Coming to the United States 1870's

1. Immigrants coming to the United States had a difficult journey. If you came from Europe, the trip took about a week; from Asia nearly three weeks. No airplanes. All steamships, which were a lot slower than the ships we have today.

http://goo.gl/Zv9w0

I would not have liked the trip if I were an immigrant at the time. No doubt about it.
Most of the travelers traveled in the cheapest possible way--the rooms were where the luggage and cargo were stored! Hell no! No windows, no fresh air. It probably smelled like butt. Nasty.
There were thousands of people in the same situation, and there were bugs, diseases, and many people died before they arrived to their destination.

2. Back in the late 1800's, before entering the United States as an immigrant, you had to prove to the immigration people you had at least $25, which is $625 in 2012 dollars (according to http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php).
The two immigration processing stations in San Francisco and New York were Angel Island in San Francisco and Ellis Island in New York.
The immigrant experience at these places were long and intense. The process would take about five hours, and everyone had to prove they weren't locked up at one time, and they had to pass a medical exam. Today we don't have to that, and I'm glad because I would hate to go through that for just visiting Tijuana.

http://goo.gl/PoiMK

3. Denis Kearney of the Workingmen's Party in California tried to ban Chinese people from entering the United States because he thought they were taking jobs away from the native-born Americans. He was an important person in the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act law in 1882, which forbade ALL Chinese people from coming into the country except for students, teachers, businessmen, and government people.
That would have sucked to have been Chinese at the time because why did it have to be Chinese only? Weren't there other people taking jobs, too? It's racist, and I hate that crap. Plus, if I could do a better job at a cheaper rate, isn't that what all people want?
4. The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907-08 was with the United States and Japan due to the racism that was occurring on the west coast at the time. The agreement provided that (1) Japan would severely limit the amount of non-professional Japanese immigrants coming to the U.S., and that the (2) U.S. would de-segregate the schools in which all the Japanese children were placed.