The experience of the new immigrants in the late 19 th century was a little different

from the experience of preceding groups of immigrants to the United States.

Assess the validity of this statement.

Immigration during United States history has gradually changed since its
conception. However, looking at a large scale, it has changed significantly,
especially between the early to mid-19th century and the late 19th century. In
addition to the change between these time periods, one aspect stayed relatively the
same, nativism.
Old immigration up to the late 19th century was much more simplistic. There were
two main ethnicities that voyages across the Atlantic in search for a better life: the
Irish and German. The Germans came over, generally with a fair amount of money,
and would purchase farms in the present day Midwest. They practiced Protestant
Christianity, and blended into American society pretty smoothly. However, the Irish
outpouring brought about a huge nativism backlash. They disliked the Irish because
first, they were Catholic, and second, they were taking low-skill jobs on the
railroads. Political groups such as the Know-Nothings arose, which showed hatred
because of those two reasons. However, this was only the beginning, because the
hatred of New Immigration would bring a larger hatred toward these immigrants.
The idea of the American dream here in the United States took off with the rise of
immigration. People in Eastern Europe heard of Germans and some Irish becoming
successful, and even the unsuccessful were living better than in Europe. This idea of
opportunity was a stimulus to New Immigration. New Immigration is a term
given to United States immigration from the late 1800s and beyond. These
immigrants were different than the Germans and Irish. They were Italian-Catholics
and Eastern Europeans. Much like the Irish, the Italians were poor and had few labor
skills, so they were forced to the cities and competed with nativists and the Irish for
jobs. But, the main issue with the Italians was their religion: Catholic. Now antiCatholic groups like the APA arose, which hated Irish and Italians. These groups
were mainly nativists, who not only disliked the old immigrants, but now the new
ones. The only difference was that nativism was in a higher scale than before,
because of the immigration population increasing. However, another group of
people would make the journey across the Pacific Ocean that would make
immigrants hate other immigrants: the Chinese. The Chinese and Irish immigrants
were mainly railroad workers, which created competition for those low-skill jobs.
Now immigrants (Irish) were pushing for other immigrants (Chinese) to be excluded
from the US. This would be known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. In old immigration,
you did not see this type of nativism on a scale comparable to this.
Although immigration did not become mainstream in the United States until
the 1800s, there has always been a prejudice against immigrants. For example, in
the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Federalists raised the number of years needed to
become a US citizen from five to fourteen years. Also, in the Emergency Quota Acts,
we limited the number of immigrants admitted into the United States. We were
fearful of anarchism, communism, and socialism from Eastern Europeans. WE, as

citizens, have always been a little fearful of immigration, but until this point, we
have never seen nativism be so dominant. In addition, we may never see again the
hatred toward one specific religion (Catholicism) on a scale that it was shown to the
Irish and Italian immigrants.