Other Immigrants: The Global Origins of the American People

Epilogue

Epilogue The surge of immigration of “people of color” in the last three decades can scarcely be missed. The majority of immigrants have settled in six states (California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois ) and in large metropolitan areas such as New York City, Washington , D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston. But they have also been spreading across the United States to states and communities with little prior history of contact with Asian, black, or Hispanic immigrants. One can find Asian Indians running motels in Mississippi; Hmong refugees in Minneapolis; Somalian refugees in San Diego and in Lewiston, Maine; Vietnamese along the coast of Texas; Mexicans and Central Americans working along the “chicken trail” in North Carolina, Missouri, and Iowa; and Koreans in the nation’s cities, running small ethnic enterprises. Yet it is important to remember that black, Latino, and Asian immigrants have always been part of American immigration history, though their numbers in the past were much smaller than in the early twenty-first century. First-generation slaves in colonial America were essential for the development of the nation’s economy. Later Chinese and Japanese migration to California and Hawaii provided those states with agricultural laborers. After the United States annexed the Southwest, the nation incorporated a population of Mexicans, and immigrants from Mexico have been settling in the United States ever since. When numbers of blacks, Latinos, and Asians appeared to grow, Americans decided to limit or exclude them. The Chinese Exclusion Act was only the first of federal actions to stem the flow of Asians. While Mexicans were not included in the restrictions on Asians (and Europeans ), Mexican newcomers nonetheless faced intense discrimination in California and Texas, the two states with the largest Mexican populations . Moreover, several hundred thousand Mexicans and their children were deported during the 1930s. Blacks could still enter from the 289 Caribbean, even after the restrictions of the 1920s, but these newcomers encountered a society characterized by intense racism. The large-scale immigration of non-Europeans since the 1960s has changed America and is continuing to do so. Immigrants constitute more than 11 percent of the population, and they provide 12 percent of American workers. It took a long time for the nation’s Protestants to accept Catholics and Jews, but now religious pluralism also includes Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and members of other small sects. And today, Catholics and Protestants are undergoing a growth of immigrants in their congregations as Korean Protestants and Latino and Asian Catholics join existing churches or form new ones. American radio, newspapers, and television inform readers, listeners, and viewers in a variety of languages, just as the theater, music groups, restaurants, and dance reflect the latest wave of immigration. Yellow page phone books are not published solely in English. There is no doubt that the latest newcomers have made the United States a more pluralistic and interesting society. Some people view the trends since the liberalization of immigration laws after 1943 with alarm. They point out that in 1940 the Asian and Latino populations were very small, and that foreign-born blacks were found mainly in Florida and New York City. Outside of the descendants of African slaves, the vast majority of Americans had their origins in Europe . Those uneasy about the current trends of immigration note that the Bureau of the Census has projected that whereas roughly 85 percent of the American population was “white” (meaning of European origin) in 1940, by 2050 only a slight majority (52.8 percent) of the population will be white. In 2050, a quarter of the American people will be Hispanic, 10 percent will be Asian, and a rising proportion of black Americans will be foreign born or the children of black immigrants.1 It is important to recognize several points about the changes. First, terms such as “Asian” and “Hispanic” are social constructions that government officials, scholars, and the media use to cover a great variety of groups. Often the subgroups within these large categories have little in common; they do not form a monolithic bloc. Cubans are better off than Mexicans, and whereas Mexicans who are citizens tend to vote Democratic , Cubans are solidly Republican, to cite one example. Moreover, the new immigrants do not threaten American core values or burden the nation economically. During the Gulf War of 2003, the media noted that Asians, blacks, and Hispanics were among the troops, and a number of these soldiers were immigrants.2 This...