How Did Families in America Know When to Pick Up Love Ones at Ellis Island

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Immigration | Stories of Yesterday and Today

A New Country 1492-1790

The beautiful land of the New World amazed the European explorers who arrived on North American shores effectually 1500. They realized the economic possibilities of the fertile soil and many natural resources. In the 17th century, Europeans established successful permanent settlements in what is now the United States. The European settlers soon dominated the Native American civilizations, which had existed for thousands of years. The major European powers (including England, Spain, and France) established colonies,

which are lands controlled past a faraway authorities. The people who lived in the colonies were chosen colonists. Indelible great hardship, the colonists built new communities in the New Globe
1492-1500s

The Explorers

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer and excellent sailor, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in search of a shorter trade route to Asia. After more than two months at bounding main, he landed in the Bahamas in the Caribbean islands. Although Columbus never reached the mainland of North America, he had discovered the gateway to a vast continent unexplored by Europeans. Columbus returned to Europe believing he had reached previously unknown islands in Asia. Discussion of the new route spread in Europe. Over the next few decades, other explorers followed in Columbus's wake, hoping to take advantage of the shortcut to Asia. It would be some other Italian explorer, named Amerigo Vespucci, who realized that what had actually been discovered was a continent unknown to Europeans. He called it the New Globe.

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1565-1600s

New Settlements

European nations—including Kingdom of spain, French republic, holland, Portugal, Sweden, and England—vied to claim pieces of the new state. In the 1600s, England founded colonies along the Atlantic seaboard, from what is at present New Hampshire to Georgia. These original 13 colonies would eventually go the United States of America. Spain founded a colony at Saint Augustine, Florida, every bit early as 1565 and would become on to merits parts of what are now the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. French republic established colonies along the Saint Lawrence River, in what is now Canada; and besides in the southern role of Due north America, in the region that is now Louisiana. The Dutch began the settlement of New Amersterdam on the southern tip of what is at present Manhattan Island, domicile to role of New York City. The European countries frequently fought each over ownership of the new state; more land meant more than power and economic opportunity.

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1607

Jamestown Succeeds

In 1607, England sent 100 men to America to found a new colony. The colony was named Jamestown later King James I and was located on the declension of what is now Virginia. It would become the first English colony to succeed in America, but its beginning was exceptionally difficult. The colonists were hoping to discover gold hands, simply didn't. And tragically, they hadn't anticipated how hard information technology would be to survive in the New World. More half of the settlers died in the showtime year considering of the harsh winters, poor planning, and disease. But nether the leadership of the colonist John Smith, the colony began to succeed. They grew tobacco, which was sent dorsum to England and sold for profit. With the profit, the colonists had the money to found other crops, such as wheat, grapes, and corn, which is a nutrient native to North America. By 1620, Jamestown plus other settlements that sprang up nearby had a population of about 4,000. The colony was thriving. This economic success gave England a powerful interest in protecting its foothold in the New World.

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1619

Slavery Begins

Africans get-go arrived in North America in 1619. In that year, 20 African people were brought to the Jamestown colony aboard a Dutch warship. They were slaves. They had been taken from their homes in Africa by force. They were beaten and enchained by men carrying weapons. Over the next almost 200 years, hundreds of thousands of Africans would exist brought to America equally slaves to piece of work on plantations, specially to abound tobacco. By the end of the colonial period, Africans numbered almost 500,000 and formed about 20 percentage of the population of the United states of america.

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1620

The Pilgrims

Some colonies were formed because people wanted to escape religious persecution in Europe. In 17th century England, two groups of Christians, the Catholics and the Anglicans, were arguing over what organized religion and church should be the true church of England. Some of the Anglicans, chosen Puritans, thought that there should be more than distinction between their Church of England and the Cosmic Church. Some Puritans, called the Separatists, didn't want to belong to the Church of England at all anymore. King James, who was the head of the Church of England, would not allow the Separatists to practise religion on their own. To escape the situation in England, a small group of Separatists left Europe on the Mayflower send. In 1620, the ship landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, carrying 102 passengers. Many were Separatists, who became known as the Pilgrims. They established Plymouth Colony.
After the Pilgrims, many more people flocked to the new colonies for religious reasons: Nigh 200,000 Puritans emigrated from England during the years 1620 to 1641.

