The following is an excerpt from a poem, The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, it's inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

It reads, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse and your teeming short send these the homeless tempest tossed to me.

I left my lamp beside the golden door.

The new colossus is about the Statue of Liberty, which is speaking to the countries of the world, imploring them to send those that they do not want to America the land of opportunity.

The period of 1870 to 1920 marks the greatest period of immigration in American history. America is now a melting pot, melting pot as a mixture of people and different cultures and different races. The beauty of American society is the diversity of cultural contributions of Europeans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and people from all over the world.

The first group of immigrants to focus on are European immigrants. Between 1870 in 1920, over 20 million Europeans came to the United States. In the early periods of the era of immigration, most European immigrants came from Western and Northern Europe, countries like Ireland, England and France. In the later part of the era, most European immigrants came from Eastern and Southern Europe, countries like Russia, Germany and Italy.

There are several reasons why European immigrants came to the United States during this era. They wanted to escape religious persecution, rising populations in Europe and satisfy a need for reform and a new beginning.

Like early American colonists, many European immigrants were fleeing religious persecution. Specifically, Russian Jews fled persecution in czarist Russia. With rising populations in European countries, overcrowding and a lack of farmland meant that America was a viable option to start a new life and a new economic beginning. In many Europeans, tired and weary of a century of war and chaos, decide to resettle their lives in America, a nation with political stability, democratic freedom and economic prosperity.

The next group of immigrants are Asian immigrants. The reason Asian immigrants came to America was for wages and work. They were hired because they would work for less than Americans and they were able to take their money and send it home where it had more purchasing power. In 1848, Asians, particularly from China and Japan, came in droves. They were seeking the fortunes of the California gold rush. Another industry in which Asian immigrants worked was on the railroads. They worked for cheap and often took jobs away from American workers, which caused resentment and led to violence towards them.

By 1920, there were over two hundred thousand Asian immigrants living on the West Coast.

With the massive amount of immigrants coming into the country on both coasts, immigration checkpoint stations were needed in order to manage immigrant entry into the United States. On the East Coast, the most famous immigration checkpoint station was Ellis Island. Ellis Island was in New York and it was the arrival point for all European immigrants coming into the United States. Of the immigrants who arrived, 20 percent were detained for some time, and only two percent were sent home, meaning a very high success rate of entry into the United States.

Upon arrival, European immigrants had to pass a health inspection, had to prove they had at least twenty five dollars to their name, had to pass a literacy test and had to provide proper paperwork to prove their identity. Fun fact. My great grandparents arrived from Italy through Ellis Island at the turn of the century.

The main immigration station on the West Coast was called Angel Island. It was located in San Francisco Harbor. It was the arrival point for all immigrants coming from Asia. Angel Island had a very strict examination process. It was much more difficult to get through Angel Island than Ellis Island. Immigrants were subject to harsh interrogation by U.S. government officials. Inspectors decided entry not test, meaning an individual decided if you were to make it into the country or not, and if they had a bias towards you, they could easily prevent you from entering the country.

Detention rates and Angel Island were much higher than that of Ellis Island, and the treatment of immigrants while being detained was much worse. They were held in filthy shacks for hours and sometimes days. Once in America, Asian immigrants face discrimination more than any other group. Their language look and customary clothing was strange to most Americans. It was something that Americans had never seen before. Americans fear they were taking scarce jobs away.

They were willing to work for less than whites. Some whites believe that if left unchecked, this riffraff would ruin America.

For many immigrants, life in America was not all of us cracked up to be. They faced many problems once they entered the country. A serious problem faced by many immigrants was culture shock. Culture shock was the panic and confusion faced from living in a strange society with new customs and beliefs. Imagine being dropped in the middle of downtown Tokyo by yourself. You don't know the language, you don't know the customs, and you have no way of knowing what to properly do in society.

You would feel utterly alone and confused. Culture shock allowed Americans to take advantage of most immigrants. Americans would charge excessive rent to immigrants. They would inflate prices of products and thieves and robbers would easily steal possessions away from vulnerable families. To survive culture shock, immigrants moved into ethnic communities in urban cities.

Ethnic communities allowed immigrants to work, live and worship with their own people without the fear of being discriminated or taken advantage of.

Today, we see these ethnic communities in every major American city Little Italy, Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Chinatown. Many of these ethnic communities from this time period still thrive today. Another problem that immigrants encountered was the idea of nativism. Nativism is anti-immigrant sentiment and favoritism toward native born white Americans.

Nativist, generally hated Southern and Eastern Europeans and Asians the most. They felt that Southern and Eastern Europeans were of darker complexion and less educated.

They also didn't understand Asian customs because they were so different from those in America and felt that their willingness to work for less would steal jobs away from white Americans.

Most immigrants assimilated into American culture those that didn't face the wrath and prejudice of nativists. The issue of Asian immigrants stealing jobs away from white Americans spurred American labor groups to lobby to end Asian immigration altogether into the United States. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act banned permanent Chinese immigration to the United States for ten years. Then in 1892, the act was extended for another ten years. In 1982, the act was extended officially until nineteen forty three altogether.

This means that the United States Congress, at one point in American history, banned Chinese immigration into the United States for almost 60 years. In 1997, the US government arranged the gentlemen's agreement. This diplomatic agreement between Japan and the United States allowed the United States to desegregate California schools, allowing white students to go to school alongside Asian students as part of the condition Japan would have to limit the amount of immigrants it sent to the United States based on a quota system on a yearly basis.

Essentially, the United States told Japan to discourage Japanese immigrants from coming to the United States.

The era of immigration is directly tied to many political and social issues that we talk about today. The role of immigrants in society, entry into the United States, immigration checkpoints, prejudice against immigrants, legal immigration. The issues that were important during the Gilded Age are still important today when it comes to immigration.

The era of immigration helped to mold American society into what you see today.

American culture is greatly influenced by the contributions of immigrants. Americans are able to experience different cultures in ways that other countries are. Able to because of the era of immigration.