L'immigration aux Etats-Unis (synthèse en anglais)

From its earliest days, America has been a nation of immigrants, starting with its original inhabitants, who crossed the land

bridge connecting Asia and North America tens of thousands of years ago.

By the 1500s, the first Europeans, led by the Spanish and French, had begun establishing settlements in what would become the United States.

The first European immigrants in American history came from England and the Netherlands. Attracted by reports of great economic opportunities

and religious and political freedom, immigrants from many other countries flocked to the United States in increasing numbers, the flow reaching a peak

in the years 1892-1924

From 1821 to 1840, the number of immigrants was 742,564. In the following ten years, the number more than doubled to 1,713,251. In the first half of

the 19th century, several factors in Europe contributed to mass immigration to the United States.

- The Great Famine Major repeated crop failures in Germany led to an important influx of immigrants, but it was the Irish Potato Famine from 1845 to 1850

that led many Irish immigrants to rush to the United States. Their main source of food, potato, was destroyed by a disease known as potato blight,

resulting in starvation across Ireland. Many of the country's citizens were forced to emigrate to survive.

- The second is Gold. Indeed The discovery of gold in California led to mass migration . All were lured by

the promise of gold and were ready to risk the expensive and dangerous journey to the West coast.

For much of the 1900s, the federal government had left immigration policy to individual states. However During the late 19th century, the government

operated a special port of entry on Ellis Island; indeed by the final decade of the century,the government decided it needed to step in to handle the

ever-increasing influx of newcomers and in 1890, Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor near the Statue of Liberty, was designated as a federal

immigration station. Between 1820 and 1979, the United States admitted more than 49 million immigrants with More than 12 million immigrants entered

through Ellis Island during its years of operation from 1892 to 1954.

The procedure for arriving immigrants was fairly straightforward. But the process to get from the native country to Ellis Island is difficult

because of the terribkle conditions the travellers had to go through during the journey : Immigrants suffered from diseases which spread over

the steamship very quickly, travellers also suffered from starvation, the lack of food, ... there were all exhausted and many of them died during

the journey. Located near the Statue of Liberty, the approach to New York must have been a sight to behold for people who had left everything behind

to start a new life. Once arrived, immigrants were attributed a number in the registry room then they had to go through medical inspection to check if they

had any contagious disease or disability. Moreover there was a lot of buraucracy : People were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and theamount

of money they carried.Then tey were allowed to settle in the US.

From 1880, advances in technology facilitated immigration.

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