Immigration 4 Essay, Research Paper

WHAT ROLE HAS IMMIGRATION PLAYED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AS A NATION?

Immigration is an event that has been occurring in the United States since the 1620 s when the Mayflower brought the Pilgrims to our country. Like the Pilgrims, many immigrants came to our nation looking for opportunities that their country could not provide for them. Through the years, immigration has played a key role in the development of our nation s economics and culture in both positive and negative ways.

From Europe and Africa, from Canada and Asia, from Mexico and South America, people have come to the United States. Here they have found work, opened shops, raised families, built schools and churches, and formed social clubs and sporting teams. Their history illustrates the common experiences and the shared realities of all the immigrants who have worked, worshipped, lived and died, laughed, prospered and sometimes failed in our country. From the first settlements of the Quaker, Puritans, and Catholics, Americans have welcomed immigrants with opened arms. In the 1890-1910 s there was a need for cheap labor. Immigrants saw this need as a chance to search for a new life, and to start over with new religious freedoms and economic opportunities. In America s history, there have been many men who have helped our nation develop into what Americans live in today. Without immigrants such as Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, and Samuel Slater many of the technological advantages such as the telephone, medicines, and factories we have today, would cease to exist. Thanks to immigrants, the United States continues to progress in many areas to make it the most successful nation in the world.

Although most immigrants are an asset to our nation, there are those who effect this country in a negative way. When looking for a better way of life, some immigrants come to our country thinking that everything will be provided for them, and in turn become burdens on our government. They bring their families, which consists of sons, daughter, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even cousins, and try to acquire jobs. Although these people have good intentions, they are not always helpful to our country. Many immigrants lack the skill and knowledge necessary to maintain a job. Then, in order to survive and provide for their families, they result to welfare. It is hard enough for our government to provide for our native citizens, and yet these people who should reside somewhere else are draining our economy as well. Our nation wants to grow and prosper, but with unskilled and uneducated immigrants that continue to hinder our progress, we will never succeed.

Ethnic life in America was, and is still today, centered around the family. Immigrants and others saved their earnings to assist relatives in traveling to this country. On their arrival, families provided the newcomers with lodging, assistance in finding jobs, and critical emotional and moral support. The church had an important role in the ethnic community, helping immigrants and others adjust to the new area by providing religious guidance, running schools and organizing social activities. For the immigrants, churches represented a powerful link to the old country where religion and a sense of nationality were often closely related. Although it was hard coming in to a new nation as outcasts, these immigrants proved that they could provide for themselves in order to make it in the New World. If they had not had the determination to motivate themselves to accomplish the goals they did, then the United States would lack the diversity and technological advances that it has today.