Where did the immigrants come from?
What were the reasons why they went to
America? I will answer this
issue in the first part. “Their travelling conditions” is
the title of
my second part. Then,
we shall study their arrival
in America:
their integration, I will analyze their success
or their failure: the passage from the dream to the
reality..
I) The reasons of
the immigration
There was Russians, Chinese, and
Spanish immigrants. Between 1840 and 1860 more than 4 million
Europeans arrived in the United States.
75% of them came from
Ireland and Germany
The immigrants wished to leave their
country because they met loads of problems in their countries ; they
fled the war, starvation, unemployment…
And they choose the
United States for certain reasons. Among them: they considered this
country as a land where they could succeed. They came here to begin a
new chapter of their life, to
build up a new identity; they wanted
to make
their fortune in the United States. in the New
World.
The statue of Liberty became the symbol of the social success of
the
Americans, that of the American economic power.
ii)
The travelling conditions
Since 1820, the United
States
welcomed 70 million immigrants. The sort of the foreigners is
embodied
by Ellis Island, where, after a long
journey,
passengers had to pass immigration
formalities (a questionnaire
and a medical
inspection).
However some of
them were rejected because laws were set up; the entry of
immigrants
was free until 1875. The U.S.
controled the entry of foreigners
on
their territory; People were
considered unstable:
-
Prostitutes, The
people suffering from
mental illness or
retardation, the infirm, Children under 16 not accompanied by their
parents (the fight against juvenile
works)
In 1853 the
journey from Europe to America was still very hard:, 14
Norwegians
describe a horrible trip aboard a British ship where sailors
treated
passengers worse than dogs, where women and girls were
constantly threatened
with rape scenes and brawl during food
distributions are daily, etc...
From
1892 to 1924, there
have been 3,000
suicides on Ellis
Island.
III)
Integration
New York is the port where arrived more than 60%
of migrants; the second most important port is New Orleans. In
1860,
immigrants represented the majority of the
population in
the cities of New
York, San Francisco,
New Orleans and Chicago.
Integration in these cities is difficult. The Irish are a
sub-proletariat. Employed
in the most arduous tasks and paid less:
jobs in mining, construction of
canals, railway lines or jobs as
deliverymen…
But there were people who
succeeded in America:
Today, for example, Oprah
Winfrey is
a pure incarnation of the American dream because, even if she started
with
nothing, she became one of the most influential woman of the
world
Bill Gates is also a
myth of the
American dream. He didn't start with nothing but he stopped
school
and nobody would have known that he would have become one
of the richest men in the world.
we need the
green card
to enter in America, and it's not so simple to get it.
There is
also a lot of concurrence since everyone want to go to
the USA to achieve this
dream. So most of the people don't succeed
very well. Actually all Americans are not
rich.
voilà voilà :)
