Chapter 6 Overview: Pioneers of the Century of Immigration

Chapter 6 is all about breaking down the barriers of "old" and "new" immigrants. Typically, immigrants before the 1880s who had a somewhat easy time assimilating to American culture are considered to be "old" immigrants. Whereas those who came after the 1880s are thought of to be the "new" immigrants. In this section of the book, however, the author does not focus on the distinction of "old" and "new" immigrants. Instead, he focuses on the immigrants themselves and the countries that they emigrated from. The three large groups that he talks about are the Irish, German, and Scandinavian. He makes the point that the differences between old and new immigrants is not really that different. While there are significant changes that occur before and after 1880, he notes that each group was still dealing with similar problems. Between 1860 and 1920, America made the jump from 30 million to 105 million persons. We grew from being largely agricultural to being a mostly industrial one. Our nation changed because of these immigrants. As the author speaks about different nationalities of some of the first immigrants, it is interesting to see what each group brought to the new country that they helped to develop.

Slavery and Immigrants from Africa

Well, the first thing that I took into account when reading about the slave trade was that more than nine million people were transported to the New World. This both impressed and disgusted me.. because that is a lot of people. Another thing that I found interesting that I don't think I ever knew before was that there were slaves in Canada. This makes me wonder when Canada abolished slavery since you never really hear about Canada's slavery struggle. Is that because they had less of  problem? Or is it because since we are in the United States, we don't focus on Canadian slavery. Anyways, the chapter went on to talk about how slavery eventually became predominant in the south. And it also made me wonder why that happened. Was it because conditions for crops and farming were better in the south? I may have learned the reason at one point but I can't remember. But I think that it's funny how things can be divided by region. I don't know if that really makes sense... But like, the south is known for slavery. I guess it's just interesting how different geographical regions can have the same values. For the most part. Like how the east and west coast are generally more liberal than the middle and southern parts of the country. It's just crazy how demographics work. But back to slavery, the last thing that I thought about while reading the passage was how sad it is that the first generation of Africans in America has no history that we can look back on. All we have are the slave owners accounts. And that just sucks because while we can imagine, we have no primary sources to show us how it felt to be a first generation slave in America.

Coming to America Chapters 1 and 2

The main thing that stood out to me in this writing was the point about how we have become more and more unfriendly towards immigrants coming in to the United States. This part struck me in particular since I am Mexican. Even though there are Canadians and Europeans and other people who are immigrating illegally, Mexicans are just the ones that come to mind since there has been such an ordeal with the border and such. The people who are already living in the US forget that their ancestors had to immigrate here a long time ago too. Because they also wanted a better life for whatever reason. But now we have this kind of "I'm better than you" attitude that ha causes us to highly look down upon immigration for the past century or so. I understand that the illegal immigration is a difficult subject, but reading this text reminds us that we are all immigrants to this country.

Pacific Seafarers and Maritime Cultures

Well, to be honest, these articles were kind of difficult for me to read. Not because the language or vocabulary was difficult to understand, but because I just found it to be kind of redundant and a little tiresome. Personally, I thought that it was talking about too much "this place is this many kilometers from this place" and stuff like that. The one thing (which was also the main point of the articles kinda) that I found interesting was that humans were traveling be sea and discovering land a lot sooner than we may have imagined. My favorite part was actually when the author said that "it now appears that Homo erectus reached the Indonesian island of Flores by 750,000 years ago." That part was just so cool to me because I just imagined cavemen braving the seas on their little simple rafts and boats! Overall, it is an interesting concept. I just thought that it dragged on a little.

The American Indian and the Problem of History

While I am not an expert on the complete history of the Native Americans, I feel that I am quite familiar with their backstory. Having your history class last year, I was able to expand my knowledge about what really went down with the Native Americans and Columbus. This reading reminded me of a lot of things that I had previously been taught about the true history of America. Such as the fact that Christopher Columbus did not, in fact, discover America. Well, I guess you could argue that he did, but then you it would just be that he didn't "discover" it first. The Native Americans lay claim to that feat. Or do they? It seems that Native Americans have, for the most part, been squeezed out of history textbooks and elementary classrooms. And it brings up a question that we were asked to think about in my previous history class: Why? It may be because it is too difficult to try to rewrite the history books. Maybe we are too embarrassed to let everyone know that we've been doing it all wrong, so why stop now. Or maybe, it is just because we are too ignorant to realize the mess that we are creating/have created. Packets like the one that we just read are important because they inform readers about typical historical events but from a different perspective. A perspective that we are not usually familiar with. The way that it causes us to think is both healthy and saddening. Because as some of us begin to hear the truth, we also realize that we are so very late.