单选题
As is the case in many cultures, the degree to which
a minority group was seen as different from the characteristics of the dominant
majority determined the extent of that group's acceptance. Immigrants who were
like the earlier settlers were accepted. The large numbers of immigrants with
significantly different characteristics tended to be viewed as a threat to basic
American values and the American way of life. This was
particularly true of the immigrants who arrived by the million during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of them came from
poverty-stricken nations of southern and eastern Europe. They spoke languages
other than English, and large numbers of them were Catholics or Jews.
Americans at the time were very fearful of this new flood of immigrants.
They were afraid that these people were so accustomed to lives of poverty and
dependence that they would not understand such basic American values as freedom,
self-reliance and competition. There were so many new immigrants that they might
even change the basic values of the nation in undesirable ways.
Americans tried to meet what they saw as a threat to their values by offering
English instruction for the new immigrants and citizenship classes to teach them
basic American beliefs. The immigrants, however, often felt that their American
teachers disapproved of the traditions of their homeland. Moreover, learning
about American values gave them little help in meeting their most important
needs such as employment, food, and a place to live. Far more
helpful to the new immigrants were the "political bosses" of the larger cities
of the northeastern United States, where most of the immigrants first arrived.
Those bosses saw too many of the practical needs of the immigrants and were more
accepting of the different homeland traditions. In exchange for their help, the
political bosses expected the immigrants to keep them in power by voting for
them in elections. In spite of this, many scholars believe that
the political bosses performed an important function in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. They helped to assimilate large numbers of
disadvantaged white immigrants into the larger American culture. The fact that
the United States had a rapidly expanding economy at the turn of the century
made it possible for these new immigrants, often with the help of the bosses, to
better their standard of living in the United States. As a result of these new
opportunities and new rewards, immigrants came to accept most of the values of
the larger American culture and were in mm accepted by the great majority of
Americans. For white ethnic groups, therefore, it is generally true that their
feeling of being a part of the larger culture, that is, "American" is much
stronger than their feeling of belonging to a separate ethnic group-Irish,
Italian, Polish, etc.
单选题
A minority group's acceptance to the country was determined by