preview

Essay about Difficulty of Immigration in the 1900's versus Previously

Good Essays

When most people think about immigration to the United States, they think of the U.S. as being the “land of opportunity,” where they will be able to make all of their dreams come true. For some people, immigration made their lives richer and more fulfilled. This however, was not always the case. A place that is supposed to be a “Golden Land” (Marcus 116) did not always welcome people with open arms. Even after people became legal citizens of the United States, often times the natural born Americans did not treat the immigrants as equals but rather as outsiders who were beneath them in some way. In some situations, people’s lives were made worse by coming to the “land of opportunity.” Often times people were living no better than they …show more content…

Along the same lines, both Jose Luis and Rosa would do anything to become American citizens even though their daily lives were so amazingly hard. They would have to cross a river to get to and from work everyday and barely make enough money to pay for lunch and transportation, let alone pay for food for their four children and rent for their apartment. I am sure that when they thought about moving to the United States they believed that their lives would get easier and not harder, but unfortunately that was not the case. They went through their daily lives, struggling in hopes one day that their children would get good jobs and could have happy and successful futures. What is also interesting is the fact that Rosa says, “ We would be honored if they are chosen to serve. We would be very proud of our children for doing their duty for their country” (Marcus 313-314). The fact that neither Rosa, nor her children were even legal citizens of the United States and yet she would be proud of her children serving “their” country shows just how much she wants her family to become U.S. citizens. Another major hardship that was faced by most immigrants was the way that they were treated. Often times they were treated like second-class citizens and were thought to be inferior to the natural born citizens. They also seemed to only be able to hold jobs that no one else really wanted to do, for very low wages. Most of the time people would

Get Access