How did/do immigrants come to America with little money to their name and survive?
Posted by bubbles337@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 87 comments
People often talk about themselves or their parents/grandparents/etc. coming to the US with something just like $20 and the clothes on their backs and working their butts off to build a life. How practically did that work? Where did they live and how did they eat their first few months of being in America? How long did it take to get a work permit?
forever-salty22@reddit
My great grandparents (Polish) came here and started work as farm laborers in the early 1900s
Excellent_Economy762@reddit
Welfare
Proud-Delivery-621@reddit
This is more of a question for r/AskHistorians. It's just incredibly complicated and varies massively depending on which period/destination/country of origin you're asking about.
AlexandraThePotato@reddit
I feel like this is also a r/socialstudy (if that exists) type question. This is a modern issue too
Ok-Concert-6475@reddit
Good recommendation
LifeguardThink4611@reddit
My parents emigrated in 1972. My dad had already been accepted to college in the US before coming over but they were poor. My mom worked full time on a factory assembly line sorting seed packets and my dad worked part-time pumping gas. Once my dad graduated he got hired as an engineer by IBM.
vinyl1earthlink@reddit
Work permit? This was the 19th century, nobody needed permission for anything. You got on a boat, paid your fare, got off and started working. No bureaucracy at all, often you get paid in cash at the end of the day.
turdferguson3891@reddit
Unless you were Chinese or something else not from Europe.
ZombiePrepper408@reddit
The Scots and Irish got it bad
turdferguson3891@reddit
I don't recall a Scottish or Irish Exclusion act or Irish or Scottish internment camps.
ZombiePrepper408@reddit
How about being used as meat shields during the American civil war by by both sides?
turdferguson3891@reddit
So we're talking about black people now?
Greedy-Research-859@reddit
My ancestors came to Chicago from Germany in the 1890s. First, they were "sponsored" by older siblings already here. Second, they lived so completely in a German enclave that they never spoke English, although they were here for 40+ years. They lived, worshipped, and worked with other Germans. Their children -- they had nine -- grew up in that community, but assimilated. They learned English and eventually got jobs with American companies. By my father's generation, no one spoke German.
But having a ready-made community waiting for them is how they survived.
KartFacedThaoDien@reddit
They either either lived with family. Or they got a job and stayed at the job for a few years working until they paid off the amount of money it took for them to get to america.
RedSolez@reddit
When my family immigrated at the turn of the 20th century from Italy, they had to have a sponsor in the US - I.e. a family member already here who'd take you in until you could get on your feet. My great grandfather on my Dad's side lied on his application that he was being sponsored by his brother when in fact it was his first cousin because he thought the closer relation would be better accepted. That cousin was already employed as a waiter at the Waldorf Astoria and got him a job there too.
Remote-FilmBoujee@reddit
Living with family members that were already here. Splitting bills with them. Investing in random things with them. Working day in and day out for ANY money, didn’t matter the job or pay. My dad’s a multimillionaire now with this kind of story. Immigrated to the US in the late 80s.
Bluemonogi@reddit
I don’t know.
My grandfather came to the US from Scotland in about 1923. My understanding was that it had been really hard to find work in Scotland around that time so I don’t think he came with much money. I think he started working on road construction and living in boarding houses with the other unmarried crewmen right away. Maybe housing was part of their deal or people just all found the closest living place. He traveled across the country working on roads until he met my grandmother and he settled down in one spot. He continued to do construction type work.
Jolly-Return921@reddit
Often times when immigrants arrived at the United States, they often times formed smaller communities in which safety nets were often established with the belief of helping one another due to ethnicity/nationality. This is why you get places around major cities like China town and or Little Italy. We still even see this same sentiment in places like Dearborn, Michigan which has grown to have large Muslim communities.
HeavyDutyForks@reddit
In the past? They'd come over and go to local communities, their respective church, or whatever charity organizations to get on their feet initially. Or organized crime would take care of them for a while but charge exorbitant interest for whatever was loaned to them
Adorable-East-2276@reddit
Adding to this, work permits didn’t exist until the 1950s. The world’s current system of Immigration law is way, way newer than people think
2_minutes_hate@reddit
Yep. Worthy of note: they didn't all survive.
656787L@reddit
many people died
mouses555@reddit
As a us citizen with an immigrant wife… dude I honestly have no idea how an immigrant came here with no family or no money… imagine doing that and not even speaking English! (My wife does thank god) this shit is so difficult and is so confusing from the immigration system all the way to the agencies you deal with outside the immigration system.
