The US is a land of immigrants. The country's civilization and culture
have been shaped by racial intermingling from around the world. The
history of immigration to the USA , a country quite rightly referred to as a ‘Melting Pot', spans over a long period of migration of different peoples from various parts of the world.
Earliest Immigration:
The earliest immigrants to the US belonged to the time much earlier than those entered through Ellis Island in the late 19 th and early 20 th Centuries. While one group believes that the first immigrants were wanderers from Northeast Asia about 20,000 years ago, others believe that it could be the Polynesians, South Asians, or even Europeans who arrived in the US first.
European Immigration:
After about 500 years following the arrival of the Vikings in America, the European immigration took off. European settlers went to the US seeking their fortune. Christopher Columbus' discovery of Americas in 1492 gave great impetus to the European immigration.
Following initial domination by the Spanish and the French, the English colonists started the first planned European migration in America. During the colonial era most of the immigrants to the US came from Northern Europe. Their numbers declined during the 1770s, but picked up during the mid 1800s. New arrivals came from several countries, but mostly from Germany and Ireland where crop failures caused many to leave their homelands.
Immigration in the period from late 18 th to mid 19 th Century:
The French Revolution (1789-1799) and the Napoleonic Wars (1792 1814 ) had reduced immigration from Europe to the Americas significantly. By 1808, the US Congress also put a ban on importation of slaves. However 1820 immigration began to increase after 1820 and by 1830 number of immigrants had reached over a lakh. The Irish famine of the mid 19 th Century forced an explosion of immigration from Europe to the US.
Moreover the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo , which concluded the Mexican War (1846-48), extended U.S. citizenship to approximately 4,000 Mexican residents living in California , a place over which the US gained undisputed control. Also in 1849 the California Gold Rush spurred significant immigration from Mexico, South America, China, Australia, and Europe and caused a mass migration within the United States.
Immigration from mid-19 th Century to period of Great Depression:
Immigration flow from Europe to the US continued in the late 19 th and early 20 th Century on a high scale. German immigration to the US received a high momentum between 1850-1930. Also a massive exodus occurred during that time when nearly a lakh French Canadians had left Quebec to move to the US. Italian immigration to the US also reached a high magnitude in the early 20 th Century when over two million Italians shifted to the US. Besides large scale movement occurred among Swedes and Norwegians, East Europeans, and Jew communities. Large number of Mexicans also immigrated during and after the Mexican Revolution (1911-1929) although many returned home following the Great Depression.
Immigration from post-Great Depression period to end of 20 th Century:
The 1930s and the subsequent few decades saw a moderate
flow of immigration. The Jews expelled by the Nazis in Europe were not given many opportunities to take refuge in the USA. However a positive move was made in the 1940s when the War Brides Act (1945) was passed to allow foreign-born wives of U.S. armed personnel to immigrate into the US and the Luce-Cellar Act (1946) gave right to newly freed Filipinos and Asian Indians to become naturalized citizens. Immigration to the US was regularized after the World War II (1939-45) under the Displaced Persons (DP) Act of 1948 . In 1952 the
McCarran Walter Immigration Act limited total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920. Also refugees from Cuba and Hungary following political upheavals in those countries fled to the US for better survival. In the mid-1970s, following the Vietnam War, a large community of refugees from Indo-China took shelter in the US. Other new waves of immigration to the US occurred towards the end of 20 th Century from countries like South Korea, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. In the 1990s and early 21 st Century the two major communities that have immigrated to the US are the Chinese and the Indians. These highly-educated and specialized communities have migrated to the US mainly on educational and professional reasons.
While the US experiences an entry of approximately 1,000,000 legal immigrants per year, the influx of illegal immigrants may be as high as 1,500,000 per year. The authorities in the US are concerned about the rate of immigration and laws like Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) will help to deal with the problem effectively.
