Today is Friday, and we continued our presentations. Here it goes: Chapter 7 section 1:Why did immigrants come to the US? Immigrants came to the United States for many reasons. Some came because of religious persecution from their homelands. Others came from famine that had plagued their lands. Potato famine was a large factor for this several times. More people came to America to make lots of money and then return to where they had come from. And still others came to just start a new life, whether they had crimes in their old life, or if they needed to get away from trouble.Where did immigrants come from? Immigrants came from all over the world. Many early settlers of the wild west were Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and other oriental countries. These immigrants often worked in shops or in mines or whatever they needed to do. Quite a few also came from Latin America and Europe.What problems/issues did immigrants face on the trip over and once they got here? Immigrants had rough sea travel.Immigrants were forced to travel in the cramped cargo holds. They were rarely, if at all, permitted to go up on deck to get a breath of fresh air, they had crappy food, and had to share toilets with dozens of people. As you can guess, disease and sickness spread quickly on board.Once they got to America, they realized that the streets of America were not in fact paved with gold (as a European advertisement stated). They found out that life would be rough right off of the bat. They had to go through a series of medical exams, background tests, and had to have a knowledge of the U.S. They also needed $25. All of this took place on none other than Ellis Island. Ellis Island is a famous tourist site around the world.By 1910 700,000 Mexicans had immigrated to America because in Mexico, work was scarce, and the industrial boom in America seemed promising to all. Angel Island was the equivalant of Ellis Island, but on the other side of the county. This was mainly used by Chinese immigrants.Why did some people want to put restriction on immigration? What were those restrictions? Racism was the biggest reason that people wanted restrictions on immigrations. People like this were nativists, who were born in the U.S. and discriminated against newcomers. They also did not like the idea of all of the jobs being taken away by immigrants who were getting paid very little. The immigrants were getting paid very small wages, yet this was still more than they had been making in their former countries. The nativists were working hard, and still could not get better wages because the bosses were greedy and could easily fire a native and hire immigrant workers at low wages.The immigrants were treated very harshly, and they were kept on dirty mangey cells before questioning. None were admitted unless they were students, teachers, or merchants. They also had to prove that they had a husband or father who was a U.S. citizen. They were asked difficult questions so that they would be forced to leave. The examiners were very racist, and did not want the Chinese in.
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