alt Hacker NewsAlso don’t forget:
1) Only 12 million immigrants came through Ellis Island in 60 years.
2) 30-40% returned home
3) The U.S. strictly restricted immigration for more than 40 years to assimilate the immigrants.
4) Even after all that, the U.S. paid a heavy price. It took until the 1980s to clean up the Italian mafia in New York. And immigrant political machines were the origin of the corrupt political structures in cities like New York and Chicago today.
Replies
rendang • yesterday at 11:48 PM
Would be nice if the people downvoting this tried to make an argument instead
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> Only 12 million immigrants came through Ellis Island in 60 years.
About ten and a half million of those in 15 years, from 1900 to 1914. Against a 1900 US population of about 76 million.
> The U.S. strictly restricted immigration for more than 40 years to assimilate the immigrants.
Or, you know, because the political wind changed.
> Even after all that, the U.S. paid a heavy price. It took until the 1980s to clean up the Italian mafia in New York.
Right. Because nobody else would've filled that niche.
> And immigrant political machines were the origin of the corrupt political structures in cities like New York
The Tammany Hall machine was founded in 1789, was basically running New York by the 1850s, and was in the thick of New York corruption well past the relevance of Ellis Island.
> and Chicago today.
Chicago Democrats were immigrants around the relevant time. Chicago Republicans were from older stock. Both were corrupt.