Immigration in Us free essay sample

American immigration history can be viewed in four epochs: the colonial period, post-1965, the mid-19th century, and the start of the 20th century. Each period brought distinct national groups, races and ethnicities to the United States. During the 17th century, approximately 175,000 Englishmen migrated to Colonial America. Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants. The mid-19th century saw mainly an influx from northern Europe; the early 20th-century mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe; post-1965 mostly from Latin America and Asia. History The history of immigration to the United States is a continuing story of peoples from more populated continents, particularly Europe and also Africa and Asia, crossing oceans to the new land. Historians do not treat the first indigenous settlers as immigrants. Starting around 1600 British and other Europeans settled primarily on the east coast. Later Africans were brought as slaves. We will write a custom essay sample on Immigration in Us or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page During the nations history, the growing country experienced successive waves of immigration which rose and fell over time, particularly from Europe, with the cost of transoceanic transportation sometimes paid by travelers becoming indentured servants after their arrival in the New World. At other times, immigration rules became more restrictive. With the ending of numerical restrictions in 1965 and the advent of cheap air travel immigration has increased from Asia and Latin America. Colonial era 1600-1775 The first, and longest, era from 1607 to 1775 brought European immigrants (primarily those of British, German and Dutch descent) and African slaves. British By far the largest group of new arrivals comprised the British. They were not exactly immigrants for they remained within the British Empire. Over 90% became farmers. Large numbers of young men and women came alone, as indentured servants. Their passage was paid by employers in the colonies who needed help on the farms, or shops. They were provided food, housing, clothing and training but did not receive wages. At the end of the indenture (usually around age 21) they were free to marry and start their own farm Chesapeake The first successful English colony started in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia. Once tobacco was found to be a profitable crop, many plantations were established along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland. New England A few hundred English Pilgrims, seeking their religious freedom in the New World, established a small settlement near Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Tens of thousands of English Puritans came to Boston, Massachusetts and adjacent areas from about 1629 to 1640 to create a land dedicated to their religion . The earliest New England colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire were established along the northeast coast. Large scale immigration to this region ended before 1700, but a small steady trickle of later arrivals continued. The peak New England settlement occurred from about 1629 to about 1641 when about 20,000 Puritan settlers arrived mostly from the East Anglian parts of England (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, and East Sussex). In the next 150 years, their Yankee descendants largely filled in the New England states and parts of upstate New York. Dutch The Dutch established settlements along the Hudson River in New York starting about 1626. Wealthy Dutch patroons set up large landed estates along the Hudson River and brought in farmers who became renters. Others established rich trading posts for trading with the Indians and started cities such as New Amsterdam (now New York City) and Albany, New York. After the British took over and renamed the colony New York, Germans (from the Palatine) and Yankees (from New England) began arriving. Middle colonies New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware formed the middle colonies. Pennsylvania was settled by Quakers from Britain, followed by Scotch Irish from Ulster (Northern Ireland) on the frontier and numerous German Protestant sects, including the German Palatines. The earlier colony of New Sweden had small settlements on the lower Delaware River, with immigrants of Swedes and Finns. These colonies were absorbed by 1676 Immigration 1790 to 1849 There was relatively little immigration from 1770 to 1830; indeed there was significant emigration to Canada, including about 75,000 Loyalists as well as Germans and other looking for better farms in what is now Ontario. Large scale immigration resumed in the 1830s from Britain, Ireland, Germany and other parts of Central Europe as well as Scandinavia. Most were attracted by the cheap farm land. Some were artisans and skilled factory workers attracted by the first stage of industrialization. The Irish Catholics were unskilled workers who built most of the canals and railroads, and settled in urban areas. Many Irish went to the emerging textile mill towns of the Northeast, while others became longshoremen in the growing Atlantic and Gulf port cities. Half the Germans headed to farms, especially in the Midwest (with some to Texas), while the other half became craftsmen in urban areas. Immigration 1850 to 1930 Between 1850 and 1930, about 5 million Germans immigrated to the United States with a peak in the years between 1881 and 1885, when a million Germans left Germany and settled mostly in the Midwest. Between 1820 and 1930, 3. 