Immigration in the 20th Century

     The immigration wave of the 1900s started at the beginning of the Progressive Era. There were many reasons to move. Some pull factors included the need for laborers caused by the industrial jump. Some push factors included lack of land for farming, causing a lot of people to move to the United States to take jobs in the newly opened factories. The falling snowball of immigration really took on speed when the already settled immigrants began to write home telling tales of the "Promised Land". Their neighbors heard, and their family, and more and more people began to move to the fabled Land of Opportunity. 
     However, these immigrants did not move into splendor as they set foot in the United States. They were disappointed after hearing wild stories, such as the roads being paved with gold. As one immigrant described: "First, the streets were not paved with gold. Second, they were not paved at all. Third, they expected me to pave them." While most immigrants were able to get started well enough, some of them weren't being as lucky. For whatever reason, the Americans did not want Asian immigrants, so they tried to discourage it in subtle ways. Asian immigrants were often held on Angel Island before being admitted into the country. A lot of them made it, too! But a good number of them were deported back to Asia after a long delay in the processing center. 
     Many immigrants of the same original nationality came together in neighborhoods, turning cities into patchworks of different neighborhoods of ethnicities. However, while the new immigrants lived in a brand-new culture, they had to find a way to assimilate into American culture while not quite ready to give up their old traditions. The result was acculturation, where the immigrants learned how to be a productive member of society in America, but in their private and social lives, they kept their home traditions such as family structures, religion, and community interactions.
     However, not everything was all hunky-dory up with the whites. Nativists wanted to heavily, and I mean HEAVILY restrict immigration and keep the country for Protestant whites who were born in this country. They were extremely racist, and very, very white supremacist. As stated in the textbook, one magazine described all immigrants as "long-haired, wild-eyed, bad-smelling, atheistic, reckless foreign wretches, who never did an honest hour's work in their lives." The nativists did not believe that the immigrants could fit into the American culture because they were too different. They hated them because they took low-pay jobs. Oh, so terrible, right?Unfortunately, this is still happening all over the United States to this day.
     The Chinese got the brunt of this hate and prejudice. Gangs started lynching Chinese immigrants, and Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, stopping Chinese immigrants from entering the country. As a bonus, no Chinese who left the U.S. could return. Personally, I think that last part is REALLY messed-up. If a mom left her kid with a friend or family member to go see some family in China for a week, I don't think that mom could come back to their child. How awful is that? They'd either have to pay to fly the child back to China or just live apart from each other their whole lives. It wasn't until 1943 that this act was repealed.
     So, that's immigration for you. The 20th century was pretty harsh on immigrants. Thank you for your time, and have a good day/night/tomorrow!