Immigrant (person)

“ The immigrant, when he arrives at the place which he has chosen for his new settlement, appears by his dress, his language, his manners, yea, even by his features, a stranger; one who has apparently no right to press himself upon the community; one who must not feel offended if he is mistrusted, until he has shown that his arrival will not prove dangerous to the old settlers. ”

“ Many of them find their level in clerical and professional occupations, but they escape the manual toil which to them is the token of subordination. These manual portions are the peculiar province of the foreign immigrant, and foreign immigration is mainly a movement from the farms of Europe to the cities of America. ”

“ The emigration agent is often himself a returned immigrant; if not, he utilizes all the influences which arise from the letters, visits, and remittances of actual immigrants to further his ends. The letters from America are often misleading or spurious, used by labor agents in this country to entice others to come. ”

“ The typical old immigrant, when he has secured his competency, sends for his wife to come and join him; the typical new immigrant, under the same circumstances, in many cases returns to his native land to spend the remainder of his days in the enjoyment of his accumulated wealth. ”

“ The classes in which we are particularly interested are naturally the immigrant and emigrant aliens, for they are the only participants in true immigration movements, according to our definition. The others are merely travelers. Yet they are important and interesting travelers, and the modern problems of immigration cannot be thoroughly understood without taking some consideration of them. As for the aliens in transit, they can be quickly disposed of. ”

“ The very thought that speeds the emigrant pulls at the heart-strings of the immigrant; drawing home one son from the outposts, while thrusting out another toward the outposts, there to learn what England means, and to earn and deserve the glory of his birthright. ”

“ THE miracle of assimilation wrought upon the older type of immigration, gives to many of us, at least the hope, that the Slavs, Jews, Italians, Hungarians and Greeks will blend into our life as easily as did the Germans, the Scandinavians and the Irish.
The new immigrant, or the new American, as I call him, is however in many respects, more of an alien than that older class which was related to the native stock by race, speech, or religious ties. ”

“ The city-dwelling immigrant must be here some three or four years before he knows enough of our language and customs to enable him to be self-supporting away from his own race. It seems also that distribution must be effected individually rather than by colonies. ”

“ The Problem of the European Immigrant.—The problem of the European immigrant is one of assimilation. It is difficult because the alien comes in such large numbers, brings with him a different race heritage, and settles usually among his own people, where American influence reaches him only at second hand. ”

“ The main source of the immigrant current has shifted away from northern and western Europe, to the southern and eastern portions of the continent, whose people are by no means so closely related in physique or so similar in mental characteristics to the people of the United States as the immigrants of earlier periods. ”

“ So long as the immigrant has the wherewithal to pay his passage, it matters not to them where he got it, nor are they deterred by any doubts as to the fitness of the immigrant for American life, or of the probability of his success there. ”

“ An 'immigrant' is defined in section 3 as 'any alien departing from any place outside the United States destined for the United States,' with certain exceptions, none of which describes the present applicants. ”

“ Not only have the religious and political motives almost wholly disappeared in favor of the economic in modern immigration, but the European immigrant of to-day is in no sense going to a new or unknown land, when he embarks for the United States. American life and conditions, particularly economic conditions, are well known in those sections of Europe which furnish our large contingents of immigration. ”

“ The great westward tide of immigration has again begun to rise. Annually to the ports of entry and to the great inland centers of distribution come thousands of immigrant families, strange men and women with young children, unattached girls, and vigorous, simple lads. ”

“ In the report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, for 1904, an official of the bureau who has been conducting extensive investigations in Europe, writes from there as follows: "The average immigrant of to-day is sadly lacking in that courage, intelligence and initiative which characterized the European people who settled in the western states during the eighties." ”

“ The point to be emphasized here is that it operates as one of 155the great causes of our present immigration, and that it continues to exert a powerful, and probably increasing, influence, in spite of all the efforts of the legislators and officials of the United States to check it.
The third source of stimulation to emigration is the earlier immigrant himself. He is probably the greatest factor of all in induced immigration, and his influence is utilized in various ways by both emigration agents and labor agents, and made to contribute to the success of their efforts. ”

“ The second, and vastly more important, period is several years after arrival, when the immigrant has exhausted the prime of his strength, and becomes one of the unfit in the keen struggle for economic existence. ”

“ Whether immigration is good for us depends partly on the intrinsic nature of the immigrant and partly on our reactions to his presence. The effects of immigration, produced by the immigrant in partnership with ourselves, some men will approve and some deplore, according to their notions of good and bad. ”

“ One reason that the returned immigrant is so quickly recognized is, that he purposely emphasizes the difference between himself and those who have remained at home. He does everything and wears everything which will make him like an American, even if over here he had scarcely moved out of his group or come in touch with our civilization. ”

“ Everything is more favorable to the settler than in some portions of the Western States that are filling up rapidly, and yet the immigrant passes all these localities and goes further away, and he who already is there is often dissatisfied and anxious to sell out and go somewhere apparently for no other purpose except to get a new start. ”

“ Most naturally he turns to some one of his fellow-countrymen who has been in this country longer. From that time on, sometimes for many years, his career is dominated by the older immigrant to a remarkable degree. ”

“ It is true that the immigrant, especially from the north of Europe, is bidden welcome, and is generally well received, but he is expected to be content with shoveling dirt, chopping wood, carrying water, plowing the- 300 - fields, and doing other manual labor, no one disputing his right or his fitness for these occupations. ”

