Research Paper: Introduction

Immigration Boom: Assimilation for Americanization

            A flood of people came to America with one thing in their mind to get a better life opportunity, however what they least expected was yet to become a lived reality. During the early and late 1900’s people from all over the world come to the United States. According to Bodnar, “ After the second decade of the nineteenth century and prior to World War Two over forty million of these individuals  left home lands in Asia, North America, Europe, and else were to find a place in the new economic order of capitalism”( Bodnar xv). The people’s ethnic backgrounds were Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Italians and people all over Europe. The immigrant’s response to such a dramatic change to their native environment and culture was to get costumed to American culture, and life style, weather it meant speaking English, or eating American food. Clark states, “The process of adaptation was painful, and ethnic resilience in the face of pressure to conform to U.S. was a way of protecting the group and its members” (Clark 141). I comprehend that assimilation was a slow process that took the second and third generation to of immigrants to get accustom to. In the book “The Transplanted” by Bodnar illustrates a photo of an immigrant family taken at Ellis Island New York. The only thing they had was the clothes they were wearing and carried luggage of personal belongings. The expression on their faces reads a sense of misplaced and meager. The immigrants made a major impact in America because of their culture and their role in the U.S economy; which suggest the fact that immigrants come to the U.S for work. Handlin in his novel quotes, “ Why shall I forever beat my head against this unyielding wall there will be no end to my toil and my labor gains me nothing for what a life do I work “ ( Handlin 140). Understanding the immigration experience is based their adaptation and assimilation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the process in assimilation of immigrants with different ethnic backgrounds and the outcomes.