International Migration

Abstract

Should some extraterrestrial creature arrive to study the habits and customs of the people of the United States, it would likely report that Americans are a restless people frequently on the move. Such mobility might be the cultural consequence of succeeding waves of foreign migration to its shores, from the first migrants— the native Americans—to the more recent streams of Asian, Latin, and Caribbean migrants, and it has taken many forms. For many of these migrants, America was symbolized by the Statue of Liberty beckoning with its beacon to the “tired ... poor ... (and) huddled masses.” This international migration has been paralleled by an internal migration, which in the nineteenth century was associated with the development of the West and in the second half of the twentieth century takes the form of a Sunbelt migration.¹