Back in the day people I feel like had to know someone. And the immigration rules were more relaxed. If you were able body in the late 1800’s and not sick or pregnant they just let you into the US. You’d find the support you need from local areas, churches, community centers, relatives/friends who came over first.
ray_t101@reddit
My great uncle by marriage was put on a boat with 7 usd when he was 8 years old to get him out of Italy at the start of Mussolini‘s rule. He had no direct connection to any family and spent his first night in America sleeping on the doorstep of a church. The priest found him the next morning half frozen and took him in and fed him warm soup and bread. While he ate the priest called some of his Italian parishioners and someone came and took him to a boarding house where he went to work as a house boy to pay his room and board. By the end of the first year he was working for some Italian family business if you know what I mean. Bought his first car at 14 and was married with kids by 20. And worked for the family business until he passed away of cancer. Can you imagine sending your child to another country not knowing anyone or how they were going to do and not able to go with them?
manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit
The ones who came through Ellis Island had to already know where they were going to live, or they'd be sent back. There were so many immigrants at the time, that everyone knew someone who was already here, they could automatically join a community, and they didn't have to worry about a language barrier.
SpecialsSchedule@reddit
There’s a reason entire pockets of cities were named “[country]-town”.
You moved where your cousin lives and bunk with her until you’re on your feet. Maybe you work in your aunt’s restaurant and take English lessons at the local community center.
baybebumblebee@reddit
And a lot of the "[country]-town" or "little [country]" have a high density of [country] religious institutions and cultural centers.
If you didn't have immediate family in the area, then someone at the church likely had an extra bedroom and knew someone who was hiring. Even though they were strangers, they trusted you because they had a friend with a husband with a cousin that was from the same village as you.
This is also why the descendents of recent immigrants often have cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents that they're not actually related to; supporting someone through immigration automatically makes them family.
OpposumMyPossum@reddit
Yeah. It's what's happening now with immigrants.
Outlaw_Josie_Snails@reddit
It depends on the country. Some immigrants have a patron and apprentice system in which generations of families and businesses that are already established in the US (the patrons) will help sponsor new immigrants.
For instance, Greek Americans in parts of the US have been known to open Greek diner restaurants. (especially on the east coast). When a newcomer migrates to the US, they are given a job, they learn the trade, and they are eventually given an informal loan by the community to open their own diner. That person will then hire the next new immigrant, continuing the cycle.
Koreans have done this with dry cleaning, grocery stores, corner stores, and other businesses. They help other Koreans.
As well, many immigrants have lottery/pulled money systems they use. You can do a Google search "Tanda/"cundina", "Partnerhand", "Hagbad", "Hui", etc
TotientEC@reddit
they started earning money immediately, by whatever means possible (exactly how had endless variation)
OpposumMyPossum@reddit
There weren't restrictions for the majority of out history.
SabresBills69@reddit
thry paid to come over.
thry generally thrn went to where they might have had extended family or to ethnic areas where others came from the motherland came from.
they got whatever jobs they could get or in areas they were already skilled in.
my fathers side work farms for a few years after they came here similar to what you see from Hispanics today
knightni73@reddit
Back then, the job market was better. You could find work off of the boat. Now, you either need a good company to transfer your job with, or get a sponsor.
We_R_the_Penguins@reddit
You raise a good point; for a long time there was plenty of work for people with strong backs and little else. No backhoes, just dig until someone tells you to stop.
EstablishmentSea7661@reddit
Cousins, aunts and uncles.
In my area we have a lot of eastern European immigrants that are living in the parks, on benches, etc. Eventually they'll find housing through social services but it takes a long time. I work in municipal government and the amount of homeless is skyrocketing, and most are eastern European immigrants. Devastating. But a generation in and they are doing well.
revengeappendage@reddit
My grandparents came here with $20 and a brass bed! No, I don’t know why. They never did tell me why they brought a brass bed of all things lol.
Immediately got the shittiest cheapest apartment they could find. Immediately started learning English. Immediately got jobs doing anything they could. My grandpa was a janitor at an elementary school for a while. Eventually learned English, grandpa joined the military then both went to college, my grandma actually went to Columbia lol.
SignificantSmotherer@reddit
“Immigrants”, ok.
They sleep on the floor and work 7x12. Even at subsistence wages, it accrues pretty quick.
venus_arises@reddit
In recent history? Community ties, sponsorships (think like a religious organization), hustling, working shit jobs.
alwaysHappy202@reddit
Why do you think immigrants have to work shit jobs?
venus_arises@reddit
In the beginning, when you may have no language skills or any professional network? You are trying to survive and make it happen. Like, I am a bad example since I moved here at 11, but plenty of people work terrible jobs trying to get a foothold in the country.
