Moving to the land of hope

Moving to the land of hope

by Garen Jarvan on 1.18.1891

In 19^th century, the United States of America had experienced the immigration waves. More and more people all around the world came to this country. In west coast, immigrants were more from Japan, Korea, China and those Asian counties. In east coast, they were more likely from Europe, Africa countries. I had to say that the immigration wave was like the double-edged sword; it brought benefits to the United States also existed some bad influences and social instability. Here is a picture aboutimmigrants in later 19^th century: 

(latinamericanstudies.org). Obviously, Germany was the biggest immigrant group at that period and the second one would be the Irish immigrants which I wanted to specifically talk about.

Irish immigrants were one of those big major immigrant groups came to the United States in mid-19^th century. The reason why Irish people moved to the United States was because the economy problem and also had political factor.  The Irish potato famine in the 1840s spurred more emigration to the United States. (Kee).  Irish people mostly gathered in the northeastern cities. They worked in hard condition and low-paid places because Irish immigrants were discriminated by local citizen at that period.

Irish immigration could be originally ascended back to colonial era, they established the first settlement in Virginia, and they are mostly Protestants and a few Catholics. From1820-1840, the population of Irish immigrants had reached 750,000. In 1840-1850, Irish immigrants increased another 65,600 people. 1851-1860, the population of Irish immigrants was 914,119. I made a chart to clearly show the Irish immigrants and the proportion.

(Data was from Roger Daniels, Coming to America).

When Irish people first time came to America, those native white American excluded and opposed them. I think the reasons are following. First, a lot Irish people believed into Catholicism. Therefore, white American was afraid of the purpose why those Irish people came here was because the pope instigated them in order to destroy the democratic system in the United States. Second reason was that Irish people were very poor so that they were willing to do those dirty and tiring job, besides, they accepted less salary. So, for the labors in the United States, they started to worry about losing job and lowering the minimum salary. Also, when Irish people first came here, they had to get relief fund from government, which increased the government financial burden. Another reason was that Irish people were addicted to alcohol. They always did some violent activities after they got drunk, which brought not only really negative effects to themselves but also threatened the public security.

However, Irish immigrants really played a quite important role in the American history. For the economy contribution, Irish people were willing to be labor force and got less paid. Therefore, at mid-19 century, foundation building in the United States developed extremely fast. Of course, Chinese immigrants also played an important role in Western foundation building development. Irish immigrant also did well in political activities: In Boston, since 1880, Irish progeny was elected to be mayor; in same period New York, Irish people controlled the Tammany Hall, which was a New York City political organization. Not only Irish immigrants. All kinds of race immigrants came all over the world to the United States contributed to the development of the United States.

Therefore, the interesting thing was that why they all wanted come to the United States? I believed that the federal government was encouraging more people move to the United States until 1882, which was the year that Chinese Exclusion Act singed by the president Chester A. Arthur. So, the time before 1882 I called it immigration welcome period and after 1882 was the immigration exclusive period. The fact that the US government encouraged more immigration was because in the early 19^th century, the United States’ territory became 2.3 million square kilometers to 9.3 million square kilometers. Once these new land needed to be explored, the lack of labor became a problem. In order to attract more people move to the United States, the government came out a few policies like Homestead Act. It said that if you were a US citizen and were 21 years old. You could own 160 acres land by spending 10 dollars; surely you had to cultivate the land for five years. Those policies really had huge attraction for those people who lived in their countries but didn’t own the land. And also, at that time, the advertisement played a quite important role. Those newspaper or magazine always published some essays that described how well those immigrants living in the United States. Therefore, when people letter their old country back in Europe. They would say how good here was, which made more people have the desire come to America. Everything said in those mails were like a magnet attracted more people move to the United States.

No matter what. I think we need to thank those people who traveled thousands of miles to here for stable lives or the fortune dream. Because the exist of those immigrants, the United States could developed this fast and became the strongest country in the world. The United States was not built by white people only, was not built by black people only, was not  built by native indian people only , was not built by asian people only. We owned this country together because we built it together.

Pictures : http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/2011/11/02/traditions-of-emigration-the-irish-habit-of-going-away/

Sources:

“19th Century U.S. Immigration Statistics.” 19th Century U.S. Immigration Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. <http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/immigration-statistics.htm&gt;.

Archdeacon, Thomas J.. Becoming American: an ethnic history. New York: Free Press ;, 1983. Print.

“Chinese Exclusion Act.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 July 2013. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act&gt;.

Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: a history of immigration and ethnicity in American life. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1990. Print.

Faulkner, Harold Underwood, and Darrell Leonard Spriggs. American economic history. 8th ed. New York: Harper, 1960. Print.

“Homestead Acts.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts&gt;.

“Immigration to the United States.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 July 2013. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States&gt;.

Kee, Robert. Ireland, a history. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982. Print.

Kenny, Kevin. The American Irish. Harlow, Essex, U.K.: New York :, 2000. Print.