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American Immigration: A Student Companion (Oxford Student Companions to American History) PDF

304 Pages·2001·31.72 MB·English
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AMERICAN IMMIGRATION A Student Companion OXFORD Student Companions to American History WILLIAM H. CHAFE, GENERAL EDITOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION A Student Companion Roger Daniels OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2001 by Roger Daniels Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daniels, Roger. American immigration: a student companion / Roger Daniels. p. cm. - (Oxford student companions to American history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-511316-0 1. United States—Emigration and immigration—Encyclopedias. 2. Immigrants—United States—Encyclopedias. [1. United States—Emigration and immigration- Encyclopedias. 2. Immigrants—United States—Encyclopedias.] I. Title. II. Series. JV6465 .D257 2000 304.8'73'003—dc21 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Design: Sandy Kaufman Layout: Valerie Sauers Picture Research: Lisa Kirchner and Lisa Barnett On the cover: (top left) banner in a 1985 parade in New York City; (top right) 2000 swearing-in ceremony for new citizens; (bottom) the Statue of Liberty and boats in New York Harbor in an 1884 lithograph. Frontispiece: California advertises for immigrants in a poster from 1870. CONTENTS 6 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK 7 INTRODUCTION: A SHORT HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES 19 AMERICAN IMMIGRATION: A STUDENT COMPANION 277 APPENDIX 1: IMPORTANT DATES IN AMERICAN IMMIGRATION HISTORY 281 APPENDIX 2: IMMIGRATION, ETHNIC, AND REFUGEE ORGANIZATONS 289 FURTHER READING, MUSEUMS, AND WEBSITES 294 INDEX 6 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK The articles in this Companion are "Immigration, 1820-1996" indicates I arranged alphabetically, so you can how many persons from Denmark were look up the names of ethnic groups, recorded as entering the United States since concepts, and laws that you want more 1820, which is when the government information about. You can also use the began keeping those kinds of records. For SEE ALSO list at the end of an article to earlier periods it is necessary to estimate. find entries about related subjects. It may Many persons, even after 1820, were not happen that you look up something that recorded. In addition, these records indi- the Companion deals with under a differ- cate where a person came from, but not ent article name. For example, if you look her or his ethnicity. A German person liv- up the Central American people called ing in Denmark who came to the United Garifuna, you will find the notice "Garifu- States on a Danish passport would be na. SEE Hondurans." Under Hondurans recorded as Danish. you will find a definition of Garifuna. "Major periods of immigration" indi- This is not primarily a work about cates when the largest number of persons individuals, but many names of famous came from Denmark. persons are mentioned. You can look these "Major areas of settlement" indicates names up in the index. where most Danes settled in the period of You can use this Companion in a heaviest immigration. number of ways. To get an overall view of Immigration law: Articles on legisla- immigration, the introduction, "A Short tion such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, History of Immigration to the United the Immigration Act of 1924, and the States," is a good place to start. The indi- National Origins Act explain why each vidual articles are much more focussed and law was passed, state its provisions, and are described below. discuss it effects. Ethnic groups: The articles on the vari- Concepts: This category of subjects ous ethnic groups, large and small, are the describes how and in what ways such con- most numerous. At the beginning of most cepts as Acculturation, Assimilation, and such articles is a list of data. For example, Nativism have influenced immigration. the information about Danes is as follows: Categories of immigrants: Articles • 1990 Ancestry: 1,634,669 about certain categories of immigrants, • Immigration, 1986-96: 6,773 such as Women, Children, Refugees, and • Immigration, 1820-1996: 374,594 War brides, explain their role in the immi- • Major periods of immigration: gration story. 1864-1924 Definitions: Particular aspects of the • Major areas of settlement: Iowa, Wis- immigration process such as Circular consin, Minnesota, Utah migration, Push, Pull, and Return migra- "1990 Ancestry" indicates how many tion have their own entries, which define people indicated on the 1990 census (the and explain these technical terms. most recent data available) that at least one Immigration, ethnic, and refugee orga- of their ancestors was Danish. Each person nizations: In Appendix 2 you will find a could list two ancestors but not everyone list of organizations, public and private, answered the question. Those who did from which information about immigra- could choose two groups. Since the census tion and/or about certain ethnic groups counts people of Asian ethnicity, entries may be obtained. such as Koreans will have a "1990 Cen- Further reading, museums, and web- sus" listing. For some religious groups sites: If you want to know more about a there are "1990 Population" estimates. specific topic, you can use the FURTHER The abbreviation "n.a." indicates that READING entries at the end of each arti- those statistics are not available. cle as well as the guide to further research "Immigration, 1986-96" indicates the at the end of the book. It lists general fur- number coming in that 10-year period only. ther reading titles, websites, and museums. 