Independent_Sock_213@reddit
Community. No one comes to America with "$20 and the clothes on my back" and survives without staying with friend, family, friends of family, friends of friends, Temple, Church, Mosque, the YMCA, food pantry, Alcoholic Anonymous, whatever. Every person needs people in an environment like this. Rags to riches stories are extremely rare and most of the stuff we hear is romanticized, propaganda , or straight bullshit.
Darmok47@reddit
My grandfather arrived in 1955 and literally got off the boat and got a room in a boarding house or hotel, and then just looked for a job. He had a foreign qualification as a machinist,
LendogGovy@reddit
Pretty much how every ski and fishing town works to this day
PowerfulFunny5@reddit
It was probably easier to legally walk up to a job site and offer to work in the days before social security
44035@reddit
There was a time in post-war America when factories were desperate for workers and if you were breathing and sober, you were hired.
rileyoneill@reddit
Immigrants seldom came here alone, not knowing anyone, to a place where there are no other immigrants from their diaspora. Usually it was families and they went to a place where they had some connections with some other people there. Maybe it was someone else from your village, maybe it was a cousin.
Then. Much like today. Immigrants worked. The US was typically much more prosperous than their old country, the places within the US were places that had demand for immigrant labor. A lot of people also started their own small businesses. They may not have come with nothing but they did have knowledge. A broke German guy who is a master sausage maker will figure out how to make sausage in America. Self employment back in those days was a huge deal.
James_T_S@reddit
People want to talk about how American has a homeless problem but the truth is that there isn't a shortage of organizations set up to help the homeless get off the street. And they don't tend to ask a lot of questions about citizenship.
If you are willing to work hard you can get by. You might struggle in the short term but it's not a death sentence.
My cousin was court ordered to live in a halfway house for a while (he was heading down a bad path) and it straightened him out pretty quick. It gave him a n experience and perspective that was foreign to me. He said most of the homeless are fine being homeless. They would rather live like that then even try to get off the street. Help wasn't just available for those that looked for it. It was actually looking for people to help.
LendogGovy@reddit
They didn’t have to buy fishing and hunting licenses
OpposumMyPossum@reddit
New immigrants moved to cities usually.
They got to go to work immediately with zero restrictions.
They didn't need an ID or visa.
ProbablyAPotato1939@reddit
Foreign enclaves used to be pretty common, Poles in Chicago, Italians in NYC, etc, so people would find familiar faces.
World War I changed a lot of that and many European immigrants Anglicized their names.
dkesh@reddit
I used to do couchsurfing. I had a guy come stay with me for three days from Mexico. Turned out that he was intending to immigrate (without permission to stay) and figured he needed some place to stay for a few days while he got set up.
By the end of the second day, he had a job and a place to live. He just stopped some Mexican folks in a parking lot, told them his situation, and they fixed him up.
The job probably didn't pay that well and the accommodations were shared with a bunch of other guys, but it was a start.
Equivalent-Cicada165@reddit
Yep yep yep
This is more common than people realize. Community is incredibly important.
blindside1@reddit
I live in a community that is 60% hispanic, many who are first generation.
They find housing with friends or family in the area. They usually don't come to any particular place randomly, they are coming because someone told them to come because there are jobs that need doing. Our area is heavy in agriculture and that is clearly where many get their start. Some of our farmers offer both permanent and seasonal housing for their workers to facilitate recruiting workers. Our neighbors probably have 20 people in their house at any one time which would be another way.
I am sure many are unofficial and don't wait for a work permit.
SilverHoneysuckle@reddit
Accepting shit jobs and saving as much as possible with an eye on a hopefully brighter future—i.e., dishwashing, stocking items in stores, cleaning, working in slaughterhouses, farm labor, under-the-table work, any miserable job that requires little info or experience, even if you have a degree from your old country. When you choose to leave your home behind—or worse, are forced to leave it—you may have little choice in how you start over
KJHagen@reddit
My grandfather came from Germany and heard that there was abundant work in Texas (around 1910). He paid his way to Ellis Island and continued by ship to Galveston. Employers were at the port looking for workers, and he ended up getting a job as a laborer. He worked hard, gained skills, saved money, and traveled north where he could farm.
My wife was a refugee from Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s. Getting refugee/asylum status was VERY difficult, but a refugee service helped her find a job assisting in a barber/beauty shop. She worked hard and took side jobs, eventually going to college and earning some certs.
