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Immigration To America

Decent Essays

3. What cultures came to the United States and how did it influence America. During the great immigration period 1900-1920, there were many cultures that arrived on the shores of the United States, for example Italians, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Irish to name a few. These new immigrants were grateful to be here and for the opportunity to better their own lives and that of their future generations. In an attempt to assimilate most of these cultures initially practiced their old countries traditions in the privacy of their home. The reasoning behind this is, the current citizens (native) were in great opposition and feared these new immigrants. This fear from long established native born Americans was in part, from having lost …show more content…

Escaping religious, racial, and political persecution, or seeking relief from a lack of economic opportunity or famine still pushed many immigrants out of their homelands. Many were pulled here by contract labor agreements offered by recruiting agents, known as padrones to Italian and Greek laborers. Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, Bohemians, and Italians flocked to the coal mines or steel mills, Greeks preferred the textile mills, Russian and Polish Jews worked the needle trades or pushcart markets of New York. Railroad companies advertised the availability of free or cheap farmland overseas in pamphlets distributed in many languages, bringing a handful of agricultural workers to western farmlands. But the vast majority of immigrants crowded into the growing cities, searching for their chance to make a better life for themselves. In the middle to late decades of the 19th century, new immigrant arrivals from Germany and Scandinavia were pivotal in establishing and settling the western frontier of the United States. You would find in the large cities that Irish immigrants where considered a major source of labor in the railroads, roads, construction and transportation arenas Those that first chose to come to the shores and their descendants played a vital role important in developing American popular culture. They have created an endearing positive image of immigration in the minds of most

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