`e SPECIAL EDITION
IMMIGRATION
TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Group article page 2 Group Editorial page 2
Effects of Quota law page 3
Effects of Quota law page 3 Rise of the KKK page 5
Rise of the KKK page 5
Are nativist goals good for America? Are nativist goalsPage good7for America?
Page 7 immigrants and their values page 9
immigrants and their values page 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY page 10
Bibliorgraphy page 10
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Group Editorial
Was the backlash of Immigration Good Or Bad For America? By: Caitlynn, Chloe, Sophia, and Ellie Imagine you are sailing past the Statue of Liberty, your new sense of freedom. You can see the buildings in New York City from the boat. You go through Ellis Island; finally, you are free. But are you really? You face discrimination and persecution. You are always running, because you are living in fear. That fear will never escape you. Everywhere you turn someone is looking to harm you.
In 1920, the members of the Ku Klux Klan rose to 4 million people. People joined the KKK because they thought the immigrants were destroying “Americanism.” They started terrorizing many innocent people such as Catholics, Jews, blacks, and others. Their hateful acts consisted of cross burns, arson, lynchings, whippings, kidnappings, and murder. People suffered because of the KKK’s actions. In the 1920’s, Americans feared that immigrants were taking over America so they decided to solve it. Their solution was the Quota System Act. It limited the number of immigrants to 3% of the US population. That was only about 375,000 immigrants. They thought that would solve all the uprise in the KKK, all ethnicity problems, and the loss of jobs for the native born Americans. Within a few years, they realized these issues were not going away so they lowered it to 2% through the Immigration Act of 1924. In a sense after these laws were set, issues started to die down and America became more strict.
Now imagine you are the nativist. You hate immigrants for everything they have taken from you. Your job is gone, you have less money. And you can hear your neighbor praying some religion you don’t even recognize in the middle of the night. You think immigration is a terrible idea and it needs to end. America will never be the great country it should have been and could be if immigration isn’t gone. So what do you do? Scare them away... Immigrants suffered a tremendous amount of backlash from Congress and American citizens in the 1920’s. They were told they would never be “100% American” even though they worked hard to get into the land of the free.
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Effects of Quota Law By: Ellie Ahrendsen Effects Of The Quota Law of 1921 Congress responded to the anti immigration pressure by passing the Emergency Act of 1921. The fear of immigration was caused by nativists. This law limited the number of immigrants allowed into the country. It introduced a quota system to limit the number of immigrants from each country. The quota or maximum was was put at 3% of a country’s residence. The quota system was supposed to be temporary until congress could study immigration more closely. Three years later, congress passes the Immigration Law of 1924. This law was unfair to immigrants because it was not allowing them to come to America because of their nationality.
By moving the date back, it severely reduced the number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. The new law banned all immigration from Asia. When Japan heard the news, they declared a national day of mourning. At the end of the decade, immigration was more than a quarter of what it had been in 1921. In 1929, congress managed to lower the number of immigrants allowed into America each year to an astounding amount 150,000. Republican Albert Johnson thought immigrants were “aliens” and that “countries shall no longer dump their criminals into the U.S” The decisions made by congress in the 1920’s had large negative affects in the U.S. Immigrants suffered racism. It was believed that an estimated 50%-80% of immigrants returned to their country of origin. Immigrants were facing harsh words and actions by American citizens. They were treated as lesser that an American and the Quota Law was punishing them.
The Immigration Law of 1924 reduced the number of immigrants allowed into America to 164,000 which was extremely low. It cut quotas to 2% of a county’s residents in the U.S in 1890. Around this time, most immigrants came from northern Europe. As time went on, congress continued to be even more cruel to immigrants. These are quotes from John E. Milholland. His documents is called “Immigration Hysteria In Congress.” He says, “We are an immigrant nation.” “Immigrants ourselves, we should understand it fully, or at least sympathetically.”
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Rise of the KKK How has the fear of new immigrants inspired the rise of the power of the KKK?
By: Chloe Lybeck
Concealed by the white hooded capes, the members of the Ku Klux Klan have been terrorizing innocent humans for years. Their main targets were` African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. They burn crosses, organize lynchings, and marching through towns protesting that whites are the better race. Due to the increase of immigrants in the 1920’s, there was a rise in members involved in the KKK. In 1920, the number of KKK members rose to 4 million members. They set out to destroy people who were different colors, had different beliefs, and different home countries. By them doing this immigrant numbers lowered. In America, people feared the immigrants. They feared them so much that they wanted to get rid of them. Congress established the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the quota system, and the Immigration Act of 1924. The Act of 1921 allowed only 375,000 people to immigrate to the US each year. The quota system limited the number of immigrants in each country. The Act of 1924 reduced the number of people allowed to immigrate to the US each year to only 164,000 people. All of these laws hurt the immigrants. African-Americans and Asians were suffering discrimination and the Jews and Catholics were suffering religious prejudice.