7 INTRODUCTION: A SHORT HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES H ow important has immigration been in American history? One leading historian of immigration, Harvard's Oscar Handlin, wrote in 1951, "Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." Of course, Handlin was clearly exag- gerating, but he was not exaggerating by very much. What he meant, at a time when the history of immigration was not highly thought of, was that it is not possi- ble to understand American history with- out understanding America's immigrants. Except for some 2 million American Indians, immigration in the past four cen- turies has been responsible for the pres- ence of the more than a quarter of a bil- lion people who now populate the United States. Immigrants and their descendants are the authors of American diversity, of what can be called the American mosaic. They have created a culture that, despite its largely European roots, is clearly not An 1 898 Judge magazine cover portrays immi- European, any more than it is African, grants as a source of strength. The left eye refers or Amerindian, or Asian, or Caribbean, to the annexation of Hawaii, which took place earlier that year. or Latino. Americans are, as the French sojourner Michel-Guillaume Jean de experience. They are denying the vitaliza- Crevecoeur noted in 1782, new persons, tion that has come from the constant who, over time, have been transformed enrichment and reenforcement of Ameri- by their new environment and ever can society by the muscles, brains, and changing heredity. It is impossible to hearts that every generation of immi- imagine what America would be like if no grants has brought with them to America. immigrants had come; nor is it possible to The history of immigration to the Unit- imagine what it would have been like had ed States can be divided most conveniently only Europeans come, or only British, and into four distinct periods: the formative era, so forth. The American people are a up to 1815; the so-called "long" 19th cen- product of what they have been, and tury stretching from 1815 to 1924; the era where they have come from, as well as of of restriction, 1924-1965; the era of what has happened to them in the United renewed immigration, since 1965. States. When nativists—opponents of immigration—rant and rave about the The Formative Period (1565-1815) dangers of being overrun by immigrants, During the formative period, which begins or about losing control of our borders, or with the settlement of St. Augustine, Flori- complain that immigrants and some of da, by Spanish in 1565 and ends with the their children do not speak English well, conclusion of a series of wars between they are denying the validity of an essen- Britain and France in which Americans tial and enhancing part of the American took part, the overwhelming majority of 8 INTRODUCTION immigrants came either from the British Estimated Non-Native Isles or from Africa. We must remember, American Population in 1790 however, that the first permanent Euro- pean settlements in what is now the United English 49% States were made by Spanish people at St. African. American 16% Augustine and in New Mexico in 1598, Irish 7.6% and that immigrants from other European Germans 6.9% countries, particularly France and Ger- Scots 6.5% many, were in almost every colony. Of the Dutch 2,5% roughly 1 million people who came in this French 1.8% period, more than half were not free. All of Miscellaneous and the 350,000 Africans came in chains, and unassignftd 9,7% perhaps half of the 650,000 Europeans were indentured servants or convicts. Amedcan His|0iieal Association, Annual Report, 1931 Most of the British who came were from England, and most of them were outnumbered whites. This clustering of eth- from the southern part of England. Smaller nic groups in certain regions and smaller but still substantial numbers of Scots and areas, called enclaves or neighborhoods, is Irish came, as did a yet smaller number of typical of the immigrant experience every- Welsh. Even in modern times, immigration where in the modern world. statistics are often incomplete or unreli- The United States Constitution, able, and they were less reliable in the 17th which went into effect in 1789, required and 18th centuries. The most useful esti- that a census be taken every 10 years, but mates come from the first United States it said very little about immigration: in census, taken in 1790, which found some fact, the word immigration does not 3.15 million white Americans and 750,000 appear anywhere in the document. But African Americans. The 1790 census did the founding