Q1. According to Jacobson, what explains the surge in immigration from the world's hinterlands to its cores in the mid to late nineteenth century? Why did they come to the United States, specifically (more than one reason here)?
Q2. What changed by the 1890s and what were the arguments against open immigration (there were several)?
Q3. What is the main argument or thesis of this chapter? How does Jacobson go about proving this argument? Give specifics details, quotes, and page numbers.
Q4. According to Jacobson, the immigrant became a symbol, "a national icon charged with awesome positive and negative value." Explain what he means. How could immigrants be both symbolically positive and negative and what explains this ambivalence? How was this ambivalence manifested in U.S. society?
Q5. How was a supply of immigrant laborers essential for capitalists' profit margin? Again, this is a more complex question than it seems - it wasn't just about lower wages. What is a segmented/split labor market? Bonus question: Do we still have one today?
Q6. Why did anti-Chinese sentiment become so prominent in the United States after 1869? Why does Jacobson argue that economics was more important than racism in explaining the anti-Chinese movement during this period? Does the same logic apply to discrimination against other immigrant groups?
Q7. How did radicalism come to be seen as distinctly un-American? Why does Jacobson argue that the fear of radicalism was really about Americans' discomfort with the new industrial order?