Summary ppt

Life in America for ImmigrantsLife in America for Immigrants

Summary Summary

Objective

•By the end of the lesson, SWBAT describe what life was like for immigrants when they first came to America.

ImmigrationPush factors are factors that force a person to move.

•They can include famine, war, disease, lack of jobs, over population and drought

ImmigrationPull factors are factors that encourage a person to come to a new place.

•They can include freedom, family, technology, better jobs, better education.

Historical Immigration Patterns

• Immigration to the United States has had periods of boom and bust. These were caused by events that occurred both in America and in other countries.

When? What Happened? Why?

1840sArrival of thousands of Irish

settlers

Irish potato crop fails; facing starvation, many Irish move

to America and other countries

1905-1914

Massive immigration from Eastern Europe to the

Canadian West

The U.S Government wanted to settle the open lands of the West; offered

free land and other incentives to immigrants

Historical Immigration Patterns

When? What Happened? Why?

1915-1919

Little immigrationWorld War I and worldwide

influenza epidemic

1930 – 1945

Little immigrationWorldwide economic

depression and World War II

1947-1960

Many Italians come to the United States

World War II devastated Italy; Italians searched for economic opportunities in

the U.S

Historical Immigration Patterns

When? What Happened? Why?

1956Many Hungarians come to

America

Hungarian revolt against the Russians failed; refugees fled to America to avoid

punishment

1980 – 1997

Arrival of thousands of Hong Kong Chinese

Residents of Hong Kong sought political stability

before China took control of Hong Kong in 1997

1980 - 2003

Many people from Afghanistan come to

America

Immigrants seek a safe haven from conflicts that

engulfed their country

•Immigrants came to America from all over the world!

•In the early 1900s, most immigrants came to America

from Europe or Asia.

Coming to America

• Passage to the United States from Europe was an expense few immigrant families could afford.

• Families would often save enough money to send just one or two family members to America. These members were expected to work and save to bring over the rest of the family.

• Most poor immigrants traveled in the ship steerage area. Passage in the Steerage area involved living with a diverse group under crowded, unhealthy, living conditions.

Ship SteerageCheap but Dangerous

• “The trip was not a dry one. Water seeped into the steerage through holes

that were supposed to be for ventilation. Most passengers were sea sick the

first few days out and only in rough weather afterwards. It was impossible to

come on deck in bad weather. The hatches would be battened down and

passengers in steerage would have to remain below in the dark and rocking

ship. There was on average one toilet for every hundred passengers.

Frequently the toilet was on deck, where they could not be reached in rough

weather. Because of the close quarters in which they lived, passengers

often suffered from illnesses like trench mouth, body ulcers, and lice.

Conditions were frightful. Immigrant ships were recognized by the smell.”

1815-1880: First Wave of Immigration

“Old immigrants” - 15 million Most were from North and

Western Europe and China.

settled in Eastern Cities, Midwest and

West

1880-1914: Second Wave of Immigration“New Immigrants” - 15 million most from Eastern and Southern Europe

settled in cities (Phila., NY, Boston, Chicago))

Where was the first stop for immigrants?

•The immigrants from Europe came to Ellis Island in New

York.

• The immigrants from Asia came to Angel Island in California and other places on the West Coast.

Ellis IslandThe immigrants from Europe came to Ellis Island in New

York.

Immigrant Experience During Processing

Immigrants were processed as quickly as possible. They provided personal information to immigration officials, received medical exams and categorized for admission, deportation, or quarantine based on the results.

With the huge numbers of immigrants, inspectors had just minutes to complete the process and many immigrants had their last names changed by the inspectors because they didn’t have the time or patience to struggle with the foreign spellings.

Families were sometimes separated. One parent or a child could be denied admission forcing heart breaking decisions on a family.

Angel IslandThe immigrants from Asia came to Angel Island in California

and other places on the West Coast.

An Immigrant Story from Angel Island

"We ate vegetables twice a day and some very rough rice, very hard to swallow. I was a growing boy and hungry."

"There were birds outside the wire fence. My hands were small enough I could grab their necks and kill them. We used rice to attract the birds to us. We cleaned the birds in a toilet. Another boy had gotten some matches, somehow. Someone else had a knife. We gathered branches and we got newspaper and rolled it like wood to make a fire. We barbecued birds that way, when the guards weren't around. It was the only tasty thing we could get." Lester Tom Lee

Stories and Photographs by LYDIA LUM, copyright 1998

Life in America

•Life in America was really hard for immigrants.

•Many of them were really poor, and had to live in bad conditions.

•Many immigrants lived in Tenement Housing

Tenement Housing- As more and more people began crowding into America's cities, including thousands of newly arrived immigrants seeking a better life than the one they had left behind. In New York City--where the population doubled every decade from 1800 to 1880--buildings that had once been single-family dwellings were increasingly divided into

multiple living spaces to accommodate this growing population. Known as tenements, these narrow, low-rise apartment buildings--many of them concentrated

in the city's Lower East Side neighborhood--were all too often cramped, poorly lit and lacked indoor plumbing and proper ventilation. By 1900, some 2.3 million people (a full two-thirds of New York City's population) were living in tenement

housing.

Tenement Housing

Neighborhoods

• Many times immigrants would live with people that spoke the same language, and had the same cultural background as themselves.

• For example, if you were Italian, you would have most likely moved to an area called “Little Italy.”

• If you were Chinese, you would have most likely moved to an area called “China Town”

Neighborhoods

• This is a modern map of New York, but there are still areas called Chinatown and Little Italy - the areas where the Italians and Chinese would have settled at the turn of the century.

Jobs for Immigrants

•Because many immigrants did not speak English, and were not that well educated, they had to find low paying jobs that did not require a lot skills.

•Many immigrants got jobs in factories, coal mines, farms, and as maids.

Jobs for Immigrants• Often, immigrants were paid lower wages

then people that were born in America.

• Often, immigrant were forced to work in really very poor, unsafe conditions. Long hours and crowded factories or work houses with low safety standards.

• Finally, many children born in immigrant families had to work in factories to earn money for their family so they could buy supplies to survive. Child labor laws did not exist back then.

Child Labor

Nativism

• Nativism is the belief that native-born white Americans were superior to immigrants.

• Nativism was rooted in the fear and resentment some Americans felt toward immigrants.

-- Immigrant languages, religions, and customs seemed strange.

-- Immigrants often competed for jobs. Desperate for jobs, they accepted the most dangerous jobs and low wages.

• Nativist pressured congress for laws limiting immigration.