Life in America

Life in America — page 1
Chapter One COMING TO AMERICA The United States has always been a land of immigrants Pilgrims came in the 1500s to start new lives Businesspeople and religious leaders came in the 1600s to start new colonies In the 1700s slave traders forced Africans to immigrate to the country to tend crops The 1800s saw a boom of immigrants from Ireland and gold seekers from China But the number of immigrants who came to America’s shores in the early 1900s was truly amazing From about 1880 to 1920 nearly 30 million immigrants flooded into the United States Shipload after shipload of immigrants docked on America’s East Coast Most of the immigrants who arrived in the early 1900s came from southern and eastern European countries They arrived from places such as Poland Hungary Italy Germany and Greece These new immigrants were young often between 15 and 30 years old Many spoke no English and had nothing but the clothes they brought with them and the change in their pockets