Flora Ho
Prof. Rocklin
Hist 152 Essay Assignment
Question 1
Immigration makes up of the United States. The life of an immigrant faces many struggles. Coming to the United States is a very difficult time for immigrant, especially when English is not their first language. In Oscar Handlin’s essay, Uprooted and Trapped: The One-Way Route to Modernity and Mark Wyman’s Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, both these essays describes the life of immigrants living in America and how they are able to make a decent amount of money to support their families. Handlin’s essay Uprooted and Trapped: The One - Way Route to Modernity explains how unskilled immigrants came to adapt to the American life working in factories to make a living. In the essay, Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, this essay describes the reality of many immigrants migrating to the United States in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Many were living and adjusting to being transnational families. Both these essays show how the influx of immigration and industrialization contributed to the making of the United States. With the support from documents 3 and 7, Thomas O’ Donnell, Immigrant Thomas O’Donnell Laments the Worker’s Plight, 1883 and A Slovenian Boy Remembers Tales of the Golden Country, 1909, these documents will explain the life of an immigrant worker in the United States. Although, the United States was portrayed as the country for a better life and a new beginning, in reality, the United
Oscar Handlin believes, as he explicates in The Uprooted, published in 1951, that American history is best explained by the immigration, specifically European peasants who journeyed to the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that caused the most drastic change and growth to the country’s political, economic, and social factors. Instead of telling this story in a mainstream historical way including specific dates in chronological order, the author narrates the lives of these voyagers using sentimental information about multiple different themes to show how challenging it was for immigrants to face life in the New World. This strong, emotional tone creates a sympathetic feeling in the reader and shows the passion Handlin has for not only history, but also the peasants’ lives displaced during their struggles. The Uprooted was intended for a common audience of educated people interested in the history of America or immigration and is especially useful for students
The United States is made up of two different types of immigrants: those who are born on U.S. soil and those who travel to settle here. However, despite whether one is born in the United States or not for most their lineage runs back to other countries. It is evident that a majority of the U.S. first immigration wave was around the late 1800’s to the 1920’s. This was a time in which many immigrants where leaving their countries due to different reasons and finding prosperity in the U.S. In the book 97 Orchards: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement (97 Orchard) by Jane Ziegelman she explores and paints the history of five different immigrant families. The book goes into great detail sharing stories of daily
In the late 19th century, millions of people immigrated to America to escape the hardships in their countries. They adapted to these changes by making the best of a difficult situation. Although they escaped famine and unemployment, the immigrants faced many challenges upon their arrival, including racism, poverty, and health issues.
Since the dawn of American colonization in the early 1600s, the notion of immigrating to America has long been instilled upon various people as a stimulating opportunity to begin a fresh chapter in their lives. Even now, this possibility has brought many variations of people to America, culminating a society that brims with dreams and aspirations to form the diversified nation of today. When speaking of the current state of immigration, it is easy to conclude that immigration is heavily discussed from political standpoints. Though this current condition is composed of highly controversial perspectives, many of the early-century viewpoints found in literature genuinely embrace reality, for these writers were indeed immigrants themselves, thus adding an authoritative standpoint over immigration. The Americanization of Edward Bok (1921) by Edward Bok and The America I Believe In by Colin Powell, display the perspectives of two authors, who have lived as immigrants, through their own personal anecdotes. Both Edward Bok and Colin Powell convey a sincerely grateful tone and develop the idea of Americanization and the quest for opportunity through the use of connotative diction in contrast to the Immigration Chart and Political Cartoon which have a downright concrete and pessimistic tone and supports the idea that immigration exposes various challenges to incoming immigrants.
America as a nation is made up of immigrants from all over the world ranging from all across Europe to China. Many immigrants faced discrimination and had to completely conform to this new world they came to. Oscar Handlin and Mark Wyman have very different views on immigration in the late nineteenth century. Handlin’s view on immigration included how immigrants were alienated from this new world known as America and after being partially Americanized and their old homelands did not recognize them anymore as citizens. Wyman’s views were different from Handlin’s views because he thought that immigrants were only in America for such a short time because they came for opportunity. Wyman states that immigrants were not uprooted from the homelands because they still practiced their beliefs and did not see America as their final destination. Both authors make very excellent points but Handlin makes better points by realizing most immigrants did lose their dignity and lost many of their traditions of their homelands by becoming Americanized, immigrants were being uprooted in the late nineteenth century.
