Larry Stanley

6-20-08

Immigration: Given Rights or Earned?

Since the settling of America began, there has been an influx of foreigners who have continually invaded this new world looking for that “land of opportunity.” From the Irish, German, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, Canadian, and, yes, even the original settlers, the American people, few have turned away from its shores once they had seen the tremendous riches this country could afford them. Granted, the American people took over the country from the American Indians, but at the time, every struggling society was searching for a new land in which to practice their religions away from any ruling establishment that thought they had the power to make their people see their way of life. And the settlers who came here worked and fought to make America all that it has become over the years, that “land of opportunity” everyone of the “tired,…poor,…huddled masses yearning to be free,…” have sought for over one hundred years and are still seeking today. But what rights do these people have obtaining citizenship? Does the U.S. government ask too much that they learn the procedures that run this country? These are the questions we will look at that have made the question of immigrant rights such a large issue over the years.

As America grew, its need for workers also grew. Developing this new land would take a lot of work and a lot of people. To develop the land Americans needed a way of transporting material across this vast landscape. Thus the idea of a railroad connecting the East with the West came into question. But in order to make this project feasible, workers were needed, and the builders looked to China for the Central Pacific and Ireland for the Union Pacific, seeking people in need of work. Stephen E. Ambrose’s novel, Nothing Like It in the World, tells of the plight of the Chinese and Irish workers. Brought over on boats, the workers were subjected to bad working conditions, low pay, and homesickness, with the prospect of no money for the trip back. “With as many as fifteen thousand on each line,” the workers quickly approached the size of the Civil War armies (Ambrose, 18). The Chinese men were constantly compared to another subordinate group, white women (Ambrose, 151). As one can see the immigrants were already becoming a minority group. Having little or no money for a return trip to their home country, the immigrant was forced to make a living here. They soon began settling into places like San Francisco, developing homesteads like Chinatown.

Reading letters from relatives who came to America for work, more and more immigrants began coming here to look for work and the opportunities this country could give them. Ellis Island opened in 1892 to handle this influx of people. By 1907, more than a million people came through its doors. America remained fair in receiving most of them, turning away only those who they thought would not make it on their own or whose criminal backgrounds might be in question. And these people came here to work, because they knew the opportunities they had here that weren’t allowed them in their homelands. As Doukenie Papandreos said when she saw the Statue of Liberty, “Lady, you’re beautiful. You opened your arms, and you get all the foreigners here. Give me a chance to prove that I am worth it, to do something, to become somebody in America” (Coan, 284). Betty Garoff stated, “Do I have any regrets about coming to America? No! I would have been incinerated if I stayed in the old country” (Coan, 256). The immigrant came to this country looking for a new and better way of life, only to be scammed by cutthroats they met on the piers. But little could deter these determined people from reaching the goal they had set for themselves.

As seen in the reading we’ve done in class, such as “The English Lesson,” the immigrant would work all hours and then go to class to better his/her position in America’s workforce. While the U.S. government asks these provisions to gain citizenship, they are only doing this to better these people’s lives, to keep up a higher standard than where the immigrant came from. The immigrant has every right in the world that their fellowman before them had to come to America and try to make it for himself. The immigrant is the backbone of this country, and everyone who came here has put their name on the building of this great land. While people wonder what to do about the Mexican immigrants taking over jobs in this country, one can only look around to see the jobs these people take, housecleaning, digging ditches, mowing grass, waiting tables, jobs the American worker has griped about doing for years. And all the American bosses do is pay these immigrants just enough to make through the week. They have no money to send home or money enough to bring their families here. Immigrants had to put up with a lot of misery in the old days and are still subjected to it today. But of all this misery they face, one never sees a shortage of people wanting to reach this “land of opportunity.”

Work Cited

Ambrose, Stephen E. Nothing in the World Like It. New York: Simon, 2000.

Brown, Wesley, and Amy Ling. Imagining America: Stories From the Promised Land. New York: Persea, 2002.

Coan, Peter Morton. Ellis Island Interviews: Immigrants Tell Their Stories in Their Own Words. New York: Fall River Press, 1997.

Reeves, Pamela. Ellis Island: Gateway to the American Dream. New York: Dorset, 1991.