Immigrants in America

In class we learned about the massive amounts of people immigrating to America every year in search of the success they were sure they could find in the "land of opportunity". However, they found that when they did arrive, they didn't always find what they had hoped. One of the most influential mantras of the time was "word hard and you will move up", so when the immigrants found that coming to America and becoming successful would be harder than they thought, they had to find someone who could help them. Despite the fact that there was always a job opportunity for immigrants due to the strikes that worker's unions would hold (and consequentially be fired for), many people saw the immigrants as taking over and flooding America. Without the help of the American public, growing numbers of immigrants turned to those known as bosses for help in this new country. Essentially, the boss system is focused around one person in charge (the boss) who would spend his time helping out the immigrants by giving them supplies, jobs, housing, etc. In return he would only ask that they vote in the elections the way he tells them to. This ensured that the elections were in favor of the bosses' preferences because they had the majority vote: the immigrants. Many people were enraged by the boss system because it essentially rigged the governmental and economic systems of the United States to be in favor of the few people who ran it. Eventually, the boss system was outlawed due to so many people rising up against it and therefore leading to laws being created that made what the bosses were doing illegal. Although the boss system did help the immigrants get set up in America, it was overall damaging to the country because of the way it controlled the vote and money flow in the US.