Immigration to America has changed dramatically and has had a major effect on relations between new immigrants and the people already in the United States. The nature of immigration has changed slowly over the course of American history and drastically. Immigration to America before 1950, the immigrants that came to America were trying to escape persecution or seek an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. That included the first European colonists when they first arrived.
Other than the Native Americans that were already in present-day America when Columbus arrived, everyone has been immigrants to the United States in American history. Immigrants wanted to leave their old countries, nationalities, languages and conflicts behind and to start fresh in the New World when they immigrated over. Most immigrants wanted to become Americans and integrate into the American culture and philosophy, or the “American Melting Pot” and stop being British, Irish, German, Italians, Polish, Japanese, or Chinese.
With new immigrants coming, the affect between new immigrants and the people already in America were affected in many ways. The Native Americans were treated pretty harsh by the first wave of European colonists and the founding generation of Americans. The Native Americans were forced of their ancestral homelands when American settlers wanted to expand westward. Though, despite this the Native Indian Americans did eventually assimilate into American culture, have adopted American traditions, and have kept good relations with the American people and government.
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Another group of immigrants that arrived were the Chinese and the Japanese. The Chinese came to America to build the transcontinental railway and were looking for a better life too. The Chinese and Japanese were both prohibited from immigrating to America through Exclusion acts because many Americans feared that they would take their jobs away. The same applied to any other group of immigrants, as feelings of nativism arouse amongst native born Americans fearing that immigrants would mess up America.
There were also Europeans facing religious persecution in their home countries that immigrated to America. They too, came to seek a better life and escape persecution. Many of those immigrants came through Ellis Island and were from Eastern Europe. After the Civil War workers lives did not improve and new immigrants to America could only work unskilled, low paying jobs. Many of these immigrants worked in treacherous conditions, made very little pay, lived in slums, and had little to eat. But this didn’t stop more immigrants from coming to America.
Since then though, working conditions have gotten better but the nature of immigration is changing. More recent immigrants are less willing to leave their old cultures, traditions, languages, and nationalities behind. They are more preferring to retain their original customs and not learn English or American traditions. They also aren’t as willing to assimilate into American culture. This has caused many recent immigrants to rebuild their old national societies as cultural enclaves in the United States. This has led to many divisions in America today, and many Americans are blaming immigrants for taking their jobs, messing up America, getting good benefits such as health and Medicare, pensions, etc.
America is a land of immigration, and has welcomed new people and new cultures and traditions to the country ever since the United States of America was founded. Throughout American history, there have been many waves of immigration and the nature of immigration has changed from seeking a better life, working hard to achieve it to coming to America to just live the good life that was established by many hard-working Americans and Immigrants before them. Americans and immigrants have always eventually got together and have all contributed to the success of the United States and have made America a diverse and prosperous nation.