5 million British and 4. 5 million Irish entered America. Before 1845 most Irish immigrants were Protestants. After 1845, Irish Catholics began arriving in large numbers, largely driven by the Great Famine. 27] After 1870 steam powered larger and faster ships, with lower fares. Meanwhile farming improvements in southern Europe and the Russian Empire created surplus populations that needed to move on. As usual, young people age 15 to 30 predominated among the newcomers. This wave of migration, which constituted the third episode in the history of U. S. immigration, could better be referred to as a flood of immigrants, as nearly 25 million Europeans made the voyage. Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, and others speaking Slavic languages constituted the bulk of this migration. Included among them were 2. 5 to 4 million Jews. Immigration 1930 to 2000 Restriction proceeded piecemeal over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but immediately after the end of World War I (1914–1918) and into the early 1920s, Congress did change the nations basic policy about immigration. The National Origins Formula of 1921 (and its final form in 1924) not only restricted the number of immigrants who might enter the United States but also assigned slots according to quotas based on national origins. A complicated piece of legislation, it essentially gave preference to immigrants from central, northern and western Europe, severely limited the numbers from Russia and southern Europe, and declared all potential immigrants from Asia to be unworthy of entry into the United States. Immigration summary since 1830 The top ten countries of birth of the foreign born population in the U. S. since 1830, according to the U. S. Census, are shown below. Blank entries mean that the country did not make it into the top ten for that census, and not that there are no data from that census. The 1830 numbers are from immigration statistics as listed in the 2004 Year Book of Immigration Statistics. *The 1830 numbers list un-naturalized foreign citizens in 1830 and does not include naturalized foreign born. The 1850 census is the first census that asks for place of birth. The historical census data can be found online in the Virginia Library Geostat Center Population numbers are in thousands. Country/Year| 1830*| 1850| 1880| 1900| 1930| 1960| 1970| 1980| 1990| 2000| Austria| | | | | | 305| 214| | | | Bohemia| | | 85| | | | | | | | Canada| 2| 148| 717| 1,180| 1,310| 953| 812| 843| 745| 678| China| | | 104| | | | | | | 1,391| Cuba| | | | | | | 439| 608| 737| 952| Czechoslovakia| | | | | 492| | | | | | Dominican Republic| | | | | | | | | | 692| El Salvador| | | | | | | | | | 765| France| 9| 54| 107| | | | | | | | Germany| 8| 584| 1,967| 2,663| 1,609| 990| 833| 849| 712| | Hungary| | | | | | 245| | | | | India| | | | | | | | | | 2,000| Ireland| 54| 962| 1,855| 1,615| 745| 339| | | | | Italy| | | | 484| 1,790| 1,257| 1,009| 832| 581| | Korea| | | | | | | | 0| 0| 0| Mexico| 11| 13| | | 641| 576| 760| 2,199| 4,298| 7,841| Netherlands| 1| 10| | | | | | | | | Norway| | 13| 182| 336| | | | | | | Pakistan| | | | | | | | | | 724| Philippines| | | | | | | | 501| 913| 1,222| Poland| | | | | 1,269| 748| 548| 418| | | Russia/Soviet Union| | | | 424| 1,154| 691| 463| 406| | | Sweden| | | 194| 582| 595| | | | | | Switzerland| 3| 13| 89| | | | | | | | United Kingdom| 27| 379| 918| 1,168| 1,403| 833| 686| 669| 640| | Vietnam| | | | | | | | | 543| 863| Total Foreign Born| 108*| 2,244| 6,679| 10,341| 14,204| 10,347| 9,619| 14,079| 19,763| 31,100| % Foreign Born| 0. 8%*| 9. 7%| 13. 3%| 13. 6%| 11. 6%| 5. 8%| 4. 7%| 6. 2%| 7. 9%| 11. %| Native Born| 12,677| 20,947| 43,476| 65,653| 108,571| 168,978| 193,591| 212,466| 228,946| 250,321| % Native Born| 99. 2%| 90. 3%| 86. 7%| 86. 4%| 88. 4%| 94. 2%| 95. 3%| 94%| 92. 1%| 88. 9%| Total Population| 12,785| 23,191| 50,155| 75,994| 122,775| 179,325| 203,210| 226,545| 248,709| 281,421| | 1830| 1850| 1880| 1900| 1930| 1960| 1970| 1980| 1990| 2000| Effects of immigration Demographics The Census Bureau estimates the US population will grow from 281 million in 2000 to 397 million in 2050 with immigration, but only to 328 million with no immigration. A new report from the Pew Research Center projects that by 2050, non-Hispanic whites will account for 47% of the population, down from the 2005 figure of 67%. Non-Hispanic whites made up 85% of the population in 1960. It also foresees the Hispanic population rising from 14% in 2005 to 29% by 2050. The Asian population is expected to more than triple by 2050. Overall, the population of the United States is due to rise from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million in 2050, with 82% of the increase from immigrant. In 35 of the countrys 50 largest cities, non-Hispanic whites were at the last census or are predicted to be in the minority. In California, non-Hispanic whites slipped from 80% of the states population in 1970 to 42. 