In chapter one of From Ellis Island to JFK, Nancy Foner goes into a general description of the members of second of the two large waves of immigrants into the U.S., how they came, who they were, etc. The second wave, which is obviously the more recent of the two, was very diverse, with people coming from all over the world. In contrast, in the first wave, most of the immigrants came from Europe. It was not at all surprising for me to read that those who held high positions and had relatively high-paying jobs in their home countries couldn’t get the same jobs here. Degrees received in other countries were never accepted as valid proof of one’s eligibility to hold one or another position. Even today, this is firmly so. I found it to be rather unfortunate that the immigrants had to work their way up the metaphorical social ladder again, once they got here, especially considering how tough their journeys were. However, it appears that some of these “better” jobs in immigrants’ home countries paid less than did the blue collar jobs they got in the U.S., as Foner illustrates by means of the example of the babysitter from Brazil. The ships were infested with various critters, not at all clean, and densely packed. It’s truly amazing to me that so many people were able to pass the medical exams on Ellis Island having gone through two weeks of living in such unhygienic conditions. The immigrants were willing to endure these hardships in hope of having better opportunity in the U.S. and/or escaping religious or racial oppression, common reasons for the decision to emigrate from one’s home country. On this point, I was pleased that Foner pointed out that these reasons for immigration are extremely oversimplified. She explained that a number of varying factors contributes to the making of the final decision, and all but claims the aforementioned reasons to be incorrect deductions. These were the conditions that LEGAL immigrants had to bear. ILLEGAL immigrants have a much tougher time getting here, because they have to cross the border without being discovered, and finding work that pays at least somewhat well can be very difficult, especially as the number of illegals accumulates.