When Did It All Begin?
There are major waves of immigration throughout the history of the U.S. Some seek for greater economic opportunities while some admired the nation that was gifted with religious freedom. Countless waves of immigration have expanded the U.S. into a diversified collection of cultural exchanges and ideas.
BACK IN THE COLONIES
The first wave of immigration starts in 1620 when the discovery of the New World became a place of refuge for the Pilgrims. The place they arrived is present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Pilgrims were soon followed by a larger group, the Puritans, who also seek religious freedom. The Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. But, it was In 1607 that the English founded their first permanent settlement in present-day America at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.
A larger share of immigrants came to America seeking economic opportunities. However, few were able to afford the expensive voyage cost. The poor have the become indentured servants to pay off the voyage and served their masters in the New World. Some were kidnaped in European cities and forced into servitude in America. Additionally, thousands of English convicts were shipped across the Atlantic as indentured servants.
From the 17th to 19th centuries, thousands of African slaves was coerced to the New World. With more slaves working on the plantations, the New World soon grew to be an inviting and economic powerhouse that brought more European settlers. The once burden land settled by Native Americans soon took over. In that period, thousands of Indians were killed by the European settlers by “guns, germs, and steel.”
INTERESTING FACTS
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.
On January 1, 1892, Annie Moore, a teenager from County Cork, Ireland, was the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island. She had made the nearly two-week journey across the Atlantic Ocean in steerage with her two younger brothers. Annie later raised a family on New York City’s Lower East Side.
Immigration in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (1815 to 1865)
Most immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe. Approximately one-third came from Ireland, which experienced a massive famine in the mid-19th century. In the 1840s, almost half of America’s immigrants were from Ireland alone. Between 1820 and 1930, some 4.5 million Irish emigrated to the United States.The United States have about 5 million German immigrants who wish to buy farms or congregated in such cities as Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati. In that time period, a significant number of Asian immigrants settled in the United States because of the California gold rush. The newcomers were first welcomed, but soon be seen as job competitors and have their religious freedom discriminated during the Great Depression.
ELLIS ISLAND AND FEDERAL IMMIGRATION REGULATION
One of the most significant federal legislation act to restrict incoming immigrants was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It banned Chinese laborers from coming to America because Californians blamed the Chinese for their declining wages since Chinese workers were able to take minimum wages. More acts were passed to decrease the number of immigrants.
In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) designated Ellis Island as a federal immigration station. More than 12 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island during its years of operation from 1892 to 1954.
EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION (1880-1920)
In a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization, many Europeans came to the U.S. For example, about 600,000 Italians migrated to America, and by 1920 more than 4 million had entered the United States. Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing religious persecution also arrived in large numbers; over 2 million entered the United States between 1880 and 1920. However, the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918) caused a decline in immigration. In 1917, Congress enacted legislation requiring immigrants over 16 to pass a literacy test, and in the early 1920s immigration quotas were established. The Immigration Act of 1924 created a quota system that restricted entry to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality in America as of the 1890 national census–a system that favored immigrants from Western Europe–and prohibited immigrants from Asia.
THE IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT OF 1965
Immigration plummeted during the global depression of the 1930s and World War II (1939-1945). Between 1930 and 1950, America’s foreign-born population decreased from 14.2 to 10.3 million, or from 11.6 to 6.9 percent of the total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. After the war, Congress passed special legislation enabling refugees from Europe and the Soviet Union to enter the United States. Following the communist revolution in Cuba in 1959, hundreds of thousands of refugees from that island nation also gained admittance to the United States.
In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which did away with quotas based on nationality and allowed Americans to sponsor relatives from their countries of origin. As a result of this act and subsequent legislation, the nation experienced a shift in immigration patterns. Today, the majority of U.S. immigrants come from Asia and Latin America rather than Europe.