Impact of Immigration on Society

In the late 1800s, many Europeans began to immigrate into the United States due to issues in their own countries. They were seeking a new life filled with opportunity and saw that in the U.S. What they didn’t know was that the U.S. had problems of its own; problems with its people, its culture and its society. All of those problems were largely impacted by these immigrants. These immigrants impacted society by changing the mindset of the people with nativism, by the establishment of new cultures and by the pressure of assimilation to American ways on new immigrants.

In the 1880s, the idea of nativism began to return in America. This idea was based off a hatred of all immigrants and anyone else who didn’t care to assimilate into American culture. This redevelopment was impacted by immigration which changed the way the American people thought. In 1921, Congress debated over the issue of immigration restrictions. They said that the government should limit immigration because the new immigrants might cause severe damage. The only way to not limit the immigrants was if they pledged allegiance to the United States (Congress, 1921). One can see that immigrants caused the redevelopment of nativism because when they came, the American people began to question their reasonings for being in the country and the government raised awareness. Congress described them as “downtrodden people”, meaning that they're bad people and good for nothing. This changed the mindset of the people because, since they questioned them, they began to judge them which caused them to hate them (nativism). Therefore, immigrants impacted society by changing the mindset of the American people by the redevelopment of nativism. In 1914, Joseph Keppler drew a picture and titled it "Welcome to All". The picture depicts the "old" immigrants, who have assimilated to American culture and have became successful, preventing the "new" immigrants, who haven't assimilated, from entering the United States (Keppler, 1914). One can see the nativism being displayed in this picture because nativists were against the immigrants that didn't want to assimilate and in this picture, they're being shut out. This shows that immigrants impacted society by changing the mindset of the Americans because they became more and more against the immigrants increasing the popularity of nativism.

When the immigrants began to come into the United States in, they recognized the American culture and began to follow it, making themselves more and more successful. In the 1880s, the "new" immigrants came around and didn't assimilate into American culture. Instead, they tried to maintain their own cultures. These immigrants impacted society by changing