fathers clearly foresaw and not count most Native Americans, and the encouraged continued immigration, as census takers did not try to do so until three separate provisions testify. In Article 1880. Scholars have analyzed the informa- 1, Section 8, Congress was told to "estab- tion contained in that first census and tried lish a uniform Rule of Naturalization." to estimate the number and percentage of The following section provided that Con- the population represented by each ethnic gress could not interfere with the African group. The vast majority of the 3.9 million slave trade before 1808, and Article 2, Americans had been born in what became Section 1 provided that the President— the United States, as there had been rela- and by extension the Vice President— tively little immigration between the begin- must be "a natural born Citizen." This nings of the American Revolution in the left immigrants eligible for all other mid-1770s and 1790. offices under the Constitution. From the The distribution of the members of the beginning of the United States immigrants different ethnic groups was uneven. Most of have filled these offices, serving in Con- the German Americans lived in Pennsylva- gress, in the cabinet, and on the Supreme nia, where they were about one-third of the Court. For example, the first secretary of population. Similarly, most of the Dutch the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was an were in New York and adjoining states. By immigrant from the island of Nevis in the region, New England was the most heavily West Indies and Madeline Albright, Secre- English, while the South was home to most tary of State under Bill Clinton, was an African Americans, who, in some districts, immigrant from Czechoslovakia. 9 INTRODUCTION* In the second year of the American smaller. The table below shows the rate of republic, 1790, Congress passed a natural- immigration per thousand pre-existing ization statute that provided for the natu- inhabitants. Thus, for example, the rate ralization of "free white persons." The for the 1850s is much higher than for the law was intended to exclude Africans and 1890s even though 42 percent more peo- indentured servants: later interpretation by ple came in the latter period. Immigration the Supreme Court expanded the ban to was discouraged in the 1860s by the Civil include Asians, but for much of the 19th War and in the 1870s and 1890s by hard century some Chinese and Japanese were times in the United States. naturalized. In 1798, Congress passed the This mass immigration was dominated short-lived Aliens Act, which threatened to by Europeans, and, to a lesser degree, the deport aliens who were involved in poli- descendants of European immigrants com- tics, but no one was deported. ing from Canada. It also marked the begin- Only two other laws passed in the first nings of large-scale immigration from Asia, half of the 19th century affected immigra- largely of Chinese and Japanese. Historians tion. In 1808, at the first legal opportunity, now believe that even though the interna- Congress abolished the slave trade but not tional slave trade had been outlawed by slavery, and in 1819 it ordered that incom- Congress in 1808, perhaps 50,000 illegal ing immigrants be counted, but not those slaves were brought into the United States leaving the United States. between then and 1865, mostly from Caribbean islands. Toward the end of the The "Long" 19th Century (1815-1924) 19th century, free Afro-Caribbeans began Historians sometimes define centuries not to come to the United States. by the calendar, but by events: for Ameri- In the years before the Civil War can immigration two events define the (1861-65), immigration was dominated by 19th century more effectively than do the Irish and Germans. Even before the dreadful "normal" dates, 1801-1900. The first date, 1815, marks the end of a series of wars between Britain and France and our War of 1812 with Britain. The end of the fighting signaled a renewal of immigration. 1820-1924 Immigration The second, 1924, denotes the enactment Rate of Immigration of a "permanent" restrictive immigration Immigration to the per Thousand law by the United States. During that United States of U.S. Population "long" 19th century, more than 36 million 1820-30 ,.-"..... 151,824 1.2 people immigrated to the United States. 1831-40 .....». 599,125 .. 3.9 This is an absolute majority of all the 1841-50,..... 1,713,251 . .. 8.4 immigrants who have ever come. The 1851-60...... 2,598,214 .., 9.3 table on the right shows, by decade, how 1861-70...... 2,314,824 .6.4 many came after 1819 and the rate of 1871-80...... 2,812,191 6.2 immigration in relation to the total U.S. 1881-90,..... 5,246,613 ........... 9.2 population. 1891-1900.... 3,687,564 5.3 The mere numbers of immigrants do 19QMO...... 8,795,386 .......... 10.4 not tell the whole story. In the earlier part 1911-20...,-., 5,735,811 .. 5,7 of the "long" century of immigration, the 1921-24...... 2^44,599 5.3 relative impact of immigration was higher TOTAL...... 35,999,402 than the table on the left seems to indi- cate because the population was much U.S. Bureau ol the Ceimis

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