Investigation of Immigration

Isabelle Saxon
April 14, 2020 
IHSS   
Investigation of Immigration

  Today America is a melting pot of many cultures, we are this way today because of all the immigration America has seen over its history. The Civil War caused the loss of many lives and it’s end was significant, not only because of the end of the fighting. The end of the Civil War also brought a wave of immigration to the United States. The California gold rush only increased the number of people moving with hopes of getting rich. Though previous years had seen immigration almost only from Europe, these new immigrants included a large number of Chinese people. Though today many people come to America to stay permanently, that was not the case at the time of the Gold Rush. The immigrants just wanted to work for a while and then return after they had made some money, this was the case for many of the new Chinese immigrants. However as time went on more and more people started making their stays in the US permanent. They moved away from the mining industry becoming entrepreneurs and setting up shops. However the Chinese immigrants faced hard times towards the end of the 19th century. The economy took a hit and jobs became scarce, other groups of immigrants especially the Europeans wanted traditionally Chinese jobs in America. Mark Twain wrote about the time saying that they were treated worse then dogs, describing how they were given not rights and trapped in one area of the city. He also writes about how despite this how they are hard works and peaceful people who don’t deserve the violence and rudeness they are getting from the white residents. Even specifically talking about an innocent man getting stoned to death while a crowd watches saying nothing of the fairness. Fueled by desperation and xenophobia, people took to the streets to hold anti-Chinese rallies. These rallies were mostly held in California, and though the concept of any race being outed like this is awful, they were popular and the time. As the Article currently states they were “un-American” though the bill of rights tells us that we should give “liberty and equality of all men, without distinction of race or colour” these riots argued for the opposite.” Many Jealous people talking to the streets to loudly shout racial slurs.  All this led up to the passing of a controversial bill "Chinese Exclusion Act" which was a racist set of rules that stopped Chinese immigration for over half a century. Which is really unfair, all accounts of their existence describe them as peaceful hardworking good people. The law was based completely on racist principles; there was nothing done on the part of the chinese immigrants that would even come close to warranting anything down. This article was eye opening to me, I was unaware that this bill had existed. It is sad to see that a bill so rooted in unfairly taking rights from one race was even passed, more horrifying is that it was kept for so long. We need to make sure that people know to be aware of how much racism really can hurt, and looking at events like this in our past is a way to make sure they don't repeat themselves. I know that there has been worse done, but it is still sad to see anyone discriminated on race. We don't get to choose our race and we can't change that, it shouldn't matter what race you are, everyone deserves respect. 
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