Critical Thinking 15-1 # 3 & 4

3) Which group of immigrants do you think faced the greatest challenges in the united states? Why?

The new wave of immigrants had come from all different areas of the world. Most came to the States from European countries. others came from Mexico and the west Indies. However, an extremely high percentage came from eastern Asia. Namely China. (461)
The Europeans and Mexicans had it more easy than others, as long as they were doing it legally. Unfortunately, there were so many Chinese immigrants coming into America, there was no possible way there could be enough jobs for both them, and the locals. The employers, however, looked at this as an opportunity to cut pay wages. These immigrants were so happy just knowing they had a job, they couldn't care less how much they were paid or how many hours they worked.On the other hand, there were those who've been working in this country all their lives and knew exactly what kind of pay they should be getting.
The locals were upset about the employers hiring the immigrants that they went to the government with the issue. The result of this was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. this act banned entry to all Chinese except students, teachers, merchants, tourists and government officials. therefore, it is quite obvious that the Chinese immigrants had a much worse situation than those from Europe and Mexico. (465)
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4) What were the effects of the massive influx of immigrants to the U.S. in the late 1800s?

in the late 1800s, there was an increasingly large amount of immigrants coming into America and the results didn't make many people too happy. First of all, simply the sheer number of people coming into th country was ridiculous. In Massachusetts, the number of Irish immigrants added up to about 249 thousand people, and thats only the Irish immigrants. there were even more in more states. Not to mention the German numbers were even higher!(461)
However, having Asian immigrants was an entirely new element to the situation. the Asian immigrants were much more accustomed to doing harder, more physically tiring work. and because they didn't have a preference to how they were payed, they were hired more often than others. This led to the locals creating something called, nativism, which was favoritism to those born in America. It was basically a form of racism against Asian immigrants.(464)
the popular "Anti-Asian" subject reached congress and they decided to do what the people would like, and created the Chinese exclusion act, which kept Chinese immigrants from entering the country looking for work. (465)