FREE ESSAY ON IMMIGRATION

IMMIGRATION

For many immigration to the United States would be a new beginning during 19th to early
20th century. There were many acts and laws to limit the number immigrating to the United
States. Many of these acts were due to prejudice and misunderstanding of a culture. One
such act was the Chinese Exclusion Act. Form this one act many immigration laws and acts
were made against foreigners. They hoped to control the number of immigrants arriving on
the American shores. The Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882 was just the beginning.
This act was the turning point of the U.S. immigration policies, although it only
directly affected a small group of people. 
Prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act there was no significant number of free immigrants
that had been barred from the country. Once the Chinese Exclusion Act had been in acted,
further limitations on the immigration of ethnic groups became standard procedure for
more than eight decades. Irish catholic, Mexican, and other races were not allowed the
same freedoms that others were allowed. Even after a family had been here for generations
there were not given the same freedoms. 
Since the arrival of the first Chinese Immigrants, racist hostility towards the Chinese
always existed. They were predominantly male laborers, concentrated in California. They
were vital to the development of western mining, transportation, and agriculture. Other
races were also discriminated against, the Irish were not allowed to get jobs or live in
certain areas of the cities. By 1880, the great fear of German-speaking and
Irish-Catholic immigrants was over. Employers, who still sought worker-immigrants, and
not just temporary workers, looked increasingly to southern and eastern Europe. When
Italians, Greeks, Turks, Russians, Slavs, and Jews arrived in the United States in
numbers, however, new anxieties arose about making Americans of so many different kinds
of strangers. 
An 1880 this act gave the United States the one sided right to mandate to limit or even
stop the immigration of Chinese laborers. In effect canceling the right of the Chinese to
enter the country. Congress quickly complied and made a ten-year bill that the President
signed on May 6, 1882. 
While exempting teachers, students, merchants, and tourists the Act suspended immigration
of Chinese laborers for ten years. The law was renewed for a second ten-year period in
1892 and then made "permanent" in 1902. Chinese Exclusion Act had set a pattern for many
other immigration laws and acts to come. 
The Immigration Act of March 3, 1891 was the first comprehensive law for national control
of immigration. It established the Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department to
administer all immigration laws (except the Chinese Exclusion Act). This Immigration Act
also added to the inadmissible classes. 
The people in these classes were inadmissible to enter into the United States. The people
in these classes were, those suffering from a contagious disease, and persons convicted
of certain crimes. The Immigration Act of March 3, 1903 and The Immigration Act of
February 20, 1907 added further categories to the inadmissible list. Immigrants were
screened for their political beliefs. Immigrants who were believed to be anarchists or
those who advocated the overthrow of government by force or the assassination of a public
officer was deported. This act was made mainly do to the assassination of President
William McKinley in 1901.
On February 5, 1917 another immigration act was made. This Act categorized all previous
exclusion provisions and added the exclusion of illiterate aliens form entering into the
United States. This Act made Mexicans inadmissible. It insisted that all aliens pay a
head tax of $8 dollars. However, because of the high demand for labor in the southwest,
months later congress let Mexican workers to stay in the U.S. under supervision of state
government for six-month periods. 
The Gold Rush in California brought a large influx of Chinese laborers and was ended
abruptly by the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. In between this time Thousands of Chinese
immigrated or traveled freely from China and San Francisco. They were mostly young male
peasants that left their villages to become contract laborers in the American West. They
were recruited to extract minerals and metals, construct a vast railroad network, reclaim
swamplands, build irrigation systems, work as migrant agricultural laborers, develop the
fishing industry, and operate highly competitive, labor-intensive manufacturing
industries in the Western States. These Chinese Americans did not mix with other
Americans they began their own cities such as Chinatown in San Francisco were Chinese
worked, shopped and owned business. 
After 1882, only diplomats, merchants, and students and their dependents were allowed to
travel between the U.S. and China. Before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the patterns
of Chinese settlement followed the patterns of economic development of the western
states. Since mining and railway construction dominated the western economy, Chinese
immigrants settled mostly in California and states west of the Rocky Mountains. As these
industries declined and ant-Chinese feelings intensified, the Chinese retreated and
sometimes were forced by society into small import-export businesses, labor-intensive
manufacturing and service industries in such rising cities as San Francisco, New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and sometimes in the Deep South.
Although many sought the American Dream due to racial prejudice and bias many did not get
to become part of society. They were forced to live in poverty working for low wages and
never making it ahead. Many were forced in to low paying jobs in unsafe conditions. Many
did not survive to see their children grown.