“ Each is the product of the qualities the immigrant brought with him and the opportunities he found here to exercise them. The law-abiding, ambitious immigrant who came here a beggar and worked himself into the ranks of the princes found his opportunity in our laws and customs, which enable the common man to make the most of himself. ”

“ In the compact colony of his fellow-countrymen, he may be sure of companionship, encouragement, and assistance when needed. It is the most natural thing in the world for an immigrant to want to settle where there are numbers of others of his immediate kind. ”

“ But what has a young and penniless immigrant to offer who has had no training in any of the arts or crafts and does not know the language of the land? Apparently2 nothing, and if the present standards had prevailed forty-eight years ago I should have been deported. There are, however, certain things which a young immigrant may bring to this country that are far more precious than any of the things which the present immigration laws prescribe. Did I bring any of these things with me when I landed at Castle Garden in 1874? ”

“ The most general way of learning of such opportunity is through personal acquaintance or through correspondence with relatives and friends of the immigrant's own nationality who have previously settled on land. These sources of information are considered by the immigrant to be the most reliable, although they have certain drawbacks. ”

“ If we would Americanize the immigrant we must seek him out in his daily economic life and see to it that the influences under which he works are calculated to give him the right feeling toward his new home. ”

“ The American people should itself do these things for the immigrants. If we leave the immigrant to be helped by representatives of foreign governments, by foreign societies, by a press and institutions conducted in a foreign language and in the interest of foreign governments, and if we permit the immigrants to exist as alien groups, each group sundered from the rest of the citizens of the country, we shall store up for ourselves bitter trouble in the future. ”

“ Yet it is very doubtful if it is possible for even the most exceptional adult immigrant, from the southeastern European races, at least, to become thoroughly assimilated in his lifetime. The barriers of race, set for the most part by Americans, can hardly be 403broken down. The immigrant is still an Italian, or a Slav, or a Greek, as long as he lives, and Americans regard him as in a measure a stranger, no matter how cultivated, or wealthy, or broad-minded he may be. ”

“ It is evident that the capital value which a grown-up, able-bodied immigrant represents is different according to his station in life and the civilization of the country whence he comes. The wants of a skilled and unskilled laborer from the same country differ widely. ”

“ THE EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANTS. RELIGION. BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS. RECREATION There is a group of peculiar economic institutions which have been developed by the immigrants in this country, and which are especially characteristic of the new immigration. This group includes the padrone system, the contract labor system, the immigrant bank, and two or three similar institutions, particularly the sweating system, which is now practically dependent on immigrants.
The word “padrone” is adopted from the Italian, and signifies master or “boss.” ”

“ Again, we are told that the immigrant comes here ignorant and without ideals and standards of life which would make him a safe member of a democracy. Of course, like most broad generalizations, this has a grain of truth when applied to some of the present influx from southern Europe. But when applied to immigrants generally, and especially to the class we have here described, the above judgment is just about the exact opposite of the truth. ”

“ Voluntary emigration always calls for the highest combination of the physical and moral virtues. The law of analogy, therefore, might suffice to teach us that with every shipload of immigrants we get a fresh infusion of pioneer blood. But theory is a tight-rope on which every monkey of a logician can balance himself. We practical Americans of the twentieth century like to feel the broad platform of tested facts beneath our feet.
ROUGH WORK AND LOW WAGES FOR THE IMMIGRANT
The fact about the modern immigrant is that he is everywhere continuing the work begun by our pioneer ancestors. ”

“ Focused under the microscope of theoretical analysis, or viewed through the spectacles of common sense, the average immigrant of to-day still shows the markings of virtue that have distinguished the best Americans from the time of the landing at Plymouth to the opening of the Panama Canal. ”

“ This social disability of the Slavic peasant is being partially overcome by immigration; for{206} the immigrant who has tasted a little of even our crude freedom with its mixed blessings, who wears our sombre clothing, whose feet are shod with our shoes—he it is of whom it might again be said, poetically and prophetically: “How beautiful are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings of good things.” ”

“ It is perhaps possible that this advantage may often be more specious than real, and that the immigrant may believe himself the gainer when, if he could balance true values, he would find himself in a more pitiable case than before. ”

“ It focuses public attention because the case of the immigrant is so extreme. For instance, whatever conditions, industrial or civic, press hardly upon the American worker, these conditions press with yet greater hardship upon the alien. The alien and his difficulties form therefore a first point of contact, the point where the social reformer begins with his suggestions for improvement. The very same thought unconsciously forms the basis of many of the proposed methods of dealing with the immigrant, however startlingly these may differ from one another in expression. ”

“ The truth is that the interests of the country sending, and of that receiving an immigrant, are almost necessarily in some degree opposed. The former naturally wishes to get rid of its feeblest and least valuable members. ”

“ The passions and the exertions, the hopes and the fears, the exultations and the despairs, America excites in the immigrant are likely to be intenser than anything he would have experienced in his natal village. ”

“ The most ignorant immigrant, on landing proceeds to give and receive greetings, to eat, sleep and rise, after the manner of his own country; wherein he is corrected, admonished, and laughed at, whether by interested friends or the most indifferent strangers ”

“ Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country, for hereafter every immigrant should be treated as a future fellow citizen and not merely as a labor unit. ”