Immigration

Author's Note: This is a timeline of the different immigrants that came to the United States, why they came and what happened when they came.  I wanted to try this instead of creating a normal timeline on a document.




Immigrants: The Similarities of People So Different

Author's Note: This piece is my way of comparing the trends in how different people from different nationalities immigrated to America; not only the way they immigrated but how, why, and what life was like when they came here.  I will employ artistic syntax structures like crisscross patterns, climatic patterns, and reversed patterns.  Along with that I will vary the use of the 4 sentence structures.  I will also try to maintain a formal voice.

Running through the dark timberland, sailing through the treacherous waters, soaring through the cloud spotted sky -- they all came here some time from some where. What we don't know is why they came or what happened when they came.  In life, there are many unique things that happen and every now and then, they go unnoticed.  Each and every single immigrant had a story behind their immigration to America.  It could be by force or at will.  If you look closely into the story of our nation, you will see the trends in how people lived when they first came: their loss, their reason, their struggle, and the living conditions they settled for.

The importance of how these people came isn't nearly as important as why.  Some people came due to financial struggle and poverty: Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Scottish, Italians, and Koreans are most of them.  Privileged and amazing, lives in their countries were not.  People take things like protection, civil rights, peace, happiness, and love for granted.  In other countries, people are forced to do things that are against their will, and some are so poor that they sell their children to abusive people just to earn money, which eliminates the meaning of love from their vocabulary, along with the right of happiness.  Would you even be able to call it earning if you have to give away everything you love?  Some receive the sadness of watching their family die in starvation, poverty, disease, and many other factors of life.  Others came in effect of events which threatened their country; the Irish came due to the Potato Famine, the Vietnamese came in effect of the Vietnam War, and the Jewish escaped the Holocaust and sought out America as refuge.  America is a shelter to all that seek freedom and life.  In some instances, like Africans in 1600s to the 1850s, they were bought from Americans to be used as slaves, thankfully that was abolished in 1863.  Others came in search of new land -- like the English, settlers of the thirteen original colonies.  People who immigrated to America knew their conditions, saw their opportunities, and dealt with their consequences.  Those are the things that make them Americans.

For most of the time, their trip was not easy, especially earning their living.  No one comes into America with all the money in the world.  Everyone has to work their way up to that, starting with a job tailored to their amount of education.  In similarity to the Jewish and the English, some took skilled professions such as investing.  Others were shop owners, worked with machinery, brewery, or skilled trade, reminiscent to the Italians and Germans.  Those who are like the Irish, Africans, Hmong, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Scottish, and Koreans which came from countries that were not as educated or wealthy took jobs that were unskilled and unwanted: farmers, cattle farmers, sugar plantation workers, police officers, miners, laborers, and slaves.  These jobs are thought of differently now and those people received improved jobs from there. 

Some may believe that life coming to America wasn't as rough as it was perceived; after all, their jobs were only temporary.  Although, there is one thing that didn't just last the first year.  For some, it hasn't changed since.  It is the way that they were treated.  The English were very powerful; just look at our first presidents.  They all came from English families.  Irish were laughed at and outside many locations of employment read a sign that said, "No Irish Need Apply".  Chinese were unwelcomed and seen as slaves workers taking care of the heavy labor for railroads, Africans were slaves for the first English settlers, and Germans were treated a lot like slaves as well.  Slavery was very common back then.  America needed to be built up to what it is now, and someone had to do it -- at will or by force.  Scottish were thought as less civilized humans, Italians were considered less equal, and Jewish people were treated as separate citizens.  For the many souls that came here for the same reasons, they all had their differences.  Hmong, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Koreans were discriminated against and the Hmong especially were outcast.  There was a power in numbers that many citizens feared.  The more of the same ethnicity that came, the greater this fear was.  Many worried that the Japanese would take all the jobs away.  People who arrived in United States had a lot to worry about, and they didn't stand together; they had more concerns for themselves than the people around them. 

Time is always changing and so are the ways people live their lives.  Before, it was difficult trying to leave, find transportation, get a job, and adapt to the stares and strange looks.  When you decide to move now, you're much more prepared.  Not only are you prepared, you aren't usually treated with pity and rejection, you have enough money to support yourself, and a decent place to reside while you are adapting to your environment.  Immigrants in the 1600s to the 1900s were like diamonds.  They have been beaten down and mistaken for nothing, but when it all ends, somebody realizes that they are truly significant findings.

If you would like to see the bibliography for this project and my Irish Potato Famine project, click on the like below.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X1k9OTKlwWlEL8WqV-NQ6xTn0o44Z7eRPasM6jK1j9I/edit