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IMMIGRATION AND THE AMERICAN IDENTITY FORMATION, THE SIGNIFICANCE OF…
IMMIGRATION AND THE AMERICAN IDENTITY FORMATION
1790
19% African ancestry
10% German
48% English
12% Scot and Scots-Irish
French, Irish and Welsh
hardly homogeneous
marked differences among English, Scots, Scots-Irish, and Welsh
constitution and citizenship
1790: the criteria for naturalization were established:
a residence of two years (subsequently changed to five years);
good character
taking of an oath to support the Constitution to renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign Prince, Potentate, State or Sovereignty
1790: naturalization was to be available to any alien, being a free white person
1870: extended the privilege of naturalization to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent
1882: Chinese Exclusion Act --> explicitly excluded Chinese immigrants from acquiring citizenship
Until 1924: native-born Indians who maintained tribal ties were denied citizenship on the fiction that they were members of alien nations
waves of immigration
1st (1841-1890):
15 million arrivals
x 4 millions Germans
x 3 millions Irish
x 3 millions British
x 1 million Scandinavians
2nd (1891-1920):
18 millions
x 4 millions Italians
x 3 millions Austria-Hungarians
x 3 millions Russians
3rd (>1965)
16 millions
x 24% Mexicans
x 24% Central and South American and Caribbean
x 35% Asians
x 12% Europeans
religion
originally: Protestant country
gradually: Catholics and Jews
now: Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus
regulations upon entry into the country
1882 --> two statutes:
1st. qualitative health and moral standards (excluding criminals, prostitutes, lunatics, idiots, and pauper)
2nd. Chinese Exclusion Act
World War I: intense patriotism
anti-immigrant climate --> Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924 which established quota systems to reduce the number of southerns and eastern Europeans and to bar all Asians
Immigration Act of 1965: the National Origins Quota system was done away with; maximum of 20,000 visas to any one country
// third wave
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMIGRATION IN THE FORMATION OF AN AMERICAN IDENTITY
Rudolph Vecoli