Both my grandfather and my wife came with just one bag and some pocket money. Neither got public assistance.
quietlywatching6@reddit
Homelessness and or family for housing. They live off what they make money wise, begging, or occasionally stealing. Many people don't get work permits, during this period. They work under the table or off the books, until they are established enough to a) go back to a border and apply for refugee status, b) wait for their pre-planned work permit to be "under review" by their American employee so they need to present themselves for entry, c) same as b but for marriage, or D) just don't live under the table and let you family get legal status by various means including birth.
Only in the last 40-50 years (since SSA and Equality acts) that it's been worth tracking these people for anything. Also changes in housing laws. You can't have a boarding house with 50 men sleeping in 20 beds, in a building originally designed as a 3-bed, 1 bath house without running power or water.
carlton_sings@reddit
My parents were sponsored by the family we already had living in the US back in the 1970s. They lived with them during the green card process, learned English and some skills and by the time they could work, they were ready to enter the job market.
Ok_Salamander6797@reddit
My dad couch surfed with a Puerto Rican family for a while till he met a girl (my mom) in the same situation and they pooled their money.
PrestigiousTop5275@reddit
My great great grandfather moved from Sicily and not sure what he did for work, but I know he became a citizen when get was enlisted for WW1. My other grandfather moved for medical residency in Philadelphia. They were extremely poor for that phase of their life. Once my grandfather became successful they helped Filipinos immigrating through organizations they volunteered with.
DarceysExtensions@reddit
I immigrated in 1992, but I had more than the clothes on my back and $20.
I initially stayed with friends to see if I like it here. Once I had decided that I wanted to stay, I applied for an investment visa that also grants the right to work. That took about 6 months to get approved and then I rented a house.
MMAGG83@reddit
During the first and second immigrant waves from \~1840 to \~1920, the US was expanding at a massive rate. There was no shortage of jobs for unskilled laborers in factories and farm fields. Skilled laborers were equally in demand to help in building roads, houses, railroads - working as miners, stevedores, lumberjacks, railway workers. These aren’t clerical jobs, so you don’t need good English to work them. You just need to show up and work hard to get paid. When people said “America was the land of opportunities” they really meant it. You could rock up to Ellis Island without a cent to your name and reinvent yourself by working hard and making connections. Just look at how the Irish and Italians thrived on the east coast, or how the Germans and Poles thrived in the Midwest.
meltsaman@reddit
I worked with a British lady who used to try to say this about her husband. So I asked "who did he live with?" And then the whole story comes out. $100 goes a lot further when you don't pay rent or buy food.
jckipps@reddit
There were no work permits in the 1700s and 1800s. Just show up, find someone who will pay for the skills you have, and start earning money.
Back then, cash payments were common, and day-labor jobs were paid at the end of the working day. It's very possible that an immigrant could have his first paycheck within 24 hours of getting through immigration.
Outrageous_Glove_796@reddit
Yes, and many allowed a worker to bunk with other workers on premises.
RawBean7@reddit
My grandfather and his brother came over with nothing as orphans around 1910. They were kids at the time, and went to stay with family who were already living here. They also weren't actually orphans, but their father had died and their mother couldn't afford to keep them in England so she sent them off for a better life and it worked out for them. No idea how two kids made it on their own from New York to Ohio where the family was. People were built different then.
xnatlywouldx@reddit
What they aren’t saying is that a lot of their parents came as asylum seekers and were not only accepted as new citizens but given government help and went through an array of assimilation programs to get them on their feet.
pikkdogs@reddit
As mentioned theres not one story. Often immigrants are targeted by employers and are given not so great jobs. My ancestors were miners and lumberjacks.
QuicksandHUM@reddit
The usually settled in familiar ethnic communities where they lives in tenement houses with other single men and women. Then they often took jobs in industries their community worked in. For some it might be textile mills, and others it might be mining.
lfxlPassionz@reddit
Many work at farms that provide a place to sleep and something to eat until they save up enough for a house then they get a place to live and a better paying job.
Getting help used to be much easier too. Communities used to take care of each other, even immigrant communities.
lfxlPassionz@reddit
We do often still get these migrant workers in Michigan. The travel between Florida or California and here
R3alisticExpectation@reddit
Many that came over that didn’t have shit became indentured servants, others joined the military, others traveled and homesteaded, some went to the mines, others to the railroad, or timber company. Back then you didn’t tend to make a leap like that if you didn’t have the grit to work your knuckles to the bone day in and day out to put bread on the table… or rather in your pocket. Back then people could arm money in the day and camp in the night, building simple outdoor living spaces until they made enough to make the next step. They could hunt the land, bathe in a river, stay warm by a fire, etc.
