Immigrants and refugees: Orethnicity ain't what it used to be

Abstract

Once upon a time, the facts and generalizations about the people who made up the population of the United States were fairly straightforward. Everyone knew about the Pilgrims and the Puritans in New England and the Dutch in New York. After them came the Irish, because of the potato famine, and then there were the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, who thronged into Ellis Island. A word or two about the yellow menace, the Chinese laborers willing to work for starvation wages, and the textbook marched gratefully on to more interesting topics, such as the Spanish-American War. Since the end of World War II, the revisionists have taken a mighty whack at this simple picture of the populating of the continent. Immigration, we began to learn, was a complex phenomenon, and one with heavy political implications, both at home and abroad. The motivations of immigrants were more complicated than merely seeking their fortune in a new land of freedom. We learned, too, about the emigration of persons who found the promise hollow, or, having garnered their pot of gold, returning to their homeland to spend it. Finally, the eruption of wars, invasions, and civil disturbances in places most Americans had never heard of, and could not pronounce, produced a new category, refugees. Contemporary events have sharply increased the interest in national groups and national origins. The whole federal policy regarding immigration and naturalization has been under study. Added to this is