Changing Character of Immigration by Kate Claghorn - Essay Example

Kate Claghorn considers the new system of presenting the statistics of immigration, introduced by Edward F McSweeney, as an effective system of classification, as it helps in disengaging the racial facts and the grouping of same race elements from different countries. According to the author, the predominance of the racial stocks of the Slavs, the Italian, and the Hebrews is the most noticeable feature of contemporary immigration, and these racial stocks are usually considered as lacking social and industrial values. Another characteristic of recent immigration is that it is mainly the patient family groups consisting of father, mother, children, grandparents, etc. that compose the major sections of the immigrated population, and the land of freedom and opportunity attracts them. Immigration from city slums is practically diminutive, and there is the very little immigrant population from cities. Kate Claghorn argues that “Our immigrants as a whole are a peasant population, used to the open, with simple habits of life…

In the immigrant groups as a whole are to be found poverty, ignorance, weakness, a pathetic patience, and a no less pathetic hopefulness of what the future will bring, a childlike ingenuity of deceit in eluding the pains and penalties of detention and exclusion…” (Claghorn, 384) The article also deals with the positive and negative impacts of the immigrated population, and the author offers various examples of the benefits of immigration to the immigrated land. Similarly, the article also considers the influence of tremendous forces to drag down the immigrated population. One of the most essential arguments of the article is that the immigrant problem in the nation is a serious one, which requires significant skill to deal with. The article underlines the need for a sufficiently careful strategy to deal with the serious issue of immigration and it concludes with the assertion that, as a result of immigration, “the children of almost any kind of parents become American.” (Claghorn, 387)

The immediate historical context of Kate Claghorn’s “The Changing Character of Immigration” is the large-scale immigration to America and the problems related to this. During the closing years of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th century, the issues related to immigration to the U.S. became severe and repulsive. The immigrants from all over the world, including the Germans, the Slavs, the Italians, and the Hebrews, who left for America in quest of freedom and opportunity, faced several types of hardship and exploitation in the nation. Problems such as extensive discrimination, low-paying jobs and filthy living conditions awaited these immigrants. However, the immigrant population eventually got assimilated to the new social conditions and made their remarkable contribution in various fields such as politics, the arts, and the economy. Kate Claghorn effectively deals with all these characteristics of immigration and the general nature of the process of immigration.

It is fundamental for any student of social matters to gain a reasonable awareness of these events concerning the issue of immigration that occurred in the history of our nation during the early periods of immigration. Kate Claghorn’s article “The Changing Character of Immigration” provides an important opportunity to consider some of the most pertinent issues of immigration in the earliest stages of its history. This study is particularly relevant in the context of the contemporary social life of America, where immigration rises at an alarming rate. It helps us understand and compare the issues related to immigration at different stages of its history.