American Attitudes Towards Immigration"The New Colossus" (1882)Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,     With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame  Is imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles

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American Attitudes Towards Immigration"The New Colossus" (1882)Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

 

 

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

 Is imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

 

Source: Emma Lazarus, born in New York City to a wealthy family and educated by private tutors, she began writing poetry as a teenager and took up the cause against persecution of Jews in Russia. Lines from his sonnet were engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903

 

"Unguarded Gates" (1895)

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates

And through them presses a wild motley throng

Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes

Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho

Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav

Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn

These bringing with them unknown gods and rites

Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws

In street and alley what strange tongues are loud

Accents of menace alien to our air

Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!

O Liberty, white Goddess! Is it well

To leave the gates unguarded?

 

 

Source: Thomas Bailey Aldrich, a19th century American writer

whose work often supported the ideas of "Nativism," a fear that

large influxes of foreigners would corrupt American culture.

 

 

Summary (3pts)

In her poem, The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus...

 

 

 

Summary (3pts)

In his poem, Unguarded Gates, Thomas Bailey Aldrich...

 

 

Immigration - Opposition

Oddly for a "nation of immigrants," the United States has always had a problem with immigration.  Long before former President Trump was quoted saying, "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" generations of Americans have advocated limiting immigration to the country.  In the 1800s, the Irish were a favorite target, and newspaper want ads commonly included the phrase "No Irish need apply."  As we discussed in our previous unit, later in the 19th century, anti-immigration sentiment was codified in federal laws that singled out the Chinese.  Subsequent federal laws targeted Italians and Eastern Europeans.

As you read a moment ago, many Americans shared the fears of the writer Thomas Bailey Aldrich that through our "unguarded gates" there was pouring a "wild motley throng" of "Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes."  The call for an end to unchecked immigration was echoed by labor leaders like the AFL's Samuel Gompers who complained that unchecked immigration consisted of cheap, ignorant labor that takes American workers' jobs and cuts their wages.

As a result, bit by bit, curbs were imposed.  The immigration restriction regime began in 1924.  Europeans were classified into their national origins and ranked according to desirability.  When the first shares were announced, half of all places were reserved for British residents, whereas only a few hundred to perhaps no more than a thousand Italians, Poles, Russians, Slavs, and Jews could be admitted.  Other groups fared worse, with fewer than 100 places per year. And Asians were excluded altogether.

Questions

1. Why were restrictions placed on immigration in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries?

 

 

 

Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (excerpt), 1916 

[Note: It is important to be aware that in this excerpt, the term "native American" does not mean "Native American" (the race). Grant is referring to what he considers the current, 1916 standard of the typical United States citizen.]

These new immigrants were no longer exclusively members of the Nordic [blond hair, blue-eyed, white] race as were the earlier ones who came. . . . the new immigration, while it still included many strong elements from the north of Europe, contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken, and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest [levels] of the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together with [many] of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish Ghettos [Jewish people from Poland]. 

these newcomers were welcomed and given a share in our land and prosperity. The American taxed himself to sanitate and educate these poor helots [uncultivated people] and as soon as they could speak English, encouraged, them to enter into the political life . . .

These immigrants adopt the language of the native American; they wear his clothes; they steal his name; and they are beginning to take his women, but they seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals, and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race. . . .

 it is evident that in large sections of the country the native American will entirely disappear.

1. Does the author's feeling toward immigrants reflect the poetry of Emma Lazarus or Thomas Aldrich? Support your answer with evidence.

 

 

Document 2

Background: Settlement-house workers took up residence in the worst neighborhoods, trying to teach the rudiments of hygiene.  They also provided essential social services to help immigrants assimilate into American society and alleviate the hardships brought about by poverty.  

Source: Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House, University of Illinois Press

It is easy for even the most conscientious citizen of Chicago to forget the foul smells of the stockyards and the garbage dumps, when he is living so far from them that he is only occasionally made conscious of their existence but the residents of a Settlement are perforce [of necessity] constantly surrounded by them. 

During our first three years on Halsted Street, we had established a small incinerator [garbage burner] at Hull-House and we had many times reported the untoward [difficult] conditions of the ward to the City Hall. We had also arranged many talks for the immigrants, pointing out that although a woman may sweep her own doorway in her native village and allow the refuse to innocently decay in the open air and sunshine, in a crowded city quarter, if the garbage is not properly collected and destroyed, a tenement-house mother may see her children sicken and die, and that the immigrants must therefore, not only keep their own houses clean, but must also help the authorities to keep the city clean. . . . 

1)Does the author's feeling toward immigrants reflect the poetry of Emma Lazarus or Thomas Aldrich? Support your answer with evidence.