9781422281000

The Changing Face of the United States Marian L. Smith, Historian U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services A mericans commonly assume that immigration today is very differ- ent than immigration of the past. The immigrants themselves appear to be unlike immigrants of earlier eras. Their language, their dress, their food, and their ways seem strange. At times people fear too many of these new immigrants will destroy the America they know. But has anything really changed? Do new immigrants have any different effect on America than old immigrants a century ago? Is the American fear of too much immigration a new development? Do immigrants really change America more than America changes the immigrants? The very subject of immigration raises many questions. In the United States, immigration is more than a chapter in a history book. It is a continuous thread that links the present moment to the first settlers on North American shores. From the first colonists’ arrival until today, immigrants have been met by Americans who both welcomed and feared them. Immigrant contributions were always welcome—on the farm, in the fields, and in the factories. Welcoming the poor, the persecut- ed, and the “huddled masses” became an American principle. Beginning with the original Pilgrims’ flight from religious persecution in the 1600s, through the Irish migration to escape starvation in the 1800s, to the relo- cation of Central Americans seeking refuge from civil wars in the 1980s and 1990s, the United States has considered itself a haven for the destitute and the oppressed.

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