Why Was There Mass Immigration in America from 1890 Onwards?

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There was a lot of immigration in the USA from 1890’s onwards in the USA for a lot of reasons. There were both push and pull factors on why people immigrated. People who immigrated came from all around the world from places such Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Russia. One of the main reasons why anybody is drawn to America is the idea of the American Dream, to own their own piece of land, to reinvent themselves and escape their old life and finally to have freedom. Many people came to America because getting there overseas was cheap and before 1917 they were almost guaranteed to be able to enter as the USA is the “land of the immigrants” and up until 1917 they had an open border policy. Due to the fair being so cheap even people who were coming from poverty were able to either afford it or if they had no money at all they were able to earn their fare by working in the kitchens and cleaning etc. A lot of people had to flee their country for religious reasons as they were being religiously persecuted in their own country an example of this is people from Ireland having to leave their own country which was majority catholic because they was being religiously prosecuted by British Protestants. The Irish also needed to escape because of the potato famine which caused mass starvation and even the British didn’t help as they decided to let things be and have as little interference as possible. Ireland wasn’t the only country where people were getting religiously persecuted as around this time Jews in Russia were also dealing with religious persecution as Russification was occurring were if you weren’t completely Russian you were to learn the ways of being Russian and you was also to speak Russian. This led to a lot of the Jews leaving Russia and heading to America where they were allowed to keep their religion and practice it safely. A lot of countries were suffering

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