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1634-1680s

Religious Freedom

Subsequently the Pilgrims, many other immigrants came to America for the religious freedom information technology offered. The colony of Maryland was founded in 1634 equally a refuge for Catholics, who were persecuted in England in the 17th century. In 1681, William Penn began a Quaker colony in the land that was subsequently named afterwards him: Pennsylvania. The master settlement was Philadelphia, which prospered through farming and commerce. In 1685, xiv,000 Huguenots who were persecuted in France likewise joined the growing English colonies.

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1680-1776

Expanding Colonies

Early immigrants to America settled up and down the East Coast. Farming was difficult in the rocky soil of New England, so people grew only enough food for their families to live on. This is called subsistence farming. They also became fishermen, fishing cod in the Atlantic Ocean and selling it to the European markets. As they needed good ships for fishing, they started making them, becoming successful shipbuilders.
In the South, where farming was easier, colonists started big plantations to abound crops, such as tobacco, rice, and indigo. Indigo was a rich blue dye, mainly used for dyeing textiles. Plantations depended on the free labor of the slaves. Many more than slaves were forced to come to America to run across the demand for labor.
By the time of the Revolutionary State of war, near ii.5 1000000 people lived in the colonies, including approximately 450,000 Africans; 200,000 Irish; 500,000 Scottish and Scotch-Irish; 140,000 Germans; and 12,000 French.

Equally the colonies grew, people began to wait past the natural barrier of the Appalachian Mountains. They moved w into the frontier lands, in what is now Ohio, and across.

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1776-1790

A New Nation

The colonies grew prosperous and the population increased. Between the time of the first settlements and the Revolutionary War, about seven generations of people were born in America. Many of them no longer wanted to exist ruled past the English throne. And they didn't want to pay taxes to the English regime when they had no colonial representation in the Parliament. They became known every bit Patriots, or Whigs, and they included Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
The Loyalists were colonists who wanted to remain part of England. The Patriots and Loyalists were bitterly divided on the issue. In 1776, the Continental Congress, a group of leaders from each of the 13 colonies, issued the Declaration of Independence. The Announcement stated that the Usa was its own country.
The Patriots fought England in the Revolutionary State of war to gain independence for the colonies.

In 1783, with the help of the French, who had joined their side, the colonists won the war. The The states of America was a new nation.
The new government conducted a census, or count, of everyone living in the United States. At the time of the showtime demography in 1790, nearly 700,00 Africans and 3 million Europeans lived in the new U.s..

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Expanding America 1790-1880

Total U.S. Immigration from 1820 to 1880 by Continent of Origin
- Europe
- Asia
- The Americas
- Africa
- Oceania *
In the decades after the Revolutionary State of war, the thirteen original colonies grew to include states stretching from Maine in the north to Louisiana in the south; from the Atlantic Body of water in the east to Illinois in the due west. As a new nation, the Us thrived. By 1820, the population had grown to nigh ten meg people. The quality of life for ordinary people was improving. People were moving due west, creating towns along the route of the Transcontinental Railroad, which continued the entire land by rail, east to west, for the commencement time.

The prosperous young state lured Europeans who were struggling with population growth, land redistribution, and industrialization, which had changed the traditional way of life for peasants. These people wanted to escape poverty and hardship in their abode countries. More than eight million would come to the United States from 1820 to 1880.
*Number of legal immigrants as recorded by immigration officials nationwide. Source: U.Southward. Section of Homeland Security.
1808

Slavery Continues

At the plough of the 19th century, more than 1 meg African Americans lived in the United States. As slaves, they were not considered citizens. Large farms and plantations depended on the gratis labor they provided in fields and homes. It was hard, backbreaking work.
In 1808, the United States government banned the importation of enslaved people into the state, although the exercise did proceed illegally. Slavery, nonetheless, was not abolished for nearly 60 more than years.

