The United States of America was established by immigrants; every single person living in America, other than Native Americans, is a descendant of an American immigrant. All throughout U.S. History, immigrants have helped shape the nation into what it is widely known as today: a ‘melting pot’. The U.S. has far more immigrants than any nation in the world. In fact, the 2016 U.S. Census revealed that there were almost 48 million immigrants residing in the U.S. (“U.S. Immigrant Pop…”), about four times that of Russia, the nation with the second highest number of immigrants (“30 Countries…”). However, percentage-wise, the U.S. still hasn’t reached the position it was at in 1910: a whopping 14.7 percent of the total population (“U.S. Immigrant …show more content…
Both the Old Immigrants and the New Immigrants often came to America to take advantage of the ‘land of opportunity’ economically, usually leaving their home country because of crop failure, famine, and land and job shortages, among others (“Rise of Industrial America”). Another important similarity between Old and New immigrants was that both groups received a considerable amount of opposition and resistance from native-born Americans. The “ideology that favors the rights and privileges of the ‘native born’ population over and against those of ‘foreign’ status”, Nativism (“Nativism and Religion..”) was prominent during this time period, and was at its peak during the early 1900s. Factory owners were generally pleased with the vast flow of immigration because immigrants would usually take up the same job as a native-born American, but for a lower wage. However, many groups disliked and opposed the immigrants, who were often stereotyped and discriminated against in America, and had to withstand various kinds of abuse (“Rise of Indus…”). The hate for immigrants even resulted in the formation of an entire political party, known as the “Know-Nothing Party”. Advocates and supporters of the party wanted stricter immigration and laws that made it harder for immigrants to obtain citizenship. In 1856, the Know-Nothing Party’s candidate in 1856, Millard Fillmore, received 21% of the …show more content…
The party stopped being a political threat in 1860, however. A major reaction to the abundance of immigration was the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act of 1924, both of which restricted immigration based on the number of total people from each country that resided in the United States. The final similarity is that both the Old Immigrants and the New Immigrants completely transformed American culture, and the society as a whole. Both groups brought a myriad of different ideologies and political stances such as sociology, religions, languages, and cultures, all of which helped to shape the United