Immigration Article

One of the things that struck me the most while reading this article was the fact that we are a nation that was built on foreign immigrants. Despite this the Untied States now has to turn people away. As well as the fact throughout recent history there has been discrimination of the who can come to this Country. When I think about discrimination I think of things like slavery, not about other Countries. The article states,"Congress also passed a variety of measures designed to exclude various categories." This means that the people were only being admitted if the government thought that they would be good for society. Many people were admitted based on job qualification. I feel that if a person has a legitimate reason for wanting to come to America then they should not be turned away. Most people will be able to support the success of the Country in some way. I found it surprising that one of the main groups of people who were turned away were the Chinese. It was not a great choice made by the government, because now China is one of the most elite nations in the World. We could have gotten some real geniuses and not even know it.

Another important issue that the article discussed was the fact that when various groups of immigrants arrived in America they were faced with persecution. The article says,"Many immigrant groups faced severe social prejudice." Some of those groups included the Irish, Germans, Italians, Swedes, Finns, and Poles. They had to deal with poor living conditions on top of the unfair treatment. Religion also had a great impact on how a person was treated, this was due to ethnic stereotypes. Though as time has progressed the people have become more and more accepted in to the culture of the United States. For me this is extremely important, because of the fact that in the past Jews were one of the ethnic groups that were persecuted. Luckily as time has gone on the Jews have been welcomed into society. I know that my life would be so much different if the change in society had not occurred.

This article ended with the focus of illegal immigration. I feel that this a problem that America has to figure out. I agree that many of these people do the jobs that a lot of Americans do not want to do. These aliens help our economy, but they put a burden on the tax payers. I am not exactly sure how the government should go about this, but the need to do so something and fast.

Citation
"immigration." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010.