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Immigration
America's cultural identity
embraces people of diverse backgrounds: African, Asian, European,
and indigenous American. Our culture has been shaped by the interaction
of many different cultural and religious groups. Our art, clothing,
holidays, language, literature, music, and sports reflect the
commingling of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural
groups within one nation.
From
earliest settlement, ethnic diversity has been one of America's
defining characteristics. No other part of the world has even
begun to attract as many immigrants and refugees. The study of
our country's diversity can correct many historical myths and
misconceptions and help combat bigotry and ethnocentrism. Above
all, it can help us understand how contemporary American culture
emerged out of a complex process of interaction, blending, and
adaptation among communities with diverse cultural heritages.
The
question of how diverse people can live tolerantly and cooperatively
with each other in multicultural societies is one of the most
pressing issues in the world today. In societies as different
as Canada, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia, ethnic antagonisms
deeply divide nations. In a world in which mass migration is rapidly
increasing ethnic diversity, American history can serve as a laboratory
for exploring the problems of how people of differing racial,
religious, and ethnic backgrounds can interact in a single nation.
The
Huddled Masses
A detailed history of late 19th and early 20th century immigration,
including definitions of key terms in the study of immigration,
guides to immigration in film and fiction, and discussion of immigration
and music, language, diseaese as well as the economics of immigration.
Essays
Featured
Guest Historian
Irish
Americans
Italian
Americans
Mexican
Americans
Resource
Center
- Photo Album of Immigrants
This photo album is based upon text and pictures from a book,
On the Trail of the Immigrant by Edward A. Steiner,
published in 1906 by the Fleming H. Revell Company, New York.
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