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Migration Patterns*
Examples: Forced (Coerced) Migration
- Cause: 1492 Spanish expulsion of Jews
- Effect: Jews arrive in New Amsterdam
- Cause: British economy expands to include plantation profits in the colonies
- Effect: Slave shipments from Africa
- Effect: Native American and European (English, French) cultures clash [Lifeways | Trade and alliance]
- Should land be accessible and open for common use or fenced for exclusive use as a possession? (concept of the "rights of discovery") What of the inhabitants who were on the land first?
- Cause: Economic hardships in Britain due to Irish potato crop failure brings starvation and illness leading to increase in poorhouses, evictions, crime
- Effect: British deportation of undesirables to the colonies
- Effect: Massive Irish evictions and migration
- Cause: Industrial revolution
- Effect: Steamship lines compete for immigrant fares on steerage tickets bringing more immigrants to America
- Cause: Massive settlement of Europeans in North America brings expansion for more land and economic profits
- Effect: Native Americans lose their land; moved to reservation land
- Cause: Struggle for Italian unification creates poverty
- Effect: Italian immigration
- Cause: Temporary Laws of May, 1882 in Russia places prohibitions on Jews
- Effect: Pogroms in Russia and Poland favor migration
- Example: Army conscription
- Example: Ethnic tension
- Cause: Japan, Germany, and Italy as enemies to the United States during World War II
- Effect: Japanese Evacuation to Internment Camps
- Cause: Economic hardships in the United States place financial burdens on family life
- Effect: Orphan trains westward
Examples: Voluntary Migration (circular, chain, colonizing)
- Types of voluntary migration (circular, chain, colonizing patterns)*
- Economic, educational, or political desires
- Formal sponsorship: Labor agents, Government sponsorship, Corporation sponsorship
- Informal sponsorship: Kinship ties; occupational bonds; common place of origin
Examples: Circular Labor Migration*
(across national borders or within the boundaries of a single country)
- Irish migrants from the countryside find work in United States; stay in in U.S. or return to Ireland and lack of inexpensive farmland or economic opportunities
- Migrant Farm Labor - for a harvest season - Mexican and Puerto Rican agricultural workers
- For completion of a specific job - building roads, canals, mine workers, railroads (steel drills vs. human labor - John Henry)
- Work and save money then return to homeland - Italian and Greek men
- Single women working in the mills
- Men working on the railroads - Chinese laborers
- From the countryside to the city for work - 1920s and 1950s Puerto Rican sugarcane and tobacco workers work on the mainland
- African Americans from the South work in northern cities during the world wars
- Economic motivation of Indians with Ph.D.'s for career advancement in the 1980s
- Armenians from Turkey and Jews from Eastern Europe flee persecution and not welcome in their home country
- Semi-skilled and professional women and men from the Caribbean, Filipino men, Mexican unskilled work in restaurants, farms and industries; Irish leaving impoverished areas; U.S. maintaining foreign operations supported by American-born staff on temporary assignment; U.S. workers as contract workers with international firms tied to the U.S. government; exchange of professors to teach in universities; international student exchange programs
Examples: Chain Migration*
(migrating through networks of people who know one another)
- Kin, friends, fellow townspeople transfer information to each other over long distances by personal report, mail, telephone, email, fax and arrange for a job and housing until the person got settled
- Polish coal miner in Silesia, in 1900, to his brother in steel mill in Gary, Indiana inquiring about economic opportunities or to his brother-in-law working on the docks of Bremen in Germany
Examples: Colonizing Migration*
(aims to establish political, economic, or military dominion over a land through the presence of soldiers, settlers, and other state representatives)
- Roman conquest of northern Europe
- European colonization of the continental United States and Latin America by taking territory from the Native Americans
- British control the Indian subcontinent in the early 17th century under the East India Company, a private business entity that was chartered by the crown and was expected to provide revenues to the British government
- U.S. military bases in Latin America
- U.S. annexation of California and New Mexico from Mexico
- Purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867
- U.S. acquisition of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Island, and the Philippines through arms and trade
- Exodusters - Black emigrants traveling to Kansas
Immigration Bibliography for the Classroom
Immigration - Ports of New York City, Boston, and Galveston (photo scans)
- Galveston Immigration Station
- Marinbach, Bernard. Galveston: Ellis Island of the West. Albany, NY: Statue University of New York Press, 1983.
Naturalization
Passenger Lists in the Classroom
- Teaching Children Social Studies with Passenger Lists
The Chinese-American Experience
- Chinese-Americans
- Chinese Immigration in Children's Books
- Thornton, Jeremy. The Gold Rush: Chinese Immigrants Come to America (1848-1882). New York: PowerKids Press, 2004.
The Hispanic-American Experience
- Ethnic Groups: Hispanic-Americans
The Irish-American Experience
- Ethnic Groups: Irish-Americans
Women and Immigration
Government Policy Towards Native Americans Over Time
Native Proprietorship | Conquered Peoples | Sovereign Nation | Acculturation | Voluntary Removal | Involuntary Removal
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Last modified: February 28, 2017. All rights reserved.
* The organization of ideas and content about migration expressed on this webpage are the intellectual property of the authors of "Ellis Island and the Peopling of America: The Official Guide by Virginia Yans-McLaughlin and Marjorie Lightman with The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, New Press, New York, 1997" and are being used for educational use only.
