Immigrants have always been the life blood of our beloved country. For hundreds of years, Americans have associated themselves with many different cultures. America is truly a melting pot; even today you can still see the influences of the many cultures practiced here. Immigrants, however, did not have it easy. While today we can truly recognize the great contributions they continue to give our country, in the early 1900's, immigrants were looked upon as "mongrels" or "barbarians," people that didn't belong nor were wanted. It is truly unfortunate for such a situation to occur. There were four major hurdles for immigrants in the early 1900's. Grace Abbot and Peter Roberts have define these hurdles as being looked at as an outcast to other Americans, defining the degree of cooperation between American and American immigrants, diffusing the stereotypes of immigrants among American citizens, and finding the immigrant's role in assimilating and whether or not assimilation was the key to immigration.
When Americans think of immigrants, they think of degenerate people that are dirty, gormless, and unreliable. This is very unfortunate because most immigrants come over to start a new life. They have a motivation and drive to succeed, and they know if it can be done, America is the place to do it. The real problem with this is that any American business owner would look at an immigrant and see no real potential. They would only see cheap labor. Immigrants, therefore, were not given many opportunities to prove themselves to the American society because most people wouldn't think of giving them any real responsibility. The immigrant also had the impossible task of proving the stereotypes the Americans had of them wrong. Same as before, however, they weren't given many chances to show their true spirit and workmanship. The immigrant mostly worked as labor in fields or as a laborer, doing dangerous or repetitive work.