The Role Of Immigrants In The American Experience

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The Treatment of Immigrants in the American Experience How were the Jewish, Japanese, Irish, and Italian immigrants treated in America throughout their experience and how did the immigrants influence America to what it is today? Immigrants came from all over the world to this new land of America. America was seen as a refuge to many people from around the world, and all came for different reasons. Some came for new land, some to start a new life, some for a chance at becoming rich and famous, and others because of religious persecution. The people coming to America were at first happy to get away from their native land because of the problems there, but the Americans themselves were not always happy about the vast amount of new people…show more content…
Many came as Sojourners which are immigrants who worked in the US for a few years then went back home. [1] The popular jobs among the Japanese immigrants were railroad builders, food canners, loggers and miners. In 1900, about 60,000 Japanese immigrants were settled in Hawaii making up 40% of the population, then in 1907, the “Anti-Japanese” feelings arose amongst the Americans. Roosevelt made the Gentleman’s Agreement, which made Japan agree to stop sending in unskilled workers. [1] In Hawaii, the Japanese children were well schooled and the workers always worked above and beyond, but some felt underpaid. In 1909 the sugar cane workers went on strike to win better wages and work conditions , since they weren’t very happy, but the strike failed. The first Japanese church was built in 1890 here in America, but before that, they were forced into Chinese churches because some American people didn’t accept them, even though they didn’t understand the Chinese language. In America they made societies called Tanomoshi which functioned as banks for the immigrants which helped them greatly in their business aspirations. The first two generations of Japanese had to face terrible discrimination though. James D Phelan, the governor of San Francisco, led a rally to protest Japanese immigration and seven years later another governor imposed separate schools for Japanese children. Though Japanese Farmers only owned 1% of the land and grew 15% of California’s crops, Americans claimed they took over all of the Agriculture, which led to the Alien land law in 1913. This law restricted Japanese ownership and land leasing, which was a major downfall for the Japanese. [1] After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many Japanese stayed in America, and remained good citizen, but it was very hard to get jobs due to racial discrimination. The bombing led Americans to believe the Japanese-Americans would be working
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