Which country sent the most immigrants to the United States in the 19th century?

The new law was applauded for its emphasis on family unification. It gave non-quota status to immediate family members, including spouses, unmarried minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens. A new preference system also reserved 74 percent of the eastern hemisphere quota for four categories of family members and relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, including unmarried children age twenty-one or older of U.S. citizens, spouses and unmarried children age twenty-one or older of permanent residents, married children age 21 or older of U.S. citizens, and siblings of U.S. citizens. Two of the three remaining categories of the preference system included occupations needed in the United States, such as professionals, scientists, or artists of exceptional ability, as well as skilled and unskilled workers. The last preference provided 6 percent of the total quota for refugees. Western hemisphere immigrants, although not limited by the new preference system, were subject to labor clearance.

Although the Hart-Celler bill was endorsed by the majority of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, some scholars argue that few politicians had anticipated that the new law would change the structure of U.S. immigration. The populations of Asian and African Americans were small in the mid-1960s, which suggested that they would be unlikely to take full advantage of the preference system. In other words, European immigration would continue to be the dominant force.16At the signing ceremony in front of the Statue of Liberty, President Lyndon Johnson reassured the public, announcing, “This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives.” Right after the ceremony, however, the president admitted to his press secretary, Bill Moyers, in private, “If this was not a revolutionary law, what the blank did we go all the way to New York to sign it for?”17

Post-World War II Immigration

Changes in U.S. immigration policies during and after World War II had a great impact on contemporary immigration. A major shift was the sources of immigration. In the first three decades of the 20th century, 80 percent of the roughly 28 million immigrants originated from Europe. Deportations of Mexican laborers and implementation of Asian exclusion limited the growth of immigrants from the western hemisphere and Asia. The number of immigrants dropped significantly during the Great Depression and World War II. Although Europeans continued to dominate the immigration statistics in the first two decades after the war, a new pattern began to emerge. In the 1950s over half of the total immigrants came from Europe, and the majority of them arrived from western European countries. In the 1960s, however, immigrants from the western hemisphere would replace those from Europe to become a dominant source.

Europe

Most contemporary European immigrants arrived through family unification. A large number of them, especially eastern European immigrants, also came as professionals. Some students who came to seek advanced degrees were able to adjust their legal status upon graduation and receiving U.S.-based job offers. An increasing number of well-educated European professionals came with job-sponsored visas, but many others also came for agricultural and manual work. Poverty rates are high among several eastern European immigrant groups, especially those from Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, and Yugoslavia.19

Since the late 20th century, European immigration to the United States has been heavily affected by the pace of globalization. The development of the European Union in the 1990s, with the creation of European citizenship, enabled free movements of goods, services, and capital, as well as people. This means that Europeans have many options if they want to relocate. Migrants who gained entry to one European country could also relocate to another. The United States is still attracting European immigrants, especially those with family connections and marketable skills. European workers seeking better employment opportunities, however, could find alternatives in closer destinations, especially when demand for manual labor and agricultural workers increased in Germany, Italy, and Spain. Western Europe itself has become a magnet for immigration.

Western Hemisphere

Canada was a major western hemisphere source of immigration in the 1950s, but it could not hold its place a decade later, as an increasing number of the immigrants also began to return to their homeland. The 1960s also witnessed a significant increase of immigrants from other western hemisphere nations, including some 200,000 Cubans, 100,000 Dominicans, and 70,000 Colombians. As indicated in Figure 1, immigrants from the western hemisphere replaced those from Europe to become the driving force of U.S. immigration in the 1960s.

Asia

After several decades of exclusion, the Asian American population began to grow slowly in the postwar years. The majority of the early immigrants from Asian were male in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The repeal of exclusion laws, though with a small quota for each country, made it possible for women and children to gain admission outside the quota system. After World War II, family-centered Asian American communities began to develop.

Africa

Students from Africa often adjusted their status after the completion of their programs. The number of African-born professors, doctors, and engineers has increased significantly since the late 20th century. Among the new immigrants were well-educated professionals and people with special skills. Female African immigrants with medical training often found work in hospitals.

Immigrant Nation

New immigrants have changed the nation’s urban landscape. Mexican immigrants, who first arrived in the west and southwest, gradually moved to every region of the nation in pursuit of employment opportunities. Their Asian counterparts first settled in California and other Pacific states, but now they have dispersed to every state. The immigrants built communities in urban areas, expanding ethnic networks throughout the country with businesses and markets. Providing shelter, assistance, and employment opportunities to newcomers, these communities have served as magnets for new immigrants. The availability of new immigrant labor also facilitated the growth of ethnic economies. There are large Mexican communities in Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, and New York, as well as communities of Cubans in Miami, Chinese in New York and Los Angeles, Koreans in Los Angles, and Vietnamese in Orange County. Professional immigrants, such as engineers and technicians from India and doctors, nurses, and domestic care providers from the Philippines have been able to find employment in different regions throughout the country. Although the Indian and Filipino ethnic economies are not as big as those established by the Mexicans, Cubans, Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese, their U.S.-bound immigration set examples for later arrivals.24

Jobs provided by ethnic enclaves are especially important to newcomers without marketable skills, English proficiency, or work permits. Relatively few immigrant women could afford the luxury of staying at home; many worked in the garment industry, restaurants, domestic care, and other service industries. Three-generation households are common among Latino and Asian immigrants, with grandparents providing childcare. Mutual support from extended family members, relatives, and fellow immigrants are crucial for newcomers to adjust to their new lives in the United States.

