USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Unlike earlier immigrants, who mainly came from northern and western Europe, the “new immigrants” came largely from southern and eastern Europe. Largely Catholic and Jewish in religion, the new immigrants came from the Balkans, Italy, Poland, and Russia.

Detailed explanation-2: -Most Southern European immigrants were motivated by economic opportunity in the United States, while Eastern Europeans (primarily Jews) fled religious persecution.

Detailed explanation-3: -Immigrants from Poland (which at that time was divided among three larger empires, Russia, Prussia/Germany, and Austria) and from other Eastern European territories were most often landless peasants, displaced by land redistribution efforts employed after the abolition of serfdom.

Detailed explanation-4: -Pushed and Pulled: European Immigration Many settled along the East Coast; others came to the Midwest, already home to Native peoples. Newcomers negotiated what it meant to be American, even as they sought to maintain traditions from their homelands. Some Americans tolerated the growing diversity.

Detailed explanation-5: -Beginning in the 1880s, the arrival of immigrants from mostly southern and eastern European countries rapidly increased while the flow from northern and western Europe remained relatively constant.