Immigration

One of the most important and perhaps unique historical elements contributing to the character of the American system is the diversity of backgrounds from which the nation’s citizen come. Immigrants from almost every corner of the world have decided to leave their ancestral homes and make a new life in the United States. Except for the American Indian, Eskimos and native Hawaiians, every American is either an immigrants or a descendant of immigrants. The flow of people to what is now the United States began in the sixteenth century. It continued largely unrestricted until 1921, when congress enacted legislation setting quotas for the number of the persons who could annually enter the United States. Above all, this continuing immigration made a tremendous and dramatic contribution to the size of the population of the United States.

But the impact of immigration on the development of the United States goes far beyond its effect on the size of population. The tide of immigrants that began to swell in the 1840s and crested at the end of nineteenth century made possible the astounding industrial and commercial growth of the United States, as well as its territorial expansion. Another impact feature of American immigration has been the ethic, economic and religious diversity of the immigrants. Other nations can trace their development to mass influxes of immigrants.

Conditions abroad and in the United States caused these people to arrive here in great waves. Almost all African immigrants came prior the Civil War, but unlike most other immigrants, they did not come of their own free will. Chinese immigrants, recruited to help build the railroads, settled in large numbers on the West Coast in the 1850s and 1860s. Many people from Northern and Western Europe came before 1880. at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, other from Southern, Eastern and Central Europe arrived in larger numbers for several years. Hungarians and Cubans have fled their homelands to escape communist regimes.

Immigrants in Politics

The ethnic diversity made possible by immigration to the United States has enriched American music, literature, art, and the whole fabric of the nation’s society. It has also had a noticeable effect on the American political system. One of the most notable aspects of the American experience for most immigrants has been a virtually unlimited opportunity to take part in American life despite their newcomer status. After five year’s residence and the passing of a series of tests on the principles of government and law in the United States, any adult can become an American citizen. The interests and needs of these naturalized citizens have provided inputs for the American political system. As the number of potential immigrants voters increased, politicians began searching for ways to win their electoral support. One especially effective way was to pay more intention to events occurring in countries from which large numbers of immigrants had come. In an attempt to appeal to new voters during the nineteenth century, the national political parties began to support causes related to events in other countries.

The Emergence of Ethnic Politics

Far more important, however, was the impact that immigrants groups had on the American political system as they became active in the governmental process. A great many immigrants had been peasant farmers in their native lands. They had little if any formal education and little or no training in crafts, trades or professions. The first immigrants drawn from these roots were for the most part apathetic and highly suspicious of politics, which they regarded as the tool of the governing class.

It was in the cities that the immigrants first became connected with politics. Eventually they became connected through the city machine, the party boss, learning that politics could serve their immediate interests by helping to provide them with jobs and local services. They learned moreover that politics offered channels of advancement for the more ambitious members of the immigrants class, who found their livelihood in the political organization itself, either serving its leaders or becoming leaders themselves. Many immigrants soon found that, if they ran for public office, they could attract a substantial number of votes from member of votes from members of their own immigrants group. They can do so simply on basis of national identify and the prospect of a symbolic triumph of the immigrant group in its new and alien environment.

As immigrant groups made up larger and larger concentrations of voters in the urban centers, they became increasingly successful in electing their members to public offices. The immigrant’s politician tried to find jobs for members of his ethic group. Just as important, he helped them cope with the laws, regulation and responsibilities of citizenships in place where the language was unfamiliar and difficult to master. In return for these helps, the immigrant voters contributed to continued political support. This style, which emerged in the second half of nineteenth century, profoundly influenced the nature of the American political system. The style was personal and individual rather than oriented toward broad issues of public policy. In particular, it was oriented toward obtaining the economic security of immigrants groups and certainty in a world of uncertainly. Regardless of what appeals might be made to immigrants to join progressive or radical political movements, the city machine that “opened to the immigrants the prospect that the state might be the means through which the beginning of security could come thereby assured itself of their loyalty”. Immigrants therefore never became an important force in reform politics except in insofar as city bosses found that they could join the reformers to back certain public policies fostering economic security, which in turn would appeal to their immigrant urban constituencies.

The early individualistic and personal orientation of immigrant politics was transformed with second and third generation immigrants. Politics on the basis of favors began gradually to diminish as second-generation immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century responded to the increasing inability of city bosses to supply all their needs. Second-immigration immigrants had also a more expanded consciousness of the possibilities of politics than their forebears. The ethnic groups in the cities began to join progressive and liberal political movements and by the time of the New Deal in the 1930s they constituted an important base of support for democratic party.

Ethnic