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1820

The Irish and Germans

In the early and mid-19th century, near all of the immigrants coming to the Usa arrived from northern and western Europe. In 1860, seven out of x foreign-born people in the Usa were Irish or German. Well-nigh of the Irish gaelic were coming from poor circumstances. With footling money to travel any farther, they stayed in the cities where they arrived, such every bit Boston and New York City. More than 2,335,000 Irish arrived between 1820 and 1870.
The Germans who came during the time period were ofttimes better off than the Irish gaelic were. They had enough money to journey to the Midwestern cities, such as Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, or to claim farmland. More than than 2,200,000 Germans arrived between 1820 and 1870.

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1845-1851

The Irish Spud Famine

In 1845, a famine began in Ireland. A potato fungus, also called blight, ruined the potato ingather for several years in a row. Potatoes were a primal part of the Irish diet, so hundreds of thousands of people now didn't accept enough to eat. At the aforementioned fourth dimension of the famine, diseases, such equally cholera, were spreading. Starvation and disease killed more than a million people.
These extreme weather condition acquired mass clearing of Irish people to the United States. Between 1846 and 1852, more than a million Irish are estimated to have arrived in America. The men found jobs building railroads, digging canals, and working in factories; they as well became policemen and firemen. Irish women often worked as domestic servants. Fifty-fifty later the famine ended, Irish people connected to come up to America in search of a better life. More 3.five million Irish in total had arrived past 1880.

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1861

Civil War and the End of Slavery

In the early 1860s, the United states of america was in crisis. The Northern states and Southern states could non concord on the issue of slavery. Almost people in the Northern states thought slavery was incorrect. People in South, where the plantations depended on slavery, wanted to continue the practice. In 1861, the Ceremonious War began betwixt the North and Due south. It would be an extremely encarmine war; over 600,000 people would die in the fighting.
Many immigrants fought in the state of war. Since immigrants had settled mostly in the North, where factories provided jobs and pocket-sized farms were available, hundreds of thousands of strange-born men fought for the Wedlock.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all the slaves in the rebelling Southern states were free. It was the beginning of the finish of slavery.

To ensure that the abolishment of slavery was permanent, Congress passed the 13th Subpoena to the Constitution, which outlawed slavery throughout the Us. The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, declared that African Americans were citizens of the United States. In 1870, African Americans numbered almost 5 million and made upwardly 12.7 percent of the U.S. population.

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1862

The Homestead Act

In the late 19th century, America was looking west. People began moving away from the now crowded Eastern cities. Some were motivated by the Homestead Act of 1862, which offered complimentary state from the government. The regime offered to give 160 acres of country—considered a adept size for a single family unit to farm—in areas including Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. Homesteaders were required to stay on the land, build a home, and farm the land for five years. The offer attracted migrants from within the country—and waves of more immigrants from Europe. For example, many people from Sweden, where state was extremely scarce, were drawn to come up to the Usa. These brave settlers worked hard to outset a new life on the frontier. Though life was difficult, many succeeded.

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1863-1869

The Transcontinental Railroad

The Transcontinental Railroad was a massive construction projection that linked the country by rail from e to west. The railway was built entirely past hand during a six-year catamenia, with construction often continuing around the clock. Chinese and Irish immigrants were vital to the projection. In 1868, Chinese immigrants fabricated upward about 80 percent of the workforce of the Key Pacific Railroad, one of the companies building the railway. The workers of the Union Pacific Railroad, some other company that congenital the railroad, were mostly Irish immigrants. These railroad workers labored under dangerous weather, often risking their lives. After the Transatlantic Railroad was completed, cities and towns sprung upwards all along its path, and immigrants moved to these new communities. The Transcontinental Railroad was a radical comeback in travel in the Us; afterwards its completion, the trip from East Coast to West Declension, which in one case took months, could be made in v days.

