Pros And Cons Of Becoming American Citizens

Citizens

The Americas were freed from British rule in 1776. This independence meant overall freedom, although the new world would have plenty of English influence among its government and daily lives, from British monarchy. This freedom would allow the colonies to break into what would later become the United States of America and one of the biggest, most influential countries in the world. European immigrants would flee from eastern Europe to escape their poverty and economic conditions, with the hopes of moving their families and making it prosperous in America. In 1790, the Naturalization Act would enable all free whites the possibilities of becoming and remaining citizens. Every now and then religious boundaries were questioned along with

Jews, Celts, Irish, and Chinese, just to name a few, were all considered others, not necessarily white, much less “fee whites” in the new world. These races had to fight for their right to become American citizens and eventually, over the course of time, they would win the government over. The white Protestants were the majority rulers and even European Catholics would be rigorously questioned about their livelihood of having citizenship. But for the Africans who were forcefully brought to the Americas, they never had the opportunity to choose freedom, or citizenship. Everything they learned about the Americas, they were taught through slavery. Every bit of their culture, from Africa, they had to try and relive while endured servants. Everything about their lives changed when they entered the new free world. The irony of this situation is that the Americas wanted the land to be full of democracy, but how could this be the case if one entire class of people were treated as property and less than

The United States was supposed to be a democracy but instead racial tensions kept many from becoming citizens until several decades later. These thoughts arise every time I hear the argument about white citizenship among poor Eastern Europeans. My first thought is that even as the poorest of the white breed, they still had more human rights than the blacks did. My second thought, they were still ‘free” in the sense that they got paid for their labor and were never forced to migrate to the west. Third, every lower class of whites eventually moved into the realm of a free white. But the blacks went well into the 20th century fighting for the right to just be called a citizen, much less the long fight they had to have the same basic rights as their white