chapter 11

The great depression was a lowly time and it is very interesting to see that immigration did not decrease during this time. my own great grandmother immigrated to America right before the great depression but did not go back to Mexico because her parents had faith in the American economy. I guess that is the same thing for immigrants who came during the Great Depression, a hope for a better life even if the country is in the worst economic times.

Daniels says that it is ironic that the most common post-war immigrants came from our enemy Germany. I do not agree with this. It does not surprise me because Germany was filled with unrest and many of the German citizens were not happy with the government and with the Nazi regime. It only makes sense that after the war Germans wanted to get out of the country that was recovering from the war and still had an unstable government.

I don’t understand this chapter. In the first section it stated that immigration into the states did not cease during the depression and World War II, but in the section on the Depression and War on page 294, it says that the number of immigrants leaving the states exceeded the number coming into the states. And then it says that in fact the numbers stayed positive because of the years 1932-1935. So ultimately the statement that there were more people leaving than entering is incorrect because over the years of the depression and the war there was, in fact, a higher immigration rate. This chapter also continues to state that this was a time where the exact number of immigrants is unsure because there were some loopholes in the process. So my question is how reliable is the number of immigrants entering and exiting the country? Is the assumption that we had more people entering valid? Or do we need to calculate in a possible immigrants or leaving?

The last paragraph on page 299 talks about other horror stories of American sponsors. I hate to read that as Americans we had the chance to save lives but chose not to. I understand that we have regulations and if we allowed everybody to enter our country we would have more issues than we already have. But I really didn’t like the story of the Cubans who had their visas taken away and were taken close enough to Miami so they could hear the music but were taken back to Europe where most of them were killed in the holocaust.

It still amazes me that so many people that immigrated during World War II say that they are so happy to be in this country. After reading this chapter, and reading the way some of them were treated makes me think that the immigrants would hate this country. Asians and Germans were put in concentration camps in places like Utah. Isn’t this the kind of treatment they wanted to get away from? And then they would send for their family to join them! However, it goes to show you that things are not that bad here. If people were sent to concentration camps and still sent for family back home, I can only imagine the kind of treatment they got in their country, the country they left.