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The American Dream 1880-1930

Total U.S. Immigration from 1880 to 1930 by Continent of Origin
- Europe
- Asia
- The Americas
- Africa
- Oceania *
By 1880, America was booming. The prototype of America as a land of promise attracted people from all over the world. On the East Declension, Ellis Island welcomed new immigrants, largely from Europe. America was "the gold door," a metaphor for a prosperous lodge that welcomed immigrants. Asian immigrants, nevertheless, didn't have the same experience as European immigrants. They were the focus of one of the first major pieces of legislation on immigration. The Chinese Exclusion Human activity of 1882 severely restricted immigration from China.

And the 1907 "Gentlemen's Understanding" between Japan and the United States was an breezy agreement that limited clearing from Nippon. Despite those limitations, nigh 30 million immigrants arrived from effectually the earth during this groovy wave of clearing, more than at any fourth dimension before.
*Number of legal immigrants as recorded by immigration officials nationwide. Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
1892

Ellis Island

In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison designated Ellis Island in New York Harbor as the nation'southward beginning immigration station. At the time, people traveled across the Atlantic Sea by steamship to the bustling port of New York Urban center. The trip took 1 to two weeks, much faster than in the by (when sailing ships were the mode of transportation), a fact that helped fuel the major moving ridge of immigration.
For many immigrants, one of their beginning sights in America was the welcoming beacon of the Statue of Liberty, which was dedicated in 1886. Immigrants were taken from their ships to be candy at Ellis Island before they could enter the country.
Nearly 12 million immigrants would pass through Ellis Island during the fourth dimension of its operation, from 1892 to 1954. Many of them were from Southern and Eastern Europe. They included Russians, Italians, Slavs, Jews, Greeks, Poles, Serbs, and Turks.
Explore the Ellis Island Interactive Tour

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1900s

Bursting Cities

New immigrants flooded into cities. In places similar New York and Chicago, groups of immigrants chose to live and work near others from their home countries. Whole neighborhoods or blocks could be populated with people from the same country. Small pockets of America would exist nicknamed "Fiddling Italy" or "Chinatown." Immigrants often lived in poor areas of the city. In New York, for case, whole families crowded into tiny apartments in tenement buildings on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Many organizations were formed to try to help the new immigrants adjust to life in America. Settlement houses, such as Hull House in Chicago, and religious-based organizations worked to help the immigrants learn English and life skills, such as cooking and sewing.

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1910

Angel Island

On the West Coast, Asian immigrants were processed at Affections Isle, often called the "Ellis Island of the West." Angel Island, which lies off the declension of San Francisco, opened in 1910. Although the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 restricted immigration, 175,000 Chinese came through Angel Island over a catamenia of three decades. They were overwhelmingly the chief group processed hither: In fact, 97 percent of the immigrants who passed through Angel Island were from China.
Explore the Angel Island Activeness

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1920

Edifice America

Many of the immigrants who arrived in the early 20th century were poor and hardworking. They took jobs paving streets, laying gas lines, digging subway tunnels, and building bridges and skyscrapers. They also got jobs in America's new factories, where conditions could be unsafe, making shoes, clothing, and glass products. Immigrants fueled the lumber industry in the Pacific Northwest, the mining industry in the West, and steel manufacturing in the Midwest. They went to the territory of Hawaii to work on saccharide pikestaff plantations. Eventually, they bargained for better wages and improved worker safety. They were on the route to condign America'due south middle class.

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1920-1930

Backfire

Past the 1920s, America had absorbed millions of new immigrants. The country had simply fought in the "Groovy War", as Earth War I was known so. People became suspicious of foreigners' motivations. Some native-born Americans started to express their dislike of strange-born people. They were fearful that immigrants would have the available jobs. Some Americans weren't used to interacting with people who spoke different languages, practiced a different faith, or were a different race. Racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia (fear and hatred of foreigners) were the unfortunate effect.
In 1924, Congress passed the National Origins Human activity. It placed restrictions and quotas on who could enter the country.
The annual quotas limited immigration from any state to three percent of the number of people from that country who were living in the United States in 1890. The effect was to exclude Asians, Jews, blacks, and non-English language speakers.