For some they returned having never reached this goal, for others they ended up staying in America, but for many of these immigrants they did reach their goal and after doing so, returned home. These immigrants were temporary migrants that had caught “America fever”. (p. 16) Temporary migration had been going on before this time, but it wasn’t until the invention of the steam engine that migrant workers began to voyage across the seas. Many of these poor European’s that migrated to the United States did so to make money to go back home and buy land. Not all of them had this goal, some saved money to start-up or buy a business. Whether they were going back to buy land or expand land they already had, or they were going to use the money to start a business these remigrants all had one thing in common. Wyman writes of the Hungarian emigrant’s experiences; “they would soon return with the money made overseas to make a better life for themselves in the environment they were attached to, the place where they wanted to live.”(p. 49). Because many of these European immigrants only stayed in America a short time many native-born Americans began to have hostilities toward these new immigrants in terms of the American Labor Movement, assimilation politics and nativist’s movements.
In the early 1900's a newly arrived immigrant worker faced numerous challenges that had to be overcome. Often times literally arriving with the clothes on their back and a few meager dollars, it was crucial for these
In 1917 America entered World War one. By doing this America played a grave role in conquering Germany and ushering peace to Europe. However, the Great War also meant that the US would change dramatically through historical issues and changes which resulted in American society. Industries had started to realise that it was not as simple as it was before to abstract the immigrants. As the country developed and became more successful it attracted outsiders who were searching for chances. During the 1920¡¯s the United States began to confine immigrants due to cultural and economical purposes. The immigrants faced several afflictions such as: racism and religious oppression. The examination of immigration expressed an important
Daniels, Roger. Not like Us: Immigrants and Minorities in America, 1890-1924. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997.
The collection “Coming to America” is comprised of journal entries, biographies, and autobiographies that discuss the social and political transformations that arose from immigration. “Of Plymouth Plantation”, “Balboa”, and “‘Blaxicans’ and Other Reinvented Americans” illustrate how immigrants shape America’s direction. The changes that occurred when settlers migrated seriously impacted the nation they were travelling to. The first of these changes pertains to culture. Immigrants brought their religions and languages to their host country, and that caused a great deal of acculturation, usually to the new religion or language. Government is another principle that was implemented into the “inner workings” of the new country. Lastly, the newcomers
In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and
As Immigrants would come through Ellis Island and other places with a gleaming amount of hope, they would experience something totally different on the other side. Inside the US was this feeling of Anglo-Saxon superiority and therefore immigration was frowned upon in may areas. An immigration officer from this time period cited “early economic opportunity came to an end” as one of the major things that affected immigrant life. They [immigrants] were left to find day jobs working at the first opportunity that presented itself and then return to the tenement. Out of this pattern grew an extreme feeling of isolation. Immigrants lived in their own communities, socialized with their own, and slept with their own. Nativist feelings from the american-born community were real and present and ultimately the belief was to sleep, eat, and work for someone else and be content.
“We are nation of immigrants. Some came here willingly, some unwillingly. Nonetheless, we are immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants, one, and all. Even the natives came from somewhere else, originally. All of the people who come to this country come for freedom, or for some product of that extraordinary, illusory condition. That is what we offer here—freedom and opportunity in a land of relative plenty.” (Middletown Journal 2005)
The migration of foreigners to the United States has been one of the most powerful forces shaping American history this was especially true between 1860 and 1920. (American A Narrative History, Pg. 827). When immigrants traveled to the new land it was an arduous journey. Arriving in large cities often without their families or understanding the language was difficult.
Simply put, America is the land of opportunity. In the past, immigrants have left most of their family, memories, and familiarities with their homeland in search of a better life in America, where jobs were easy to find and the economy was booming. These immigrants formed almost the entire American population, a demographic anomaly in which people from nationalities separated by land and sea; these people come from countries separated by expansive distances can live within the same neighborhood. Both Anna Quindlen with her essay “A Quilt of a Country” and John F. Kennedy with his essay “The Immigrant Contribution” have documented the story of these immigrants and