Immigration Over Time

Mer av detta

78F, Soumya Gupta's Lucky Number 6

av Soumya Gupta

Earth in Balance Kayla Trieu

av Kayla Trieu

Vans

av Melody Ahmadi

MIGRATION

av Javier Videla

Conclusion: Political and economic factors and shifting U.S. immigration policies play a large role in shaping immigration patterns over the past two centuries. Additional 'outside' influences within the countries of emigration origin also play a large factor. Understanding both historical and modern immigration helps to better inform better policies for the future.

Quotas favored northern and western Europeans

Increases in Asian, Latin American and Caribbean immigration

Pull Factors

Push Factors

At-a-glance visual of immigration origins over time

Research Question: How have immigration patterns changed over time, and what factors affected these changes?

Policy Changes

Emphasis on family reunification and skills

Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924

Ended the massive influx of Russian Jews and Italians by establishing very small nationality quotas for southern and eastern European immigrants.

(Foner 2000:23)

Modes of Migration

Illegal entry

Often harrowing journeys have to take place even in modern day, because of people who want to immigrate to the U.S. but are unable to obtain visas. The long backlogs can cause years of waiting to go through the legal route so many people decide to come in other illegal ways.

Purchasing someone else's passport with a valid tourist visa.

Smuggling via stowaways on cargo ships or fishing vessels

Fake marriages to US citizen

Air travel

Transatlantic voyages

Railroads made German ports accessible to the towns of eastern Europe, and steamships penetrated ports deep in the Mediterranean basin. More steamships were now crossing the ocean, and the newer ones were bigger, faster, and safer than before.

(Foner 2000:22)

Motivating Factors

Reuniting with families

In one Italian village, a cobbler was nicknamed "Cristoforo Colombo" for being the first to migrate to the New World. When he heard by chance that a worker in New York could earn in a single day what it would take a week to earn in the village, he sailed from Naples. Within a year of landing in New York, he had saved enough money to send for two of his brothers, thereby initiating a chain of migration that eventually brought more than half of the population of his village to the new land.

(Foner 2000:22)

Job availability

In both eras, immigrants come to the U.S. to raise their incomes and for more economic stability. Douglas Massey said: "individuals and families emigrate in response to changing circumstances

set in motion by political and economic transformations of their societies." (Foner 2000:18)

Religious prosecution

The assassination of Alexander II set off a wave of pogroms, massacres of Jews, and destruction of shops and synagogues that was encouraged, and perhaps even organized, by the czarist government.

(Foner 2000:21)

Political unrest

Poverty

Oppressive taxes for peasants at the end of feudalism meant they had more loans, more interest, and no cash for upward mobility in sight.

Demographics

Early 20th century- primarily European

New York City was then a much smaller place, with a little under 5 million people in 1910. In that year, Russian Jewish and Italian immigrants together accounted for close to a fifth of the city's population; all the foreign-born made up 41 percent of the citywide total. The heavy concentration of Jews and Italians was a New York phenomenon.

(Foner 2000:10)

"The European Wave - America's Immigration History"

By the 1830's, tens of thousands of european immigrants were arriving on America's eastern shores, coming mostly from England, Ireland, and Germany.

(TDC 2014)