Think about your background – your race/ethnicity/heritage. Do you know how your family came to America?

Analyze the circumstances surrounding the great wave of immigration after the Civil War

Evaluate how nativism affected immigration policies

SteerageEllis IslandAngel IslandNativismAmerican Protective AssociationWorkingman’s Party of CaliforniaChinese Exclusion Act

- By the 1890’s, eastern and southern Europeans make up more than half of all immigrants.

- Why come to America?- Jobs- Few immigration restrictions- Avoid military service- Avoid religious persecution- Europe’s class system

- Ellis Island- Took 1 day to go

through inspections- “Step lively” in every language- Colored chalk- H (heart), - K (hernia), - Sc (scalp), - X (mental)

- Most immigrants settled in cities.- Ethnic neighborhoods- “More stripes than on the skin of a zebra”

- The benefits of learning English, having $$

- Did all immigrants come to stay?

- Reasons for Chinese coming to America…- Problems in Asia- China’s population = 430 million- 49ers- Taiping Rebellion- Central Pacific Railroad

- Japanese immigration- #’s remained small until 1900- Picked up between 1900 and 1919

- Angel Island- Asian immigrants were mostly young men

- The increase in immigration led to nativism- Not the 1st time nativism was common

- Fear of Catholicism- Some labor unions anti-immigration

- Nativism led to the forming of two anti-immigrant groups- The American Protective Association- The Workingman’s Party of California

- Irony?

- In 1882, two laws pass…- Ban on paupers and mentally ill- Chinese Exclusion Act

- Renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902