Old and New Immigrants

Immigration

During the 19th century, immigration to the United States increased profoundly. The two times of this immigration can be separated into the "old" and "new". These movements differed not only in the people that were immigrating but for different political, social, and economic reasons as well.

The early 1800s saw the earliest wave of immigration, "Old Immigration". These settlers generally came from western and northern Europe, mainly England and English territories. Half of those immigrants were from Latin America and the Caribbean, and another from Asia and Africa (Gonzalez 191). Many Americans welcomed these immigrants as an asset to America as they were workers for factories, mines, farmers for the west, consumers for agricultural or industrial, and men with special abilities and talents. Although these new settlers were all from around the same area, their reasons for coming to this new country differed, the greatest motivator though, was for the seeking of new land.

Rather, the Latin American countries were much closer to the U.S., both geographical and political terms, Latin American migration involved more travel back and forth, more communication and physical connection between the migrants and their homelands, and that has led to have stronger ties between them and their old cultures than previous migrants experienced (Gonzalez 191).No matter the restrictions, Latin American immigration continue at high levels to increase deep into this new century, for it is fueled by political, economic, and demographic forces. Among those forces are: A catastrophic economic crisis in Latin America that pushes migrants here, Corporate globalization, which pulls Latin Americans here and the declining birth rates and aging of the white population of the United States, which assures a continued demand for low-paid Latin American Labor (Gonzalez 192). Seemingly the main trend of the "old immigration" is the freedom that America had to offer.

The arrival of great numbers of Hispanics has resulted in concern about the U.S. culture, as well as in legislation primarily at Hispanics and at the flow of immigration. Some see this as a threat to our way of life, and not as an enrichment of our national culture. In addition to possibly racial prejudice, the negative predisposition of some native Americans to the Latinos of the U.S. seems to be based at least in part on a number of myths, such as that Hispanics take jobs away from current citizens, that they are a drain on government services, that they are about to radically change the nature and culture of the nation, or that they are not willing to learn English. These fears are quite unfounded. It is a fact, for instance, that all immigrant groups put more resources into the public than they take out, if we consider local, state and federal levels together. Numerous studies demonstrate that immigrants make enormous contributions to the U.S. society in taxes and Social Security. The major problem is that those contributions are unevenly distributed between federal and local governments (Gonzalez 197). The labor participation rates are far higher for Latin Americans Immigrants than for other immigrants. (Gonzalez 196). The jobs immigrants