3% in 2008. Economic In a late 1980s study, economists overwhelmingly viewed immigration, including illegal immigration, as a positive for the economy. [87] According to James Smith, a senior economist at Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation and lead author of the United States National Research Councils study The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, immigrants contribute as much as $10 billion to the U. S. economy each year. [88] The NRC report found that although immigrants, especially those from Latin America, caused a net loss in terms of taxes paid versus social services received, immigration can provide an overall gain to the domestic economy due to an increase in pay for higher-skilled workers, lower prices for goods and services produced by immigrant labor, and more efficiency and lower wages for some owners of capital. The report also notes that although immigrant workers compete with domestic workers for low-skilled jobs, some immigrants specialize in activities that otherwise would not exist in an area, and thus can be beneficial for all domestic residents. Religious diversity Immigration from South Asia and elsewhere has contributed to enlarging the religious composition of the United States. Islam in the United States is growing mainly due to immigration. Hinduism in the United States, Buddhism in the United States, and Sikhism in the United States are other examples. Political A Boston Globe article attributed Barack Obama’s win in the 2008 U. S. Presidential election to a marked reduction over the preceding decades in the percentage of whites in the American electorate, attributing this demographic change to the Immigration Act of 1965. The article quoted Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the New Democrat Network, as having said that the Act is the most important piece of legislation that no one’s ever heard of, and that it set America on a very different emographic course than the previous 300 years. Immigrants differ on their political views; however, the Democratic Party is considered to be in a far stronger position among immigrants overall. Research shows that religious affiliation can also significantly impact both their social values and voting patterns of immigrants, as well as the broader American population. Hispanic evangelicals, for example, are more strongly conservative than non-Hispanic evangelicals. This trend is often similar for Hispanics or others strongly identifying with the Catholic Church, a religion that strongly opposes abortion and gay marriage. Environment Some commentators have suggested that increased immigration has a negative effect on the environment, especially as the level of economic development of the United States (and by extension, its energy, water and other needs that underpin its prosperity) means that the impact of a larger population is greater than what would be experienced in other countries Immigration in popular culture The history of immigration to the United States is the history of the country itself, and the journey from beyond the sea is an element found in American folklore, appearing over and over again in everything from The Godfather to Gangs of New York to The Song of Myself to Neil Diamonds America to the animated feature An American Tail. From the 1880s to the 1910s, vaudeville dominated the popular image of immigrants, with very popular caricature portrayals of ethnic groups. The specific features of these caricatures became widely accepted as accurate portrayals. In The Melting Pot (1908), playwright Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) explored issues that dominated Progressive Era debates about immigration policies. Zangwills theme of the positive benefits of the American melting pot resonated widely in popular culture and literary and academic circles in the 20th century; his cultural symbolism – in which he situated immigration issues – likewise informed American cultural imagining of immigrants for decades, as exemplified by Hollywood films. Immigration in literature Novelists and writers have captured much of the color and challenge in their immigrant lives through their writings. Regarding Irish women in the 19th century, there were numerous novels and short stories by Harvey OHiggins, Peter McCorry, Bernard OReilly and Sarah Orne Jewett that emphasize emancipation from Old World controls, new opportunities and expansiveness of the immigrant experience. On the other hand Hladnik studies three popular novels of the late 19th century that warned Slovenes not to immigrate to the dangerous new world of the United States. [