New Immigration and Its Backlash- the RISE of NATIVISM- Document Based Inquiry
Unit 6: Gilded Age Name:______
“New Immigration” and its Backlash- THE RISE OF NATIVISM- Document based inquiry
1- During which years is the highest number of TOTAL immigrants coming to America per year? ______
2- What two parts of Europe are most of these immigrants coming from during that time period?
______
4- From 1881- 1898, what occupation category was highest for immigrants? What percentage of them are unskilled workers during that time (last line)?
5- Do you think labor unions would be in favor of or against immigration? Why or why not?
“Statement of the Immigration Restriction League”, 1894 (exerpts)
The league believes that the present laws are inadequate and that further selection of immigration in necessary and desirable from (a) the social and moral standpoint, (b) the economic standpoint, (c) the eugenic standpoint. (eugenics was the belief in improving the genetic quality of humans)The league recommends that-
1.. A reading test for aliens of 15 years or over in any language or dialect the alien may choose.
3. Requiring immigrants to be in possession of money for their support while securing employment; say, $50 for single immigrant and heads of families and $25 additional for a wife and each minor child.
... The league would call attention to the following: (1) That the true wealth of a country consists in the character of its institutions and of its people and not in the number of miles of its railways or the rapid exhaustion of its resources. (2) That what demand there is for free immigration has always come from employers who want to force wages down regardless of the effect upon the community. (3) That the immigration of cheap labor has just this effect, forcing the workman already here to lower his standard of living and often to lose his job. (4) That just so far as immigration of cheap labor injures the status of the native workingmen it prevents the immigration of efficient and desirable foreign workingmen who will not come here to compete with cheap labor. Labor economically cheap is more- over never socially cheap....
We should see to it that the breeding of the human race in this country receives the attention which it so surely deserves. We should see to it that we are protected, not merely from the burden of supporting alien dependents, delinquents, and defectives, but from what George William Curtis called "that watering of the nation's lifeblood," which results from their breeding after admission.
A considerable proportion of immigrants now coming are from races and countries, or parts of countries, which have not progressed, but have been back- ward, downtrodden, and relatively useless for centuries. If these immigrants "have not had opportunities," it is because their races have not made the opportunities: for they have had all the time that any other races have had-, in fact, often come from older civilizations. There is no reason to suppose that a change of location will result in a change of inborn tendencies.
6- What two requirements does the ARL suggest for limiting immigrants?
7- According to the document, who are the only Americans who like “free immigration”? Why do they support it?
8- What impact does the document say immigration has on American workers?
ASSIMILATION- the idea that immigrants can become “American”.
9- According to the document, why won’t these new immigrants be able to assimilate?
The New Colossus, by Emma LazarusWritten 1883, mounted on Statue of Liberty 1903
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" / From the Play, “The Melting Pot”, 1908, (Israel Zangwill)
"Understand that America is God's Crucible (a pot for melting things at great heat), the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, your fifty languages, and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you've come to – these are fires of God….Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American."
10- How does Lazarus’ poem describe how America views immigrants?
11- What does Zangwill mean when he describes America as a “melting pot”?
ASSIMILATION is the idea that immigrants can become “American”.
12- How is Zangwill’s view of assimilation different than the statement from the Immigration Restriction League (previous document)?
Workingman’s Party of California, 1880s
Anti-Chinese Race Riots in Denver in 1880
13- According to these images, name two challenges Chinese immigrants faced in the west? Why do you think this is so?
Immigration Laws:
Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882
Whereas in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof: Therefore,
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That … the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be… suspended; and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or having so come after the expiration of said ninety days to remain within the United States.
14- According to the document, why does Congress suspend immigration from China?
______
Gentlemen’s Agreement,(1907)
U.S.-Japanese understanding, in which Japan agreed not to issue passports to emigrants to the United States, except to certain categories of business and professional men. In return, President Theodore Roosevelt agreed to urge the city of San Francisco to rescind an order by which children of Japanese parents were segregated from white students in the schools.
15- Why do you think only “business and professional men” from Japan were allowed passports to America?
16- Which Japanese immigrants do you think the government was trying to keep out?
1917 Immigration Act (passed over Woodrow Wilson’s veto)
Bars from entering the United States…
· “undesirables”: "idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, alcoholics, poor, criminals, beggars, any person suffering attacks of insanity, those with tuberculosis, and those who have any form of dangerous contagious disease, aliens who have a physical disability that will restrict them from earning a living in the United States..., polygamists and anarchists, those who were against the organized government or those who advocated the unlawful destruction of property and those who advocated the unlawful assault of killing of any officer."
· Asians: “Any country not owned by the U.S. adjacent to the continent of Asia”
· Illiterates: "aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who cannot read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish."
18- Why do you think the government wanted to keep illiterate immigrants out?
19- Would you support these restrictions on immigration? Why or why not?
1924 “Quota Act”
Whereas it is provided in the act of Congress approved May 26, 1924, entitled "An act to limit the immigration of aliens into the United States, and for other purposes" that "The annual quota a (set number) of any nationality shall be 2% of the number of foreign-born individuals of such nationality resident in continental United States as determined by the United States Census of 1890, but the minimum quota of any nationality shall be 100 (Sec. 11 a). . . .
17- According to this law, what percentage of a nationality (race) in the US would be let in each year?
18- Why do you think they used the 1890 census instead of the 1920 census? (Hint: look back at the first document)
18- According to the chart on the left, was the Quota Act successful in limiting immigration following 1924?
19- According to the chart on the right, immigration from which part of Europe slowed down following the 1924 law?
BIG PICTURE QUESTIONS:
Where did the “New Immigrants” come from? How were they different from “Old Immigrants”?
What is nativism? What are three reasons nativists argued for limiting new immigration?
OPINION:
Today, what should our government’s immigration policy be?
· Should anyone who wants to come to our nation be able to get citizenship? ______
· If so, explain why you believe this. If not, please describe how the government should regulate immigration today…