The Pros And Cons Of Being An Immigrant

The only thing worst than being a new arriving immigrant in the first half of the 1800s in the United-States was being a slave or servant. No matter which part of the country you found yourself in whether it be the North, South or West, as an immigrant you would be subjected to job discrimination, residential segregation, limitations on civil and legal rights... However, if a choice had to be made, I would have probably chosen the North because the thought of living in a state that hadn't abolished slavery like in the Southern states wouldn't be conceivable to me. Moreover, I wouldn't have lived in the West since the states that were being created there would have been too recently become parts of the Union and I would have most likely considered them …show more content…
It would have been reassuring to see the church I was a member of, a school system I was used to or even clubs that I could be a member of with people of the same origin as me to avoid the hatred of native-born Americans. Furthermore, thanks to the market revolution, most of the largest cities were in the North and were growing at a high speed ; there, work would always be found for a new arriving immigrant even though the wage was ridiculously low. Nonetheless, at least I would have been free to contest the injustice of this situation, which wouldn't have been possible in the West and South. Indeed, if I had lived in the North I could have protested, participated in strikes, joined different parties to improve my working conditions (supposing I had found a job despite being a woman). As a female immigrant, the North is also favorable since was were the real social reform movements that finally had an impact occurred. Despite the fact that the reform movements of the evangelical church promoted nativism, which is not the best