Immigration is the movement of people, legally or illegally, from their country to settle in a foreign country for various reasons extending from job opportunities to religious freedoms. Immigration has been taking place for hundreds of years, beginning with the Colonial Immigration which took place in 1607 when English settlers first arrived in America (History). Due to immigration in the United States, immigrants have become some of our scientists, engineers, and innovators, and began creating their own jobs, as well as owning various businesses, leading to the employment of many Americans and other immigrants.
Immigrants have also began to improve our society technologically by developing new cutting-edge technologies and companies such as Google, Yahoo! , and eBay (Huffington Post). Without immigration, the United States would not have some of the businesses that we have now, nor would we have these advances in technology. As a result of immigration, new jobs have become available to immigrants as well as others residing in the United States. According to the American Immigration Council, “there is no correlation between immigration and unemployment”, meaning that immigration does not contribute to the unemployment rate in the United States.
Instead of immigrants occupying U. S jobs, leading to unemployment for American citizens, immigrants have actually been helping to sustain U. S jobs by purchasing American goods and services such as; food, clothing, cars, and houses, as well as starting their own businesses. Immigration also has no effect on the unemployment rate in the U. S because there is no competition between American citizens and immigrants for jobs because immigrants and Americans tend to differ in terms of location, job specialization, and education causing each group of people to be eligible for different occupations.
American Immigration Council). Due to immigration, new companies have arose and the United States has began advancing technologically. One company that has come into existence as a result of immigration is the department store Kohl’s, started by Maxwell Kohl, an immigrant from Poland in the year 1962. Kohl’s began as a supermarket in Brookfield, Wisconsin during the 1940’s and eventually evolved into a department store in 1962. When Maxwell Kohl came to the U. S. , he began his career working in factories until he finally had enough money to open up his own business which he called Kohl’s.
Kohl’s began as a grocery store which contained a bakery as well as a deli, which other stores did not have. Maxwell kept his supermarket chain business for several years and in 1962 he opened up his first department store and decided to sell his supermarket in the year 1970. With strategic thinking and his experience with the supermarket business, Maxwell was able to make his chain of department stores successful. “Today, Kohl’s Department Stores is a nationwide chain with more than 1,160 stores and distribution centers in 49 states” (The Immigrant Learning Center).
Another company founded by immigrants is the widely used search engine Google. Google was created by Sergey Brin along with Larry Page and was officially launched in the vear 1998. Sergey Brin is a Russian born inventor, engineer, and computer scientist who immigrated from Russia to the United States in 1979. While in the U. S. , Brin attended Stanford University where he met his future business partner Larry Page. As a research project for their computer science class, Sergey Brin and Larry Page decided to team up and create a search engine that would list search results from most popular to least popular websites which they called “Google”.
After receiving over a million dollars in funding, Brin and Page launched their Google headquarters located in California in the year 1998. “Google has since become the world’s most popular search engine, receiving an average of 5. 9 billion searches per day in 2013” (Biography). In addition to Kohl’s and Google, immigrants are also responsible for the creation of the Kraft Food company whose products are sold in just about every supermarket in the U. S. The Kraft Food company was created by immigrant James L. Kraft of Canada and made its way to the U. S in 1903.
When Kraft moved to Chicago, he invested in a cheese company, soon to realize that his business partners dropped out and he was left on his own. After the failed investment, Kraft used the money he had and decided to buy a horse and wagon and use it to sell cheese to local retail shops. Over time, Kraft’s business began to grow and he was able to establish his first cheese manufacturing plant located in Northfield Illinois in 1909 with the help of his brothers. As time went on, the Kraft food company became more and more successful and even after the death of James L.
Kraft, his name continued to be one of the most recognized food product brands in the United States (The Immigrant Learning Center). As you can see, the immigration of foreign people was beneficial to the United States in many ways. As a result of immigration, the United States has been introduced to various companies and new technologies such as; Google, Kohl’s, and Kraft. Along with immigrants introducing new companies and technologies to the U. S. , they have also helped sustain U. S. economy and maintain employment by starting their own businesses as well as purchasing goods and services from American owned businesses.