The push factors that lead her to leave Ireland were the heavy burden of taxes imposed by England on the Irish people, which left her family with little to nothing. Additionally, her father had no steady employment and could only rely on working their small piece of land. The stress of living under these difficult conditions in Ireland motivated her to seek a better life elsewhere.
She came to America to escape the financial struggles and stress of living in Ireland. The promise of better opportunities and the hope for a brighter future likely drew her to the United States.
Read the following primary source story of an Irish woman who immigrated to the United States in 1900. What were the push factors that lead her to leaving Ireland and coming to the US?
“…There were ten of us, you might say, in our family. We had to pay every cent we made to taxes. Every war England had she made us pay for the cost of having the war, even though we had nothing. ..my father had no work except to work the small piece of land that we had. The Irish lived under awful stress. I saw a family thrown out of their home once.
- Revised from June Namias, First Generation: In the Words of Twentieth Century American Immigrants. Beacon Press, 1978.
Use these sentence starters: The push factors that lead her to leave Ireland were..../She came to America to.....
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