New Orleans: Ellis Island of the South?

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Historically, most European immigrants pre-ACW, passed through Ellis Island on the way to New York City and American citizenship.

What's the strongest and earliest PoD that would instead cause New Orleans to be said path way? Eclipsing New York City as the through way for at least 80% of all immigrants

How would this effect Dixie culture pre-ACW?

Would there be a multicultural slaving holding class? (Irish, Jews, Germans, British, etc.)

How would this effect the ACW?
 
Actually Ellis Island only opened in 1892.

Anyway, I don't think it would affect the Civil War much. The really big phase of non-WASP immigration came after the Civil War. The only substantial Catholic immigrant group to arrive before the war was the Irish. Jews likewise did not arrive in large numbers until about the 1880s.
 
New Orleans was the entry point and permanent landing spot of the massive italian (almost all Sicilian) immigration of the late 19th century.

I didn't realize until recently that Sicilian Italians outnumbered French within the city.
 
Boston might be able to do it, so could Philadelphia, but it will be a longer trip on the boat to get to Louisiana
 
Seems to me that the bet way for New Orleans to be a major entrepot of immigration would be to increase immigration in that era from Latin America. Modern day doesnt work, what with auto, rail, and air being ubiquitous.
 
Historically, most European immigrants pre-ACW, passed through Ellis Island on the way to New York City and American citizenship.

What's the strongest and earliest PoD that would instead cause New Orleans to be said path way? Eclipsing New York City as the through way for at least 80% of all immigrants

How would this effect Dixie culture pre-ACW?

Would there be a multicultural slaving holding class? (Irish, Jews, Germans, British, etc.)

How would this effect the ACW?

I'm afraid you might a fairly radical POD for this, which would have to involve significant changes to the local culture of not just N.O., but perhaps of Southeast Louisiana as a whole.....including less outright support for slavery, and more of merely tolerating it; one of the reasons why few Irish or Italian Americans came to this area before 1880 was due to the slavery problem-even many German Americans were anti-slavery(a good part of that, it seems, may have indeed been due to the liberal sentiments of many of those who had fled continental Europe following the failed revolutions of 1848); in fact, for the South as a whole, only Texas saw any significant numbers of German immigrants IOTL, and that was only thanks to the Adelsverein and other organizations who had encouraged settlement in that area during the Republican era.

As for a multicultural slave-holding class? I'm afraid that even in New Orleans, this would be rather difficult-a few Jews, Protestant Germans, and maybe even Ulster Irish might be allowed in, but it's rather likely that pretty much everyone else would be shut out, as anti-Catholic sentiment was also fairly strong down South.
 
Immigrants to the US only wanted to go to the north and midwest because that's where you could earn decent pay as a labourer until you could afford to buy your own plot. There's no sense really in taking a longer ocean journey to New Orleans to then travel up a longer distance by river to get back to the north.

The only way you could do this is by making the south attractive to migrants. That means no slavery.
 
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