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Strangers from the Pacific Shore

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Strangers from the Pacific Shore
Strangers From The Pacific Shore

There are lots of immigrants coming to the United States from all over the world between 1815 and 1920. United States becomes the land of emerging economy. The Italian, Greeks and Chinese saw the opportunity of a better life, planning to make enough money and return home and buy some land. But many immigrants like Irish and Jewish immigrants had no intention of returning to their homelands. The Jews of Eastern Europe were often escaping persecution and did not plan on returning. The Irish might have been in the same position, except they were escaping poverty and English rule.

Between 1815 and 1920, 5.5 million Irish immigrated to the United States. The English forced the Irish to become Christian. However, when the Church of England became Protestant, the Irish suddenly found themselves defending Catholicism fighting against Protestant landowners. In early 1800s, Protestant Landlords began evicting their tenants and shift from agricultural production to cattle raising. The tradition of migration have started way back when the peasant with tiny plot of land migrate to harvest new land. Migrated for part of the year and following the crops, planting or harvesting other places in Ireland or England, Wales, Scotland. However, the potato famine disaster, where a type of fungi destroyed the potato crops, which the people depend on, forced them to immigrate far to the US. By 1855, over 1 million people had died from hunger and sickness. During the great potato famine, about 1.5 million people immigrated to United States from Ireland motivated by the need for survival.

Migrants sent letters home. Letters from friends and family in the US glowingly described riches “growing like grass” and the boundlessness of a country where there was no tyranny. Making people more encouraged coming to the United States. Then, Irish people started to cluster in cities like New York, Pittsburgh, Virginia City and San Francisco. In the early

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