In the past, immigration has played a part in the making of the American identity. When analyzing the idea of immigration and how it has impacted the United States, one must first look at when immigration to the United States was at its peak and how American identity was affected by this wave.
There have also been many acts created in response to the mass number of immigrants. During the Gold Rush in the 1850s, the Anti-Catholic American Party (aka “Know Nothings”) tried to severely curb immigration because of their bias against the Irish who brought in millions of immigrants from the potato famine. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was issued which banned Chinese workers from immigrating to America. Americans thought that because the workers were willing to work for next to nothing, the wages were being lowered and Americans were being paid even less. In 1890, Ellis Island was dubbed the “immigration station” and more than 12 million immigrants passed through its doors while it was opened from 1892 to 1954.
The biggest wave of immigration occurred in the 1880s through the 1920s. The cause of this influx of immigrants was mostly due to the economic opportunity that America offered. For example, Italy suffered from and economic depression that continued to sink after a series of natural disasters. The series of unfortunate events caused 4 million immigrants to flee the country hoping to find jobs to build a better life for their starving families. Because of the large number of immigrants coming all at once, Americans began to fear their jobs being taken away. They started to create an identity separate from the immigrants and tried to separate themselves through stereotyping immigrants which made it harder for them to get hired.
During World War I, immigration slowed down. The standards for becoming an immigration began to rise, as the idea of eugenics took the field. In 1917, Congress passed legistlation that all immigrants over the age of 16 must complete a literary test. This was to prevent people who were not as intelligent from ruining the gene pool.
Immigration to the United States became even harder when the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed limiting entry to 2% of people from each nationality to enter into the US. This changed the demographics of the United States because instead of Europe, people came from Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
So what does any of this history have to do with the identity of Americans? I think that by looking at the history of immigration in America, one can see that immigration has a direct effect on the American identity. By analyzing the article I got all this information from History.com, I think that there were periods of time when the bias against immigrants made America more of a salad bowl because American identity was separate from immigrants identity. Because there was so many immigrants coming in all at once, they seemed to formed their own identity within themselves in the enclaves in which they were living. The Italians were separate from the Irish, who were separate from the Americans. They were still Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans, but they were not thought of to be just “American” yet.
It wasn’t until much later in the 19th century that Americans began to become more accepting of other cultures and even fight for their rights. In an article from the New York Times, it tells about Americans at a San Francisco airport protesting the Immigrant ban. They are trying to convince the head of the Department of Homeland Security to allow the immigrants being detained in the airport to have the right to a lawyer since that is the right of every citizen in America. They also hope that the permanent residents who are being detained will have the right to a lawyer as well.
It is interesting how the American identity has changed from being a separate entity to now supporting immigrants. I think that today American is more of a melting pot then ever even with the most recent immigrant ban. Whether we like it or not immigrants have become a part of the American identity for better or for worse.
http://www.history.com/topics/u-s-immigration-before-1965
http://www.history.com/topics/us-immigration-since-1965
mjs7180 says
Due to the major immigration debates going on today I think this an important topic to be discussed. By you mentioning the past acts on immigration I see that history is once again repeating itself. To think we have advanced I find it unfortunate that we are one again visiting an issue that should have been handle long ago. I know we say history repeats itself but hopefully this is the last time we have to repeat this chapter.