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The targets of the KKK did not have any new fear of the KKK. Since the number of immigrants rose, in the 1920’s, the KKK had an increase in members. The US experienced a rise in immigrants and a rise in anti-immigration. People wanted to join the KKK because they wanted the immigrants out of their country and out of their lives.
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The Backlash to Immigration Are nativist goals good or bad for AMerica? Sophia Cockerham
Arrogance is one of many words that can be used to describe a nativist. The sense of self importance that the american nativist feels because they are white. Its essentially an excuse stating that because a person is not native to america it gives them a right to feel threatened. The nativists questions whether immigrants will be loyal to America or their old country in terms of war or citizenship. For this they feel threatened. Should they be? They fear immigrants will take jobs that they believe belong to them. They want to reduce immigration to get rid of their personal problems with the newcomers, not to mention they believe it will resolve ethnic conflicts. If that's what they want then maybe try being less ignorant. The Quota System Act of 1917 limited the number of immigrants coming from every country to 375,000. The maximum percent of immigrants that could be our population was three. The immigration act of 1924 was an act of hate and an act of a nativist. Nonetheless it was sadly still effective. Immigration from asia was banned. The act reduced the number of immigrants to 164,000 and in 1929 it lowered the number of immigrants to 150,000. But most importantly it cut quotas so that only two percent of our population could be immigrants.
The KKK where the people unafraid to express these opinions and acts of hatred. But are they unafraid? Why wear the white hoods. Why conceal their identity? To strike fear, perhaps to show immigrants that there was nothing they could do. Consisted of native born whites male and female the KKK were a group of three to four million people. The KKK were not merciful to their victims being. Using terrorizing tactics to gain power and striked at night. Their awful doing were made up of whippings, kidnappings, cross burns, arson and murder. Many felt that if immigration was banned all together that america could be the country it was supposed to be. Others agreed but felt immigration shouldn't have been in the first place the right race would white and the future of america would be greater and more stable.
To put this in perspective nativist goals are not good for america and nowhere near. They’re hurtful and cause harm to others. To truly change America of our ethnic differences we have to open our minds and see each other as people not colors. Nativism is another expression of racism. And if it were you on the short end of the stick you would change your opinions.
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Immigration and Their Values Are Immigrants values good or bad for America and why? By: Caitlynn Tubbs As they sail in from their home countries, arriving in the big apple they discover the struggles of fitting in and making a living. Immigrants coming in had great big dreams and realistic visions on their new life. Unfortunately‌ that was not the case for the most part. They wanted no harm to the US, just to start a new life, for religious, or other reasons. When they arrived they were looking for jobs. They didn't care what it was as long as they made money.They took the jobs nobody wanted, such as iron and coal mining. They worked in the factory and very harsh and dangerous environments. Doing the same repetitive thing over and over got boring, but that's what they had to do. The immigrants contributed a lot to the American economy. When they came over, they were forced to buy their ticket meaning... America made money off them. Of course when they arrived here they had little to nothing with them. That meaning they had to buy bedding, clothes, food, house goods, entertainment, and child schooling. Businesses made money off of them because they had to start over and “buyâ€? their new life. Most of the roads, railroads, and buildings were built by immigrants too. They improved our country more than you think, they did all the dirty work so businesses would succeed.
Many immigrants had to deal with people who also didn't like them. Facing nativism made it even harder to succeed in life. They were targeted by the KKK because they were a different color or from a different country. Some business owners wouldn't hire them if they were not US born citizens. How crazy is that? Some people complained that immigration was the reason for urban crowding when most of them lived in very small tenements packed with lots of people. Ethnic conflicts arose after there was more and more anti-immigration feelings going around. All in all, immigration brought good values to the US, even if it brought conflict, it wasn't something we couldn't handle. I mean, America is made up of all immigrants!
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BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY Osborne, Linda Barrett. This Land Is Our Land: A History of American Osborne, Linda Barrett. This LandAbrams Is Our Land:for A History of American Immigration. Abrams for Young Readers, Immigration. N.p.: Young Readers, 2016.N.p.: Print. 2016. Print. Osborne, Linda Barrett. This Land Is Our Land Immigration. N.p.: Abrams for Osborne, Linda Barrett. This Land Is Our Land Immigration. N.p.: Abrams for Young Readers, 2016. Print. Young Readers, 2016. Print.
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