Cities & Immigration Vocabulary List

Immigrant Definition: A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country. Example of immigrant in a sentence: Immigrant patterns In the United States changed in the late nineteenth century. Immigrants started to come to America from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Racism Definition: Poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race (skin color). Example of racism in a sentence: Racism existed in both the North and South during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Anti-Semitism Definition: Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group. Example of anti-Semitism in a sentence: Many Jewish people emigrated from Southern and Eastern European countries due to strong feelings of anti-Semitism.

Ellis Island Definition: An immigration inspection station in New York Harbor. Operation from 1892-1954. The busiest immigration inspection station in the United States. Millions of immigrants went through Ellis Island. Immigrants were checked for health purposes at Ellis Island.

Discrimination Definition: To treat a person or group of people unfairly because of the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, etc. Example of discrimination in a sentence: African Americans faced discrimination in the North during the Great Migration.

Slum Definition: An area of a city where poor people live and the buildings are in bad condition. Example of slum in a sentence: Due to poverty, many immigrants were forced to live in slums.

Tenement Definition: An apartment house with poor safety, sanitation, and comfort conditions. Example of tenement in a sentence: Most immigrants had to live in tenement apartments during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Skyscraper Definition: A very tall building with many floors, elevators, and a steel frame. Example of skyscraper in a sentence: Skyscrapers were built to accommodate the growing population of cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Emigrate Definition: To leave a country or region to live elsewhere. Example of emigrate in a sentence: Many people emigrated from turbulent countries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to find better opportunities in America.

Nativism Definition: A policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants. Example of nativism in a sentence: At the turn of the century, many Americans wanted their leaders to adopt a policy of nativism to protect their interests.

The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) Definition: A law passed by Congress that prohibited Chinese immigrants from entering the United States for ten years.

The Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907) Definition: An informal agreement made between Japan and the United States to limit the number of Japanese immigrants entering the United States. The Gentlemen’s Agreement stated that only the children, wives, and parents of Japanese immigrants already living in American can immigrate into the United States.

Migration (in terms of groups of people) Definition: A movement of people within a country or a certain area. Example of migration in a sentence: A large portion of the African American population living in the South migrated to the North in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to escape racism, discrimination, and violence.

Segregation (Segregate) Definition: To legally separate a group of people from another due to their skin color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Example of Segregation in a sentence: At the end of Reconstruction, Southern state governments passed Jim Crow laws to legally segregate African Americans from the white population.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) A Supreme Court decision that stated segregation in places of public accommodation was legal (railroad cars, schools, restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, etc.), as long as the facilities were “separate but equal.”

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Definition: An organization formed in 1909 by African Americans and White Americans to end racism and discrimination in the housing market, the workplace, and in education.

Jim Crow Laws Definition: The name given to a series of laws passed by state and local governments in the South after Reconstruction to legally segregate African Americans from the white population. Example of Jim Crow laws in a sentence: African Americans migrated to the North to escape Jim Crow Laws.