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I do not think you can compare immigration in the 1800s/early 1900s to what we are seeing today. Annual net immigration into the United States every year is in the range of hundreds of thousands, if not well over one million persons per year. This is astronomical in size compared to quotas that was in previous immigration legislation such as the Naturalization Act of 1924. This huge amount of immigration has had a profound effect on the United States. You can argue that the effects are good, but you also have to acknowledge the costs it has had on the country. These effects are environmental, political, economical, and social in nature. Up until the Hart Celler Act of 1965 was passed, immigration into the United States was allowed only from the European continent (outside from Chinese laborers being let in during the mid 1800s). Early US politicians may have viewed the US as a "melting pot", but it was a melting pot for only European diaspora (See Naturalization Act of 1790 & Immigration Act of 1924). And even with allowable immigration from the European continent as a whole, legislation such as the Immigration Act of 1924 placed strict quotas on immigrants from Southern/Eastern European countries. The idea that America was always this beautiful melting pot where people from all around the world came together, sang Bob Dillon, and grilled ribs is a disingenuous lie promoted by insidious actors or wishful thinking types. I hate to say it, but the main types of people who seriously buy into the "melting pot" theory are Baby Boomers and insulated White liberals like my cousin in Northern Virginia.
I do not think you can compare immigration in the 1800s/early 1900s to what we are seeing today. Annual net immigration into the United States every year is in the range of hundreds of thousands, if not well over one million persons per year. This is astronomical in size compared to quotas that was in previous immigration legislation such as the Naturalization Act of 1924. This huge amount of immigration has had a profound effect on the United States. You can argue that the effects are good, but you also have to acknowledge the costs it has had on the country. These effects are environmental, political, economical, and social in nature.
Up until the Hart Celler Act of 1965 was passed, immigration into the United States was allowed only from the European continent (outside from Chinese laborers being let in during the mid 1800s). Early US politicians may have viewed the US as a "melting pot", but it was a melting pot for only European diaspora (See Naturalization Act of 1790 & Immigration Act of 1924). And even with allowable immigration from the European continent as a whole, legislation such as the Immigration Act of 1924 placed strict quotas on immigrants from Southern/Eastern European countries.
The idea that America was always this beautiful melting pot where people from all around the world came together, sang Bob Dillon, and grilled ribs is a disingenuous lie promoted by insidious actors or wishful thinking types. I hate to say it, but the main types of people who seriously buy into the "melting pot" theory are Baby Boomers and insulated White liberals like my cousin in Northern Virginia.
