1880 Immigration Dbq

Have you ever felt worthless or that you were not good enough for something? That is the way immigrants after about 1880 would feel when they came over to America. They were expecting this great welcoming country to escape their problems. And what do they get? They come to realize that even though there is more opportunity, there is much more discrimination against them just because there are from a different country. Incoming immigrants to America after the 1880’s had many complications and hardships, such as anti-immigrant sentiments, that, at the time, were seen as bearable due to the opportunities offered to American citizens, such freedom to practice their religion.
Immigrants after 1880 did not have a marvelous or exciting life, because Americans did not think that they should. Immigrants were forced to live in tenements, or the “dens of death”, because they did not have enough money to support themselves and buy a real house to own their own home. These tenements were nicknamed the “dens of death” because the almost eighteen percent mortality rate. Many said that the rent for these tenements was the “price of blood” (Riis). The death rate was so high because, according to Jacob Riis, they buildings were cramped, dark, and damp. As said in Document A, children form immigrants would go to …show more content…
So most of the American population, or at least a great chunk of it, sought to make immigrant workers only work for the jobs that needed only unskilled laborers. Immigrants that came over to America expecting good jobs were often taken advantage of and given poor and unpleasant assignments. Countless amounts of immigrants were not given a respectable amount of pay (Document G). In Document G it describes an Italian man looking from work after leaving Italy, a man offers him a decent job but instead gives a very laborious one and takes much of his