Background Analytical

To escape prejudice, dictatorships, famine, and more, immigrants came to America from across the globe. America was the land of opportunity; a place where any hard working man could find a job and plenty of land was available. But, America wasn’t exactly as they imagined. They faced racism, discrimination, hatred, and terrible working and living conditions. Americans soon began to fear the mass amounts of foreigners coming to live in their country. “By the mid-19th century, as more second-, third-, and fourth-generation Americans began to feel a strong sense of an increasingly American heritage and national identity, they began to regard immigrants as foreign elements who competed with native-born Americans for jobs and corrupted American traditions.” (“Immigration”) They were scared of losing their culture when it mixed with different cultures. We felt we lived the American Dream and when immigrants came we worried about having to compete for it. Some Americans, like Henry Cabot Lodge, believe that immigrants will lower the standard of American life, just don’t fit into the American race, and jeopardize American’s jobs. So, his advice is to restrict immigration. “The gates which admit men to the United States and to citizenship in the great republic should no longer be left unguarded.” He is saying here that to restrict immigration, we need to be regulating how many people are allowed to immigrate into the country and what needs to be done for them to become citizens.
“Despite prejudice and problems, immigrants still found in the United States a promised land of opportunity,” (“The Promised Land…”) After anti-immigration laws were passed and destroyed such as the Homestead Act of 1862 which promised land to those who would work for it, the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943) which forbade Chinese laborers from entering the United States, and civil rights acts were passed, immigration in America changed. It has gotten more diverse and more accepting of other cultures; a melting pot. But, “many scholars argue that the melting pot metaphor is inaccurate; it would be better to refer to the American experiment as a salad bowl, or a mixing of cultures over the years.” (“The Melting Pot”) America as described here is a salad of many different cultures and people that is mixed more and more thoroughly after every generation and year passes, combining all these different people into one nation.