Chapter 15

While the United States has numerously tried to keep certain groups of foreigners out, there have been other immigrants (excluding those from Western Europe) that Congress has worked to allow into this country. Towards the end of this chapter, it's discussed how the process of opening America's gates to Soviet Jews was in full swing during the late 20th Century. The attitude of this 1970s movement was a stirring contrast to the attitudes most Americans had towards Jewish immigrants - before and after the Holocaust. A definite push factor in this massive immigration is that many of these Jews were getting out of the Soviet Union to escape persecution from the Russians. Yet, a number of these peoples' original plans were set towards Israel, where they could re-establish themselves and their way of life. The ones that ended up going to the United States had it a bit easier for a couple of reasons.

Provided that Jewish families were already settled in the States before the '70s, every one of these local communities pitched in to sponsor the newly arrived Soviet Jews. These local towns were scattered throughout the country, but the main concentration of Jewish immigrants was Brighton Beach at the very southern tip of Brooklyn, New York. While other communities rallied to get Jews out of Russia and into America, as the same time, most of these immigrants were young, educated men who had no desire to lead a religious life. A bit ironic since many Jewish immigrants originally came to the United States to freely practice their customs without being persecuted. Another ironic twist to Jewish emigration was the emergence of glasnot (Reagan and Bush presidencies) that allowed more immigrants than what the United States was able to keep track of in the late 1980s. The State Department decided that the best way to lower the numbers of Soviet Jews into the United States was by determining if each immigrant possessed enough fear towards the Soviet Union. One could stay the easier it was to leave Russia, the harder it was to come into the United States.

Cuba, being a historical asset and brief enemy of the United States, sparked a great mass of emigration into this nation. From this reading, I could see how Thomas Jefferson and Southern politicians saw this island as a potential site for American productivity and prosperity In the sequence of events from Cuba's independence in 1898 to Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959, waves of Cubans entered the States - many of them as early actually as the early 19th Century where Cuban cigars were popular products among Americans. Cuban immigration declined for a time after Cuba was freed at the end of the Spanish - American War, but it peaked once again in the 1950s which made Miama, Florida the center of Cuban America. At the same time, political tensions were rising, sending more people into the United States than ever before. Even with Castro in power, airline travel continued between the two countries until the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. For three years following this event, airline planes didn't to or from Cuba. Many of these Cuban immigrants managed to escape to Spain and Mexico, but as soon as the crisis with Castro's government began to ease a bit, another great mass of them entered the United States once again.