Third Wave of Immigration in the USA

In this new entry of our blog we are going to talk about the Third Wave of Immigration in the USA.

The Second Wave ended in 1880. Third Wave took place between 1880 and 1914. The immigrants of this wave came from the Middle East, Southern and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and Canada. 

By 1880, the United States wanted to increase their economy and the population. Railroads companies with the aim of having immigrants workers (working with a low-salaries) sent agents to foreign countries to recruit them.

By this period, transoceanic transportation became cheaper, so all foreigners had more facilities to immigrate to the United States. Due to this, it were more than 23 millions of immigrants who came from all around the world, but more precisely from Europe.

                    

By 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although the United Stated was populated only by a 0,002% of Chinese population, Congress passed this law in order to stop the workers' demands and to keep the white "racial purity". Chinese workers were bad-paid, and they were despised. 

In this period, Italians started to arrive to United States and by 1920, approximately 4 millions of Italians lived in the country and represented the 10% of the Immigrant's population. 

But, why this happened? The most of Italians were poor, there were a lot of diseases, and also the natural disasters, as the eruption of the Mount Vesuvius. But the main factor was that their Government couldn't help them. How we said before, the transoceanic transportation was cheaper and this attached to American recruiters, made almost impossible to Italians not to want immigrate. 

Also, Eastern European Jews started to immigrate due to overpopulation and poverty. Then, by 1924, there were 2 million jews who immigrate from Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Romania. Finally, Armenians immigrated to the United States. They settled in the United States in order to scape of American Genocide; the massacres in Turkey.

And... Do you think that born-native Americans were fine about it? 

The response is obviously negative. Again, they felt threatened about the job, racial religious and political differences. They had a anti-immigrant sentiment and in 1917 they passed the Immigration Act. This law required to immigrants knowing read and write. 

Besides, native Americans related all the socio-economic problems (as poverty, delinquency, crime, labor unrest...) with immigrants. But, besides that, immigrants continued coming to the United States to find a better life. 

Finally, in our next post, we well talk about the Fourth Wave of Immigration. But we anticipate you that by the end of 1941 with World War II, the federal government decided to make the Immigration laws less restrictive. Nevertheless, as you know, the third wave of immigration was already over.

QUESTIONS

And now, we want to ask you, if you had to leave your country because of poverty in order to achieve a better life by working, but the countries will not accept you... what would you do? Would you keep working without caring about their opinion or would you move home?

                          

Information from:

History.com Staff, Chinese Exclusion Act. History.com (2009). Online: https://www.history.com/topics/chinese-exclusion-act

Italian - The Great Arrival. Library od Congress. Online: https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/italian3.html

Zollman, J. Jewish Immigration to America: Three Waves. My Jewish Learning. Online: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-immigration-to-america-three-waves/