ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Americanization,

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painting the town red, white, and blue.

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[ ooh ] Just like that .Check out the flag.

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All right, how did immigrants approach the situation shown in the image?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ] All right.

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Well, it certainly wasn't easy to be an immigrant in the 19th century,

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as the cartoon makes perfectly clear.

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Let's see which answer best describes how immigrants handled

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their, uh, handling.

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Did immigrants approach the situation shown in the image A -

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by returning to their native countries?

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Well, actually, few immigrants had the option of making

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the expensive return voyage back to their native countries.

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And they couldn't join their voices with other immigrants

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in the same situation, either,

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since it would've led to more persecution.

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That kind of pickle eliminates A and B.

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Could immigrants have approached this discrimination C -

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by turning to legislators for help

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getting fair citizenship laws passed? Hmm?

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Yeah, we're still wrestling with that today.

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Oh, if only. But the date on the image - 1889 -

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gives us all the information we need, since

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fair citizenship laws didn't really come into place

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until the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

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And, yeah, we are still working on that one.

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So we can cross out C, as well.

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Which means immigrants dealt with the prejudice

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and discrimination D -

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by maintaining a balance between American culture

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and their own identities.

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Even though each group of immigrants had its own unique

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cultures and traditions, they weren't always readily accepted

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in the United States.

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So Americanizing became a useful tactic in the course to assimilation.

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That makes D the right answer.

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Although nowadays we know that the melting pot of assimilation

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is the politically incorrect stepbrother of the tossed salad.

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Time to bring out the dressing, Lady Liberty.

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... Thousand Island? Ranch? Balsamic?

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[ mm, tasty ]

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