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A Place of Refuge 1930-1965

Full U.South. Immigration from 1930 to 1965 by Continent of Origin
- Europe
- Asia
- The Americas
- Africa
- Oceania *
From 1930 to 1965, the world underwent a great deal of strife, conflict, and change. The United states suffered through the Corking Depression in the 1930s. America no longer looked like the land of opportunity, and few immigrants came. From the late '30s to 1945, World War II locked Europe, Japan, and a dandy deal of the Pacific Rim in conflict. In the postwar menstruum, much of Europe was physically and economically in ruin. Europeans started looking to America once more as a place of refuge. The idea of the immigrant equally refugee, from both hardship and oppressive regimes, would change how the land idea about immigration in this period and across.
*Number of legal immigrants as recorded by immigration officials nationwide. Source: U.Due south. Department of Homeland Security.
1930s

The Great Depression and War in Europe

In the 1930s, the country was going through the Great Low, a terrible period of economical hardship. People were out of work, hungry, and extremely poor. Few immigrants came during this period; in fact, many people returned to their domicile countries. Half a million Mexicans left, for example, in what was known as the Mexican Repatriation. Unfortunately, many of those Mexicans were forced to leave by the U.S. government.
In 1933, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was formed. It still exists today.
In 1938, Earth War Two started in Europe. America was again concerned about protecting itself. Fears about foreign-born people connected to grow.
As a issue of the turmoil in the 1930s, clearing figures dropped dramatically from where they had been in previous decades. In the 1920s, approximately iv,300,000 immigrants came to the U.s.a.; in the 1930s, fewer than 700,000 arrived.

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1940-1950

World State of war Ii and the Postwar Menses

The United States entered Earth War Ii in 1942. During the war, immigration decreased. There was fighting in Europe, transportation was interrupted, and the American consulates weren't open. Fewer than 10 percent of the immigration quotas from Europe were used from 1942 to 1945.
In many ways, the country was still fearful of the influence of strange-born people. The United States was fighting Frg, Italy, and Nippon (as well known as the Axis Powers), and the U.South. government decided it would detain certain resident aliens of those countries. (Resident aliens are people who are living permanently in the United States simply are non citizens.) Often, there was no reason for these people to be detained, other than fearfulness and racism.
Beginning in 1942, the government even detained American citizens who were ethnically Japanese. The government did this despite the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which says "nor shall whatever State deprive whatsoever person of life, liberty or property without the due process of law."

Also because of the war, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943. China had quickly become an of import ally of the United States against Japan; therefore, the U.S. authorities did away with the offensive police. Chinese immigrants could again legally enter the country, although they did so just in small numbers for the side by side couple of decades.
After World War II, the economy began to better in the United states. Many people wanted to leave state of war-torn Europe and come up to America. President Harry South. Truman urged the government to help the "appalling dislocation" of hundreds of thousands of Europeans. In 1945, Truman said, "everything possible should be washed at in one case to facilitate the archway of some of these displaced persons and refugees into the United States. "
On January 7, 1948, Truman urged Congress to "pass suitable legislation at one time so that this Nation may do its share in caring for homeless and suffering refugees of all faiths.

I believe that the admission of these persons will add together to the strength and energy of the Nation."
Congress passed the Displaced Persons Human activity of 1948. It allowed for refugees to come to the United states who otherwise wouldn't take been allowed to enter nether existing clearing law. The Act marked the beginning of a period of refugee immigration.

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1950-1965

The Cold War Begins

In 1953, the Refugee Relief Act was passed to supercede the Displaced Persons Deed of 1948, which had expired. It also allowed non-Europeans to come to the U.s. as refugees.
The Refugee Relief Human activity also reflected the U.S. government's concern with Communism, a political ideology that was gaining popularity in the earth, specially in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was also controlling the governments of other countries. The Act allowed people fleeing from those countries to enter the United States.
When he signed the Human activity, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "This action demonstrates again America's traditional concern for the homeless, the persecuted, and the less fortunate of other lands. It is a dramatic contrast to the tragic events taking place in East Federal republic of germany and in other captive nations."
Past "captive nations," Eisenhower meant countries being dominated by the Soviet Wedlock.

