Title: Immigration – Challenges For New Americans – Legends of America
Headings: Immigration – Challenges For New Americans
Immigration – Challenges For New Americans
“We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”
— Jimmy Carter
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Content: Citizen Know Nothing by Sarony & Co., 1854
Know-Nothings believed that native-born Americans were superior to the newly arrived immigrant groups on the basis that Irish and German immigrants tended to be poorer and Catholic, which Know-Nothings took as traits of cultural and economic backwardness. The Irish, in particular, became economic scapegoats during periods of economic uncertainty, a pattern that would repeat itself during subsequent waves of immigration. Resentment toward the Irish began to abate after the Civil War when Irish American communities became more established. In the late 1800s, people in many parts of the world decided to leave their homes and immigrate to the United States. Fleeing crop failure, land and job shortages, rising taxes, and famine, many came to the U. S. because it was perceived as the land of economic opportunity. Others came seeking personal freedom or relief from political and religious persecution. With hope for a brighter future, nearly 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1870 and 1900. During the 1870s and 1880s, the vast majority of these people were from Germany, Ireland, and England–the principal sources of immigration before the Civil War. That would change drastically in the next three decades. Immigrants entered the United States through several ports.