Question

what is the Background of emigration from Rheinhessen,  and Chain migration process

Answer 1

The answer was provided from best of my knowledge where i refered some of the articles, i hope it will help you.

Rheinhessen was under French rule between 1797 and 1814 and was ceded to Hessen-Darmstadt in 1816. With a mere 531 square miles, its territory embraced less than half the size of Dane County, Wisconsin. Most of its soil was fertile and the mild climate allowed the production of grain and wine. With a population of 213,000 in 1840 it had about 400 residents per square mile which at that time made it one of the most densely populated areas of Germany. As in most parts of Central Europe, population growth had been immense within the previous 25 years. The number of Rheinhessians had increased by one-quarter, which posed severe problems to an agrarian area where it was common practice among peasants to divide up their land in equal shares among their heirs (Realteilung). Emigration was regarded by many middle class families as the only remedy against impoverishment, especially after a series of crop failures in the 1840s.

Different groups of immigrants have employed chain migration among the different strategies used to enter, work, and live in the various republics of the Americas throughout their history. Social networks for migration are universal and not limited to specific nations, cultures, or crises. One group of immigrants to the British colonies in North America (and later the United States) was African slaves brought over forcibly; the circumstances of their migration do not fit the criteria of chain migration of free labor. Other groups, such as Germans fleeing chaos in Europe in the mid-1800s, Irish fleeing famine in Ireland in the same years, Eastern European Jews who emigrated from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and Italians and Japanese escaping poverty and seeking better economic conditions in the same period, did use chain migration strategies extensively, with resulting colonies of immigrants from the same villages, towns, and cities settling in enclaves in such cities as Boston, New York, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Montreal, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and Havana from the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s.

Italian immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century relied on a system of both chain and return migration. Chain migration helped Italian men immigrate to such cities as New York in the United States and Buenos Aires in Argentina for work as migrant laborers. Italians generally left Italy due to dire economic conditions and returned wealthy by Italian standards after working in the Americas for a number of years. Italian immigrants were called ritorni in Italy and grouped with other Southern and Eastern European migrant laborers under the term birds of passage in America. However, after the passage in the United States of the Immigration Act of 1924, return migration was limited and led more Italians to become naturalized citizens. The networks that had been built up by information and money due to chain and return migration provided incentives for Italian permanent migration. Mexican migration to the United States from the 1940s to the 1990s followed some of the same patterns as Italian immigration.

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