Race and Ethnicity in the U.S Immigration History
The essay talks about the cases of ethnicity and racism in the U.S immigration history. The immigration history of the United States can be viewed in the four epochs: First is the period of Colonialism, second is the 19th century mid, third is the 20th century and the last is the post-World War II. In each other these periods various immigrants migrated to America. These belonged to various races, national groups and ethnicities in relation to America. When we look at the first epoch of the immigration history of America, in the 17th century which was the era of colonialism, we can see that around 175,000 English people migrated to America to colonialize (Bonilla-Silva). Around half of the immigrants of Europe migrated to the colony of America in the centuries of 17 and 18. They arrived in America as indentured servants (Portes).
In the middle of the 19th century, an influx of Northern Europe migrated to the colony of America. In the third epoch, Europeans from the eastern and southern region migrated. The last immigration phase in the American immigration history is the post 1965 era. In this epoch, the immigrants comprises of mostly Asians and Latin Americans. In total the historians have estimated that around one million immigrants cross the Atlantic to reach America in the colonialism era. Because of this the Act of 1790 limited the naturalization to only the ‘Free persons who are white’ (Portes). This Act was later expanded in the period of 1860s to the black people. The Asians were expanded in this Act in the 1950s. In the earlier periods of the America history, we can see that there were only few migrations (Portes). This includes around 8,000 people mostly were the slave French refugees from the Haiti slave revolt. The immigration gradually increased in the era of colonialism i.e. after the 1820s. From the period of 1840 to 1920, more than 30 million have migrated in the United States which were European (Bonilla-Silva). The migration requires travelling from the Atlantic Ocean to reach America, so many died in this sea voyage. In the year 1875, the first immigration law was passed by America. We can see the peak of the immigration mostly Europeans in the year 1908 as 1,286,350 entered America. By the end of 1911, 13 million migrated to the United States. The Congress passed the Quota of Emergency Act in the year 1921 (Bonilla-Silva). This Act was backed up by the Act of Immigration of 1924. This Act was aimed at restricting the Eastern and Southern Europeans specially the Slavs, Jews and the Italians. As these immigrants entered America in large numbers so in order to control this issue the Act was passed (Bonilla-Silva). The main reason for the Europeans to migrate to America was because of the Second World War. Due to the large number of migrations, they were barred from entering America (Portes).
By looking at the immigration history of America, we can say that America is indeed a nation of great racial and ethnic diversity. This country can be seen as the ‘melting pot’ of culture, race, religions and languages. Because of this, the politics of the U.S started to incorporate the mixture of these people in the Society of America. There are many issues that are controversial in the U.S especially racism. In the 20th century, we can see that the political scene of the U.S was surrounded by various problems of racial equality (Portes). This gave rise to the leaders such as Malcolm X and Martin Junior Luther King who fought for the issues of ethnicity and racism in America (Rubin).These inspirational leaders fought for the black people and abolish the trend of slavery in America. Thus, we can say that ethnicity and racism is deep rooted in the immigration history of America.
Work Cited
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.
Portes, Alejandro, and Robert L. Bach. Latin journey: Cuban and Mexican immigrants in the United States. Univ of California Press, 1985.
Rubin, Lillian B. Families on the fault line: America’s working class speaks about the family, the