GetInTheHole@reddit
The world needs ditch diggers too Danny.
ratteb@reddit
Took more paperwork for my Great Great (maybe another Great) Grandpa to leave the Duchy of Hanover. He got off the boat in New York Harbor and headed in the same direction as all the other Germans. And in 1869 you could go a long way on $20 inside a cooperative community.
glowybutterfly@reddit
When my great-grandfather came here in 1902, part of the deal for immigrating was he had to prove that he had work lined up. So he only had like $2 in his pocket, but he also already had an employer. He and his family (wife and \~8 kids) were incredibly poor for a long time. As I recall, when my grandmother met my grandfather in the 1930s, he was sharing a two-room home with his family still. Getting free fish heads from the local fishermen and free bruised/aging produce no one wanted to buy. The kids pitched in to support the family as they grew up. My grandfather got into medical school because his entire family pooled their resources and also took out loans to make it happen. My grandparents borrowed money from a lot of family and friends in the early years. My grandfather worked 80 hour weeks with two days off a month. My grandmother also worked for years. Eventually, the work started to pay off. They were able to repay debts, and then they were able to invest in real estate. My grandfather's siblings had similar stories. They ended up very wealthy, in the end, but it took decades of effort and sacrifice and hard living to get there.
ChainWise6768@reddit
There is a street corner in my town where everyone knows that day laborers will be waiting to get picked up. You pull up to that corner, get out of your truck, and hold fingers or a number up in the air, and that many workers will come get in your truck and work for you for a day. You take them back to that corner at the end of the day and pay them in cash. If you don't pay them enough, next time you go to that street corner nobody will get in your truck.
Some of them came to the border and turned themselves in as refugees, where they were detained until their paperwork was approved and they were permitted in the country with a work permit. Some applied for a permit in their home country and came when it was their turn. Most of them snuck across the border and aren't legally allowed to work here, but so long as nobody turns them in, they'll sneak back across when the work season is over and nobody will know they were ever here.
A lot of them sleep in their cars. There are some non-profit groups that help arrange for affordable housing, often shared. Some employers also have places that they can stay, and take minimal room and board fees out of their pay.
It's not just immigrants, by the way. I am a natural-born citizen, and for years I lived in worker housing and was paid by the week. I was paid above board, so they took my taxes out and filed with the government like a normal job, but that wasn't the case with everyone I worked with. Many of my coworkers traveled - working in the south during the winter and working in the north during the summer. Me, I worked during the summer to make enough money to rent a room while I went to school the rest of the year until I got my degree. Between that and a handful of scholarships and grants, I finished school debt free which allowed me to take a lot of other financially risky jobs after I finished college, not having to settle down with a "day job" until I was 25 and had my life pretty well laid out for me.
bulletPoint@reddit
You can still do this. You don’t need much to make it in America, opportunities abound. Take it from this immigrant.
Electrical-Speed-836@reddit
Where I live immigrants come to work in factories or in construction mainly. Many start small businesses as well. Also most of the immigrants are from established groups like Mexicans that have a community already established. They usually live in poorer more rundown areas and fix them up.
OpposumMyPossum@reddit
Because for about 300 years there weren't work restrictions.
People for government jobs as aliens with no papers
SeaGurl@reddit
My in laws came over in debt. My father in law didnt have enough money for the bus so he walked to work and back. My mother in law would walk to the store and hunt for dented cans and foods nearing their expiration/sell by date to get discounts. So they basically ate whatever was available like that.
My father in law did have a work visa before he came over which allowed them to get an apartment. But they were scraping by for a long time.
greekmom2005@reddit
My dad found other Greeks to crash with
SockSock81219@reddit
It was mostly an earlier time, when "legal immigration" was arriving via a ship and giving some kind of name to a harbormaster. Then, you traveled between the homes of distant relatives until you found a place you could see yourself settling down, find some minimum-wage job, and didn't worry about SSNs until you had kids who needed to go to school. By that point, you were naturalized and parents of US citizens.
A lot has changed in the last 50+ years, and old lore, even from a few years ago, about who's "legal" and who isn't, isn't true anymore.
glowybutterfly@reddit
When my great-grandfather came here in 1902, part of the deal for immigrating was he had to prove that he had work lined up. So he only had like $2 in his pocket, but he also already had an employer.
Ok-Energy-9785@reddit
It's a marketing campaign to get immigrants to move here
SaltandLillacs@reddit
I think some of it is over exaggerating especially now. They leave out family and community connections.
ExternalTelevision75@reddit
Get a job and work hard
Grungemaster@reddit
Whether it’s 1886 or 2026, newly arrived immigrants relied on family and their fellow countrymen who were already here. Different ethnic groups went to different cities/states where there was already an established community.
ND7020@reddit
It depends on the era.