Immigrants and African Americans Freedom

1655 Words7 Pages
Throughout history the United States of America has encountered a huge alteration in its definition of freedom. The perception of freedom, in a country that was founded on the basis of liberty, dignity, and equality, has been always exposed to be changed in the eyes of the Americans. Since the beginning of the Gilded Age (1870) till America's involvement in the World War I, freedom for different people in the American society has witnessed ups and downs. Immigrants and African Americans are two groups whose search for their freedom in America has witnessed successes and disappointments. Most likely these successes or disappointments were determined by an external factors which were beyond their control. America was the dream land for the new comers and the land of slavery and bad memories that haunted the African Americans, however in some occasions the dream land was a nightmare for the immigrants, and the land of slavery was the land where African Americans were ready to pay their lives to protect their freedom. Immigrants who came to America in last decades of the 18th century and early 19th century didn't differ much from their predecessors. Escaping racial, religious, and political persecution, or seeking relief from a lack of economic opportunity or famine were the main reasons that pushed many immigrants out of their homelands. They imagined the United States as a land of freedom, where all persons enjoys equality before the law, could worship as they pleased , enjoyed economic opportunity.( Foner 697). Immigrants came filled with dreams to pursue a better life and to share the freedom and prosperity of the United States. Most likely, freedom for them was an economic ambition; a desire to escape from hopeless poverty and achieve a standard living impossible at home. Despite of the immigrants' convention that America is the dream land where they can achieve
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