United States of Immigrants

Immigration is the action of migrating to live permanently in a foreign country. People emigrate from their country and immigrate to another for many reasons but the bottom line is to prosper and improve their lives, as well as their families. Apparently it’s been a big deal in the United States as far as can be imagined. Every since the mid-1800s the United States has been the land of opportunity. The reason for immigration is quite clear; the Land remained plentiful, as well as it was fairly cheap. Jobs were of abundance, and labor was scarce and relatively dear. An increase in industry and urbanization also reinforced this situation. Though now days it is very frowned upon by our government, the United States was built by immigrants. Every early settler, pioneer, every single one of our ancestors was an immigrant. The great cities, the ways of our transportation have all been created because of the existence of immigrants. For instance the transcontinental rail road was built because the Chinese, Irish and Scottish. The Chinese were very useful most Chinese handled most of the heavy manual labor needed in order to get over as well as through the Nevada mountains and across the desert. Even after they dedicated themselves to creating this great amenity that would impact the United States greatly, the government still found a way to kill hopes and dreams. The passing of the Chinese exclusion act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. This basically stopped the immigration of the Chinese as well as set restrictions on the current immigrants. As far as immigration goes it has always been illegal in any circumstance, I just can’t believe that even after the immigrants have worked so hard to create something that would put the united states on the map.

The newest set of immigrants has been Hispanics and Latinos. One of the many Mexican immigrants happens to be my father. Hearing what he went through and sacrificed for his family is to me is pretty amazing. Crossing a total of 10 times back and forth not because of being deported but he would go back because of a promise made to his father. All while sneaking back into the U.S to continue to work and support his family. Working from the meatpacking companies located in the back of the yards Canaryville, to being able to land a good paying job helping build the John Hancock Center. He tells me to him it was an honor being able to contribute to such a building even though his time there was cut short. A couple months into the building my father was unfortunate to be working on site and happened to look up and as soon as he opened his eye a small amount of fresh concrete mix landed straight into his eye. He quickly was treated and taken to the hospital but needed to get a small surgery as an immigrant with not a whole lot of money saved up he wouldn’t be able to pay out of his pocket. Though the company had millions of dollars they decided to take advantage of his illegal status and not pay for anything. My father wasn’t the privileged one to be a part of this and contribute what he could to this building but how did the legal’s repay him? They repaid my dad by allowing and letting his left eye slowly lose its use, All because they didn’t feel the need to look out for one of their fellow immigrant workers. As you can see that even though this country was created and built by immigrants, it will always be a problem and as hard as they might work immigrants will always get the short short need of the stick.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/immgnts/

http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/VirtualAmericana/chineseimmigrationact.html