Immigration And Migration Summary

In the essay, Immigration and MIgration, author Hasia Diner discusses the effect of immigrants on the United States during the late nineteenth century, especially with regard to their effect on industrialism. The late 1800s was a time of immense industrialization and the outbreak of monopolies controlled by robber barons like Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller. Diner argues that although these individuals controlled the industry, immigrants played an immense role in industrialization in that they provided the huge labor force which was required to run factories. Even with the development of technology which could help expedite the process of producing goods, a labor force was still required to run the machines. Immigrants during this era were flowing in by the millions from every corner of the globe. Diner
claims that “In the decade from 1871 until 1880 more than 2,800,000 arrived, while the following ten-year period brought in over 5,000,000. In the subsequent two decades well over thirteen million arrived, with the period from 1901 to 1910 being the single largest decade of immigration”. This influx of immigrants was conducive to the rise in large, mass-producing factories. However, these immigrants were so greatly helpful because they worked for long hours for nearly nothing. Diner’s main purpose in this article is that although new ideas and inventions helped the United States industrialize, none of it would’ve been possible without the large number of immigrants flowing in to provide the workforce to run these large factories.
This essay is extremely important with relation to politics today.
Some of the candidates think that there is an issue with immigration today which can only be solved by putting an immediate stop to illegal immigration and drastically reducing the number of legal immigrants allowed in the country. However I believe this would only create more problems for the United States. Many people claim that immigrants are stealing the jobs of hardworking Americans, but I disagree. If we forcibly removed all of the illegal immigrants from our country, not only would that cause a sizable international dilemma, but we would lose a large portion of the blue collar labor force. The fact of the matter is that immigrants do jobs that Americans feel they are too good for. By removing immigrants, we would only create a gap in the labor force because Americans buy-in-large feel entitled to well paid white collar jobs. In my opinion, Trump can talk about removing the Muslims and building his wall, but that would only create more problems for the United States as a whole. Immigrants play a large role in the labor force of this country and have since the Gilded
age.