Episode Recording -- "Abby on American Immigration"

2:00-3:30: Italian Immigrant Experience

In this section of the Podcast, Abby Jones discusses the positive and negative experiences of

Italian immigrants throughout the United States. She mainly discusses the social issues that

Italians had to face during their immigration process and acclimation to the community in the

United States. This includes the discussion of many stereotypes that were thrust upon Italians,

such as them being uneducated and inherently violent, as well as violence against Italians. She

also uses a clip from Dr. Alessia Martini of Sewanee, where she discusses the positives that drew

immigrants from all over, but specifically Italians, to the United States.

4:00-5:30 Asian Immigrant Experience

In this Section of the Podcast, Abby Jones discusses the mostly negative experiences of Asian

immigrants, mostly Chinese, had when coming to the United States. She specifically mentions

not only the social challenges that were faced by immigrants, but also the political challenges

and obstacles that had to be overcome. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 specifically expelled

Chinese immigrants from immigrating to the United States for a long period of time. After the

ruling of the Chinese Exclusion Act, it opened the door for much violence against Chinese

immigrants without backlash or justification.

6:00 - 7:30: Mexican Immigrant Experience

In this section of the podcast, Abby jones discusses one of the more underrated and

underdiscussed immigrant groups of this time period, Mexicans. They were brought across the

border with the main purpose of cheap labor, specifically to build railroads across the United

States. Younger workers were often taken advantage of because they did not know the standard

wages for workers to receive, but it was more than what they would earn in Mexico. Not only

would they receive lower wages, but they were also housed in camps with workers who had

horrible living conditions. They were discriminated against, but many of the bosses who worked

for the company and were seen as easily replaceable and disposable.

0:00-0:09: Intro Music

0:10-1:14 : Hello and welcome to students podcasting history. As noted in the preview, today I

will be discussing the second and third big waves of immigration in the United States from the

perspective of an immigrant at the time. This topic is important to me because I believe that the

current immigration policy strays away from the continuous creation of a melting pot. Leading

up to the civil war in 1855, “In New York City 51% of the population was foreign born. while in

California more than 63% of the population was foreign born.” [Andrew M. Baxter and AlexNowrasteh, “A Brief History of U.S. Immigration Policy from the Colonial Period to the Present

Day”, CATO Policy Analysis, Number 919, (August 3, 2021): 6.]. Today we will be sharing three

different examples of the immigrant experience in the United States from 1860 to 1910 to show

what it was really like to come from a different country to live in the in the US. The US was

always seen as a perfect place to come to with the idea of the American dream, but that

generalization will be dissected and questioned throughout this podcast. The immigrant

experience of the past will also briefly be compared to the immigrant experience of modern day

and attempt to draw parallels between the two. Much more light is shed on the immigrant

experience of modern day, which is why I would like to dive deeper into the experience of

immigrants during the second and third waves of immigration.

[Andrew M. Baxter and Alex Nowrasteh, “A Brief History of U.S. Immigration Policy from the

Colonial Period to the Present Day”, CATO Policy Analysis, Number 919, (August 3, 2021): 6.]

1:15-3:00: The first group of immigrants I will be discussing our Italian immigrants. During this

time Italians were the fifth largest ethnic group in the United States. Between 1880 and 1924

more than 4 million Italians immigrated into the United States, with half of those immigrants

being between 1900 and 1910. [Dr. Alessia Martini, “Introduction to Italian Immigration in the

US,” History 202B: History of the United States II, (class lecture, Sewanee: The University of

the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, January 24, 2025)]. All of these Italian immigrants were not

concentrated in one place, and said they were located in large metropolitan areas, mostly located

in the north, especially New York City. Despite the economic advantages they now had after

fleeing poverty in Italy, Italian immigrants were faced with many challenges. They faced many

stereotypes, such as being violent, being involting with gangs, and being uneducated or

primitive. They were feared more than other European immigrants and discriminated against

because of that. Not only did they face these stereotypes, but they also did not fit in because of

their religious practices. Italians were generally Catholic, which was not the predominant

religion of the time in the United States. Although many Italians relocated to the American north,

in 1891 there was a recorded attempted lynching of Italians in New Orleans, all the negative

rhetoric surrounding Italians were clearly reflected in the 1911 Dillingham immigration

Commission, which reported on previous years of immigration and states that new immigrants

from China, Asia, and southern Europe, including Italians, were inferior, uneducated, and

unskilled, compared to old immigrants from northern Europe. [“Abstracts of Reports of the

Immigration Commission, December 5, 1910,” Reports of Immigration Commission, 61st

Congress 3rd Session, Document No. 747.] To bring in a counter argument for Italian immigrants

and immigrants in general at this time, for an artic clip today, I will be playing a segment of a

lecture by Dr. Alessia Martini of the University of the South. She will be discussing some of the

positive things that encouraged immigration and resulted from immigration at this time.[Dr. Alessia Martini, “Introduction to Italian Immigration in the US,” History 202B: History of

the United States II, (class lecture, Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee,

January 24, 2025)]

“Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, December 5, 1910,” Reports of

Immigration Commission, 61st Congress 3rd Session, Document No. 747.

3:00-3:45: Something that all different groups who arrived to the United States in the second

half of the 19th century had to face is kind of like an alternating attitudes towards immigration.