In 1956, in that location was a revolution in Hungary in which the people protested the Soviet-controlled government. Many people fled the country during the short revolution. They were known every bit "50-sixers". About 36,000 Hungarians came to the U.s. during this time. Some of their countrymen also moved to Canada.
In 1959, Cuba experienced a revolution, and Fidel Castro took over the authorities. His dictatorship aligned itself with the Soviet Marriage. More than 200,000 Cubans left their state in the years later on the revolution; many of them settled in Florida.

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Building a Modernistic America 1965-Today

Total U.S. Immigration from 1970 to 2010 past Continent of Origin
- Europe
- Asia
- The Americas
- Africa
- Oceania *
A major alter to immigration legislation in 1965 paved the way for new waves of immigration from all over of the world. Asians and Latin Americans arrived in large numbers, while European immigration declined.

Today, clearing to the United States is at its highest level since the early 20th century. In fact, as a upshot of the variety of these recent immigrants, the United states has become a truly multicultural society. The story of America — who we are and where we come up from — is still beingness written.
*Number of legal immigrants as recorded by clearing officials nationwide. Source: U.Due south. Department of Homeland Security.
1965

Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, also known every bit the Hart-Celler Act. This human action repealed the quota system based on national origins that had been in identify since 1921. This was the most meaning change to immigration policy in decades. Instead of quotas, immigration policy was at present based on a preference for reuniting families and bringing highly skilled workers to the Usa. This was a change considering in the past, many immigrants were less skilled and less educated than the boilerplate American worker. In the modern catamenia, many immigrants would be doctors, scientists, and high-tech workers.
Considering Europe was recovering from the state of war, fewer Europeans were deciding to move to America.
But people from the residue of world were eager to move here. Asians and Latin Americans, in detail, were significant groups in the new moving ridge of immigration. Inside five years later on the act was signed, for example, Asian immigration had doubled.

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1965-1980

Vietnamese Immigration and the Refugee Act

During the 1960s and 1970s, America was involved in a war in Vietnam. Vietnam is located in Southeast Asia, on the Indochina peninsula. From the 1950s into the 1970s there was a neat deal of disharmonize in the area. After the war, Vietnamese refugees started coming to the United States. During the 1970s, most 120,000 Vietnamese came, and hundreds of thousands more continued to arrive during the next two decades.
In 1980, the authorities passed the Refugee Act, a law that was meant specifically to assist refugees who needed to come to the country.
Refugees come up considering they fear persecution due to their race, faith, political beliefs, or other reasons. The U.s.a. and other countries signed treaties, or legal agreements, that said they should help refugees. The Refugee Human activity protected this type of immigrant's right to come to America.

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1980s

Latin American Immigration

During the 1980s, waves of immigrants arrived from Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Hundreds of thousands of people came merely from Cuba, fleeing the oppressive dictatorship of Fidel Castro. This was a significant new wave of immigrants: During the 1980s, eight million immigrants came from Latin America, a number nearly equal to the total figure of European immigrants who came to the United States from 1900 to 1910, when European immigration was at a high indicate. The new immigrants changed the makeup of America: Past 1990, Latinos in the United States were about 11.2 percent of the total population.

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1990-Today

A Multicultural America

Since 1990, immigration has been increasing. It is at its highest bespeak in America'due south history. In both the 1990s and 2000s, around 10 million new immigrants came to the United states. The previous record was from 1900 to 1910, when around 8 million immigrants arrived.

In 2000, the strange-born population of the Us was 28.4 million people. Also in that year, California became the kickoff country in which no i ethnic group made up a majority.

Today, more than than 80 percent of immigrants in the Us are Latin American or Asian. By comparison, as recently as the 1950s, ii-thirds of all immigrants to the Usa came from Europe or Canada.

The main countries of origin for immigrants today are Mexico, the Philippines, China, Republic of cuba, and Republic of india. Near 1 in 10 residents of the The states is foreign-born. Today, the U.s. is a truly multicultural social club.

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