary Antins A book entitled The Promised Land (1912) typify a celebratory representation of America: So there was our promised land, and many faces were turned

towards the West. And if the waters of the Atlantic did not part for them, the wanderers rode its bitter flood by a miracle as great as any the rod of Moses ever wrought. (Antin 1912:364) For her, tensions between the old and new, past and future were interpreted as an advantage and a source of possibility, whereas for others, it became the emblem of immigrant dilemmas. Unlike Antin, who found education and the process of Americanization a source of reinvigoration, many found America a place without the security of the village. For this reason, outside the United States, the term Americanization is usually one of hostility, as many people abroad see the powerful American culture as a threat. As early as 1860, for example, a reporter for The Times of London wrote of Americanization as the greatest of calamity. 5. CONCLUSIONS People started to emigrate in different countries in the entire world, but they found that The United States was the best place to live. Traditional imaginings of America were of the promised land where the newcomer could undo the sufferings of the Old World. The major reason for emigrate from their countries was the dream of creating a better life for themselves and their children. They thus choose to change their family stories forever, by changing their homelands. Whatever their differences, the citizens of the United States are all Americans, but at the same time is prepared to acknowledge both that there are many justifiable approaches to explorations of ethnic pasts and presents, and that these pasts must be explored in relation to each other within the context of the history of the nation. Ultimately, however, America will continue to be a place to which people migrate, both legally and illegally, and therefore will remain in a constant balance between assimilation and pluralism, with these newcomers learning that to be American is, above all, to be an incomplete identity (J. P. Shenton, Ethnicity and Immigration ,1990:266).

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