It has been said that immigration is as old as America itself. Immigration traces back as far as the 1500's when the West faced the coming of the Spanish. At that time, the Americas had been settled by the Indians, who were soon threatened by the first immigrants of America. These Spanish conquerors threatened to undermine the culture of the Indians as well as their way of life. Evidently, immigration started from the beginning of our country's time and has had an everlasting effect on America today.

Between 1880 and 1920 almost twenty-four million immigrants came to the United States. Between better salaries, religious freedom, and a chance to

American businesses, farmers, railroad and mining companies had depended on cheap Chinese labor for the majority of their profits and were still unwilling to pay higher wages to white American workers. These businesses increasingly depended on Japanese immigrants to replace the prohibited Chinese workers. As the Japanese came, the Americans told the same story that they had with the Chinese. They were once again arguing that the Japanese were taking their jobs and not absorbing the American culture. The United States took action yet again, by creating an informal treaty with Japan, restricting Japanese immigration to the U.S.

get ahead in life, were more than enough reasons for leaving their homelands for America. Because of poverty, no future and various discrimination in their homelands, the incentive to leave was increasing. During the mid-1800's and early 1900's, the labor and farm hands in Eastern Europe were only earning about 15 to 30 a day. In America, they earned 50 cents to one dollat in a day, doubling their paycheck. Those lower wage earners in their homeland were stuck in lowest paid jobs and had no chances to upgrade themselves.

"The Chinese are aliens, born in a foreign land, speak a foreign tongue, owe allegiance to a foreign government, are idolaters in religion, have a different civilization from ours, do not and will not assimilate with our people, come only to get money, and return; and they are inimical to our laws, evade them whenever and wherever possible. They bring with them their filth and frightful and their nameless diseases and contagions. They bring no families as a general rule, but numbers of their countrywomen are brought for purposes of prostitution. They enhance the cost of government, and increase th

Some common words found in the essay are:
Transcontinental Railroad, Exclusion Act, Eastern Europe, Chinese Chinese, America Spanish, Mountain California, Constitution United, Japanese Americans, California Chinese, War China, chinese immigrants, post-civil war, chinese workers, immigration chinese, immigration america, american culture, government passed, peasant farmers,
Approximate Word count = 1187
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)