The influx of new immigrants from different parts of the world also led to heated debate on issues concerning acculturation and assimilation. Although foreign-born immigrants were under the pressure to learn English and abandon their native languages, more and more immigrants were able to preserve their linguistic and cultural heritage. Whereas ESL (English as a second language) courses are offered in schools and colleges, there is also an increasing demand for Spanish- and Asian-language classes in high school and college. In large cities bilingual or multilingual business signs can be seen everywhere. Several metropolitan areas are home to Spanish- or Asian-language television networks, entertaining newcomers with films, soap opera, and music programs produced in Latin America or Asia.

The presence of a large immigrant population has had a great impact on American domestic politics. As was the case before World War II, policies concerning immigration and border control are of great importance in state and national politics. In addition to more relaxed admission policies, the federal government provided comprehensive assistances to Cuban, Southeast Asian, and other refugee groups with temporary cash assistance, food distribution, medical care, English classes, and job training. The American attitude toward most ethnic groups has also become more tolerate, increasing the effectiveness of assistance through religious charities and other organizations.

The United States in International Migration

A wide range of developments in countries around the world has made the subject of migration far more complex than it was before. Many European countries, for example, were sources of U.S. immigration not too long ago, but they have become destinations of worldwide migration. The European Union, with its lengthy land and sea borders involving so many countries, provides opportunities for border crossing from multiple directions. Whereas large numbers of migrants from Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan crossed the Mediterranean to Italy and Greece, those from Asia and Africa reached the continent via land through Turkey. Many migrants also crossed borders through Bulgaria, Hungary, and Russia. It is relatively easy for the migrants to move around and resettle within the European Union. Several European countries, such as Germany, Britain, France, Italy, and Sweden have become destinations for both European migrants and international migrants.

As different parts of the world experience rapid economic growth, ideas, capital, and goods move across national borders frequently. More and more migrants have been participants in a wide range of transnational activities, especially those with the means to do so, and they have preserved ties to their country of origin. The advancement of telecommunication and transportation, the expanded volume of international trade and transnational business transactions, and the emergence of international corporations have all worked to blur national borders, posing new challenges to migration studies. Many male braceros and Asian immigrants could not see their wives and children for months and years (if not decades) due to immigration restrictions in the past. Today, many families and individuals maintain residences in more than one location but still stay close to one another using telecommunication and modern transportation. Residing in multiple locations, the family can enjoy benefits offered by more than one country. Studies of dual citizenship or flexible citizenship reveal the complex characteristics of contemporary migrants, but U.S. immigration statistics have not provided ways to measure the size of these international commuters. Understanding the magnitude and trend of migration flows requires not only statistics from the United States but also data compiled in related countries.

Discussion of the Literature

The fourth edition of Immigrant America: A Portrait by Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut addresses important questions concerning ethnicity, assimilation, education, religion, and politics.37 It helps explain the formulation of various public policies that helped immigrants to adjust to life in the United States.

Tracing the origins of undocumented immigrants, Mae M. Ngai’s Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America shows how the categories of “legal” and “illegal” immigrant were constructed by the government to render Mexicans and Asians as perpetual aliens. Most of the discussions on pre-1965 policies are still relevant to contemporary immigration issues.38

For European immigration, see Leo Lucassen, The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe Since 1850. Martin A. Schain’s The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain, and the United States offers a comparative perspective. Several studies focus on specific groups of European immigrants, including Linda Almeida, Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945–1995; Annelise Orleck, The Soviet Jewish Americans; Helena Zaiecka Lopata, Polish Americans; Carl J. Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate: The United States and Refugees during the Cold War; and Beth B. Cohen, Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America.39

For general accounts of Asian immigration, see Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive History; Uma A Segal, A Framework for Immigration: Asians in the United States; Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History; and John S. Park, Elusive Citizenship: Immigration, Asian Americans, and the Paradox of Civil Rights. There are many books on specific Asian immigrant groups: Xiaojian Zhao, Remaking Chinese America: Immigration, Family and Community, 1940–1965 and The New Chinese America: Class, Economy, and Social Hierarchy; Barbara Posada, Filipino Americans; Ji-Yeon Yuh, Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America; Nancy Abelmann and John Lie, Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots; Madhullika S. Khandelwal, Becoming American, Being India; Min Zhou and Carl Bankston, Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States; and Sucheng Chan, Survivors: Cambodian Refugees in the United States.40

Mary Waters’s Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities and John A. Arthur’s Invisible Sojourners: African Immigrant Diaspora in the United States provide valuable information on the patterns and characteristics of African immigrant communities in the United States. Anny Bakalian and Mehdi Bozorgmehr’s Backlash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond provides general information on Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans.41

There is a relatively large body of literature on Latino immigrants. For general accounts and statistical analyses, see Roberto Suro, Strangers Among Us: How Latino Immigration Is Transforming America, and Laird W. Bergad and Herbert S. Klein, Hispanics in the United States: A Demographic, Social, and Economic History, 1980–2005. Scholars on Mexican immigration often take transnational approaches, considering circumstances in both sending and receiving countries. They are also successful in utilizing statistics and other primary sources compiled outside the United States. Deborah Colen’s Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico is a good example. Douglas Massey, Rafael Alarcón, Jorge Durand, and Humberto González, Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico, has become a classic. Also see Douglas Massey, Jorge Durant, and Noland J. Malone, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. For accounts on other Latino immigration, see Maria Cristina Garcia, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959–1994; Silvia Pedraza, Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus; Leon Fink, The Maya of Morgantown: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South; Maxine L. Margolis: Little Brazil: An Ethnography of Brazilian Immigrants in New York City; Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York After 1950; and Sherri Grasmuck and Patricia R. Pessar, Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration.42

Where did most immigrants come from in the 19th century?

What brought many immigrants to America in the 19th century?

Which two countries sent the largest number of immigrants to the United States in the 19th century?

What were the two countries with the most immigrants into the US in the 19th century 1800s )?