We have welcomed immigrants in times of expansion and optimism and despised them in periods of decline. America reacted to the immigrants in different ways. During the Progressive Era, settlement house workers like Lillian Wald and Jane Addams operated centers in neighborhoods to help teach newcomers domestic and civic lessons and help them adjust to the United States. Other Americans were less supportive. Fearing the newcomers would destroy American institutions or take away land and jobs from those already in the United States, many tried to restrict the rights of immigrants as well as the numbers entering the country. Being an immigrant was hard. It was hard to find jobs and sometimes they didn’t understand the language.

Many early immigrants came mostly f

In 1911 a campaign to "Americanize” Eastern and Southern Europeans immigrants came about. Americans sought to change their cultural traits, values, and their language. The U.S. government's Bureau of Americanization encouraged employers to make English classes required for their foreign-born workers. Most states banned schooling in other tongues; some even prohibited the study of foreign languages in the elementary grades. The Immigration Act of 1924 allowed immigrants from northern and western Europe to have high quotas.

These laws, the Great Depression, and World War II discouraged many immigrants from coming to the United States. After WWII, Congress accepted war brides and refugees. The Displaced Persons Acts of 1948 and 1950 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 admitted over 500,000 immigrants. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 192 was made and it allowed immigrants from everywhere even the Asian immigrants to come to the United States.

After World War I raci

Some topics in this essay:
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