The Immigrant Experience

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  • The Immigrant Experience
    • Early Settlers
      • 1492 Christopher Columbus 'discovered' the Americas
      • 1620 English settlers landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts
        • Became the first permanent settlement in North America
          • Plymouth Rock - a symbol of virtues and flaws of the 1st colony and the original American Dream
        • 35 of the 102 settlers were from  the English Separatist Church
          • Escaping religious persecution and seeking to be missionaries
        • They came across in the Mayflower funded by a London Stock Company
          • The Mayflower Compact - a document signed by the Plymouth settlers as a rudimentary form of democracy
        • They were originally known as the Old Comers + Forefathers + Pilgrim Father
          • They settled in families to allow the colony to prosper
    • New York
      • New York was a hub/welcome point of immigration
      • The Statue of Liberty was supposed to welcome and light the way for immigrants
      • Ellis Island was the busiest immigration inspection station from 1892-1954
        • Processed approximately 12 million immigrants
      • Many blamed immigration for the organised crime in places like New York and Chicago
    • Immigration in Literature
      • Immigrants and their descendants wrote about their experience and cultures
        • Focused on the land or the city
      • Colonists were a symbol of adventue, determination, skill, self-discipline
        • The ideals of American Identity
        • The powerful mother was often a strong symbol
      • 19th/20th century immigration literature focused on the problems of adjustment + people's inability to mix together cohesively
        • The inexperience of the immigrant
      • 'The American Immigrant Novel' focused on assimilation + to what extent was American identity achieved by immigrants
        • Explores generational differences between immigrants
          • Parents kept their home culture whilst their children were American and had to educate their parents on American culture
            • The 3rd generation explored their roots and felt connected to it
      • Immigrant experience begins with hopefulness + adventure - their arrival is unwelcomed
        • Problems manifest in the family
      • Bildungsroman novel - coming of age/rite of passage
    • Manifest Destiny
      • Migrants from settled cities in the East moved over West and across the Plains
      • Striking a claim + fulfilling the God given right to own and fill all land
      • In the process settlers caused a mass genocide of Native Americans
      • Pastoral culture on the plains, South and West
        • Pastoral Culture was the foundation of many people's American Dreams
        • Agricultural mass production
    • 18th/19th Century Immigration
      • Non-voluntary immigration of African-American slaves
        • This led to migration from south to north of freed/run-away slaves
      • Immigrants arrived expecting the American Dream but the reality was racism and corruption
      • 19th century another wave of immigration
        • German, Irish, Italisn, Scandinavian
      • 35 million immigrants arrived in the US between 1800 and 1924
        • Largest voluntary immigration of people in history

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