Historical Events related to Immigration Issues from U.S. and Arizona History: Contribute to the Present Immigration Attitudes & Issues

By BumbleBee25

  • Naturalization Act

    Any free white person could recieve citizenship providing they had renounced their allegiance to their previous state/sovereignty by name, lived in the United States for five years at least, behave as a man of good moral character, and renounced any title they possessed in the previous states.
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    <a href='http://library.uwb.edu/guides/usimmigration/1 stat 414.pdf' target="_blank">Full Text</a>

  • The Steerage Act

    First significant federal legislation on immigration. Includes reporting of immigration and rules for passengers from US ports bound for Europe. Among its provisions, it: (1) established the continuing reporting of immigration to the United States; and (2) set specific sustenance rules for passengers of ships leaving U.S. ports for Europe.

  • Mexico Abolished Slavery

    President of Mexico Vincent Guerrero, with mixed African, Spanish and Native American Ancestry, abolished . Afterwards, a group of reactionaries betrayed him and executed him. Guerrero's fought politically for civil rights for all.
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    Meanwhile, David Walker an abolitionist and anti-slavery activist. He published an <a href='http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931.html' target="_blank">"Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,"</a> urging slaves to rise up against their masters.

  • United States & Mexican War

    A war (1846-1848) between the United States and Mexico, resulting in the cession by Mexico of lands now constituting all or most of the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
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    <a href='http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/timeline_flash.html' target="_blank">Insight on the War</a>
    </br><a href='http://www.teachersdomain.org/asset/amex25_vid_mexwar/' target="_blank">Watch Video</a>

  • California Gold Rush

    The discovery of gold in 1848 brought a large rush of immigrants from around the globe. One of the largest groups to arrive in California was the Chinese. 20,000 Chinese miners arrived in California in 1852 alone.

  • The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

    This treaty ended the war between the United States and Mexico. By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including parts of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, to the United States.
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    <a href='http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/map_item.pl?data=/home/www/data/gmd/gmd4/g4410/g4410/ct000127.jp2&style=gmd&itemLink=r?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g4410+ct000127))&title=Mapa%20de%20los%20Estados%20Unidos%20' target="_blank">Interactive Map</a>

  • The Great Compromise

    Its goal was to deal with the spread of slavery to territories in order to keep northern and southern interests in balance.
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    <a href='http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Map_of_Free_and_Slave_States.jpg' target="_blank">"The Comparative Area of the Free and Slave States"</a>

  • Dred Scott v. Standord

    Supreme Court’s Dred Scott Decision declares blacks are not U.S. citizens; rules 1820 Missouri Compromise’s ban on slavery in the territories unconstitutional.

  • The Homestead Act

    The Homestead Act provides free plots of up to 160 acres of western land to settlers who agree to develop and live on it for at least five years, thereby spurring an influx of immigrants from overpopulated countries in Europe seeking land of their own.
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    <a href='http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska/years-later-looking-back-at-the-homestead-act/article_fc0c2da2-57e8-5a9a-98cd-f353dbd3b8a4.html' target="_blank">Looking Back</a>

  • 15th Amendment is Passed

    <a href='http://blog.mpl.org/nowatmpl/15th_amendment.pdf' target="_blank">The Fifteenth Amendment</a> is ratified, granting voting rights to citizens, regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

  • The Chinese Exclusion Act

    The Chinese Exclusion Act restricts all Chinese immigration to the United States for a period of ten years.

  • Immigration Act

    Congress passed a new Immigration Act that stated a 50 cents tax would be levied on all aliens landing at United States ports. An act in which the State Commission and officers were in charge of checking the passengers upon incoming vessels arriving in the U.S. The passengers were examined by a set of exclusionary criteria. Upon examination passengers who appeared to be convicts, lunatics, idiots or unable to take care of themselves were not permitted onto land.
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    <a href='http://library.uwb

  • The Dillingham Commission

    The Dillingham Commission identifies Mexican laborers as the best solution to the Southwest labor shortage. Mexicans are exempted from immigrant “head taxes” set in 1903 and 1907.
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    <a href='http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/dillingham.html' target="_blank">Statistical Review of Immigration</a>

  • Emergency Quota Act

    The act greatly restricted the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country by a quota system based on their country of origin. The Act restricted the number of immigrants allowed into the country from any country annually to 3% of the number of residents from that same country living in the United States as of the U.S. Census of 1910.
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    <a href='http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/3720467?n=491' target="_blank">Full Text</a>

  • The Civil Rights Movement

    The civil rights movement was a struggle by African Americans In the mid-1950s to late 1960s to achieve Civil Rights equal to those of whites, including equal opportunity in employment, housing, and education, as well as the right to vote, the right of equal access to public facilities, and the right to be free of racial discrimination. <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyR8h9iimw4' target="_blank">"I Have A Dream" Speech By Martin Luther King Jr.</a>

  • Immigration Reform & Control Act

    There was a growing number of immigrants that were entering the United States illegally. Employers were hiring the aliens at low wages and providing no benefits like health insurance. There were concerns that immigrants were taking jobs away from Americans. Also,immigrants were not paying taxes for the use of public works like roads and schools. The law was passed in an attempt to stop the increase in illegal immigrants.