What is it mean? Well, throughout these decades, we have moments in which the economy is

growing, and so immigrants are actually encouraged to arrive, to come over here to work in

certain industries. For example, railroad contractions or coal mining. Also Italians were working

to build a lot of the skyscrapers that we still see in the city of New York.

[Dr. Alessia Martini, “Introduction to Italian Immigration in the US,” History 202B: History of

the United States II, (class lecture, Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee,

January 24, 2025)]

3:45-5:56: Dr. Martini speaks mostly about the economic benefits some immigrants receive. She

also mentions various industries that used immigrants as workers, which will be discussed later

in the podcast. While this is true that there were economic benefits, it did not come without

consequences. Italians were not the only group of immigrants that faced challenges,

discrimination, and racism. On the other side of the country, another group whose experience

was not necessarily perfect was Asian immigrants, specifically Chinese immigrants. However,

their negative experience with immigration came with more than just social challenges that the

Italians faced. They also faced political challenges. After the civil war and the creation of the

14th amendment or the birthright citizenship amendment, it was questioned whether or not that

citizenship extended to those of Chinese or Asian descent. There is much debate in Congress

about whether or not Asians should be included in this new adaptation of citizenship. A senator

from Nevada, William Stewart, argued that “Because we have free the slaves and then given

them their civil and political rights, does that then follow that we must extend those political

rights to all the people throughout the globe?” [Beth Lew-Williams, “The Chinese Must Go:

Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America” from Racism in America: A

Reader, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020), 153-163]. In 1875 the

Page Act was passed, which slowed the migration of Chinese women, then came the Chinese

exclusion act of 1882, which temporarily limited Chinese migration and led to an outbreak of

anti-Chinese violence in the mid 1880s, leading to the complete expulsion of the Chinese in

1892. Despite eventually receiving political rights and citizenship in 1898, Asian immigrants still

faced many problems. There was much rhetoric surrounding Chinese immigrants that they were

undercutting American workers and criminals that filled up the state's prisons and asylums. They

were also rumored to have diseases that were referred to asinfectious and horrible. Specifically inSan Francisco, a lawyer named H. N. Clement spoke to the state senate, saying, “‘The Chinese

are upon us. How can we get rid of them? The Chinese are coming, how can we stop them?’ And

also referred to it as an unarmed invasion.” [Erika Lee, America for Americans, (New York, NY:

Basic Books, 2019), 77.]. Chinese immigrants faced social, political, violent and socioeconomic

backlash throughout their time in the US.

[Beth Lew-Williams, “The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien

in America” from Racism in America: A Reader, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard

University Press, 2020), 153-163]

[Erika Lee, America for Americans, (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2019), 77.].

5:56-6:04: Transition music

6:04-7:33: Last, I will be discussing an overlooked group of immigrants that was coming into the

United States during this time period, which were Mexican migrant workers. While much media

attention is given to the southern border in modern times, it is not frequently discussed during

this time period. In the 1870s and 1880s railroads were being built in the US to connect the east

to the west. Many different people were recruited to work on making the railroads, including

Mexicans. The demand for cheap labor gradually increased, attracting many migrant workers to

cross the border. This was attractive for Mexican workers because they were getting paid more in

the United States for doing the same work that they were doing in Mexico. However, the

Mexican workers were often discriminated against in housing that was given to them by the

companies that they worked for. Workers who did not live with families lived in the most

uncomfortable conditions in terms of housing and working hours. Companies would take

advantage of new workers who were not experienced because they knew they could be exploited

and were easily manipulated into working than experienced workers. The conditions of the work

camps were also generally described as awful, mostly referring to the smell of the camps as

almost unlivable. According to someone who observed the camps, “the stench on the inside from

grease and filth is almost unbearable. the box car dwellers work, eat and sleep in the same

wearing apparel, and apparently never change a garment until it is worn out and another is

secured.” [Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo, Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States,

1870 to 1930, (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2012)].

[Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo, Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870 to

1930, (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2012)].

7:33-8:50: Overall, it was not an easy experience to be an immigrant in America during this

time. Many people came in hopes of a better life economically, but had to exchange some rights

and social freedoms to escape that poverty. Much of that is the same today in modern times. Amodern day parallel to the exclusion that the Chinese immigrants felt during the Chinese

Exclusion Act of 1882 is the executive order signed by Donald Trump to exclude immigrants of

Muslim heritage. “Trump issued multiple executive orders to stop the issuance of visas, to

immigrants and nonimmigrant immigrants from several mostly Muslim majority countries, based

on the assertion that they would be detrimental to national security.” [Andrew M. Baxter and

Alex Nowrasteh, “A Brief History of U.S. Immigration Policy from the Colonial Period to the

Present Day”, CATO Policy Analysis, Number 919, (August 3, 2021): 21.] Despite the

advancement and technology and communications, it seemed that the United States still seems to

be multiple centuries behind when it comes to the openness of immigrants of certain races or

religions. I think one important thing that should have been considered, not only by past

administrations, but also current ones, is the message on the bottom of the statue of liberty,

which reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The

wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my

lamp beside the golden door.”

[Andrew M. Baxter and Alex Nowrasteh, “A Brief History of U.S. Immigration Policy from the

Colonial Period to the Present Day”, CATO Policy Analysis, Number 919, (August 3, 2021): 21.]

8:50-8:59: Thank you so much for listening and please rate this podcast as well as subscribe to

future ones. You can find them at students podcasting history.

8:59-9:06: Outro Music