Describe The New Immigration

Describe the “New Immigration”, and explain how it differed from the “Old Immigration” and why it aroused opposition from many Native-Born Americans. Antiforeignism was not a new concept in America in the 1880s. It had begun in the 1840s when the first large influx of immigrants emigrated to America, predominantly from Ireland and Germany. The American, or “Know Nothing”, political party was created specifically for the sake of excluding and barring the newcomers from equal opportunities, especially with the case of the Irish in the northeast. Fast forward forty years later and the Irish and the German have become common place amongst the native born Americans and the new wave of immigrants emerges. Hailing from southern and eastern Europe, the Americans were unused to seeing people with such unfamiliar looks and customs, which spawned dislike and disgust. The Old Immigration involved immigrants leaving English speaking countries like the British Isles or countries that had Protestantism dominating their religion, like Germany. Old Immigrants tended to have the familiar Anglo-Saxon appearance and

While settlement houses did emerge to facilitate the assimilation of immigrants into the American culture, it was not able to occur immediately, miraculously, or for all people. The Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish religions were not welcome amongst the mainly Protestant Americans, and some Americans went so far as to form the American Protective Association, which advocated against the election of Catholics into Congress. There was also the issue that the New Immigrants came from different governmental backgrounds where democracy was a foreign or even unheard of concept. Immigrants did not only bring their baggage across the ocean, but also ideas of socialism and anarchy that greatly worried the