Americans: where are they from?

KHAKAS STATE UNIVERSITY

AMERICAN SHELVES PROJECT

Americans: where are they from?

by Zarina Khurramova,

5th year student

Institute of Education

Abakan 2011

Immigration is a central aspect of US history. Many tens of millions of people have come to live in the USA, changed their homelands. They strengthened the nation's commitment to 'the dream' and to its ideal of being a refuge for the poor and oppressed a nation of nations. Gradually, over the centuries of massive immigration and the struggles of newcomers and Americans to adjust to each other, the view that the nature of the nation was and should be a composite of many national backgrounds, races and cultures gained popular acceptance.

However, the meetings of newcomers and native-born have also contributed to America's history of social disorder. The contacts, conflicts and mixing of cultures have fueled widespread discrimination, economic exploitation, anti - foreign movements and debates over equality, opportunity and national identity. In a country whose history began with the meeting of Native Americans and European colonists and continued through the importation of African slaves and several waves of immigrants, there has never been a single national culture.

The search continues for a metaphor that captures the character of American society. Is it best understood as an Anglo-American core culture into which newcomers sooner or later merge as they assimilate? Or should it be some form of cultural pluralism as suggested by, among other images, the metaphors of a, ‘Crucible’ or 'melting pot', a 'salad' or a 'stew' and who is to decide who is included or excluded from these mixtures? Some commentators reject both the claims of a unitary culture and of cultural pluralism, preferring instead forms of multiculturalism, in which multiple traditions are the ideal, and no cultural group, however old or influential historically, receives priority. Americans disagree over the nature of the process and what the ultimate goal should be: the integration, assimilation, even homogenization, of newcomers or the acceptance of a permanently pluralistic society [Moak, 55].

Since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the metaphor “Crucible” was used to describe the American nation. A crucible is a refractory container used for metal, glass, and pigment production as well as a number of modern laboratory processes, which can withstand temperatures high enough to melt or otherwise alter its contents. Later, the "melting pot" was used to describe the fusion of different nationalities, ethnicities and cultures. The “melting” pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation. While "melting" was in common use the exact term "melting pot" came into general usage in 1908, after the premiere of the play The Melting Pot. It is a play by Israel Zangwill, first staged in 1908. Zangwill combined a romantic denouement with a utopian celebration of complete cultural assimilation. After 1970 the desirability of assimilation and the melting pot model was challenged by proponents of multiculturalism, who assert that cultural differences within society are valuable and should be preserved, proposing the alternative metaphor of the mosaic. "Cultural mosaic" is a term used to describe the mix of ethnic groups, languages and cultures that co-exist within Canadian society. The cultural idea of “Salad bowl” suggests that the integration of the many different cultures of United States residents combine like a salad, as opposed to the more prolific notion of a cultural melting pot.

There are some waves of immigration in the history of America (see the Table) [Takaki, 17; Fiedler, 13-25].

Waves	Features
Early encounters between Europeans and Native Americans the late 1400s	These encounters amounted to a collision of worlds. Human societies evolved into different forms in the “new” and the “old” worlds. Some Native-American cultures viewed other indigenous peoples with a dislike no less intense. Each con­tinent's diversity of cultures was related, even quite similar in broad outline, when compared with cultures from the other continent. Thus, all Europeans tended to look alike to Native Americans, and most Europeans seemed incapable of seeing Native Americans as anything but a single people.
The founders (1	The people who established the colonies are considered founders rather than immigrants because they created the customs, laws and institutions to which later arrivals (the first immigrants) had to adjust. After trying to enslave the natives, they worked to convert them to Christianity, farming and sheep-herding. Because many natives rejected this way of life, the Spanish colonies faced border attacks for over 200 years. The English established their first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Supported by tobacco profits, Virginia imported 1,500 free laborers a year by the 1680s and had a population of 75,000 white Americans and 10,000 Africans in hereditary slavery by 1700. In the 1660s, other English aristocrats financed Georgia and the Carolinas as com­mercial investments and experiments in social organization. The southern settlers warred with the natives within a few years of their arrival and by the 1830s drove the Native Americans from today's South. Mostly well-educated middle-class people, in America they believed they could create a “city on a hill” to show how English society could be reformed.
The colonial immigration ()	The founders had come for economic gain and religious freedom, but their descendants gave the first large wave of European newcomers a warm welcome only if they were willing to conform to Anglo-American culture and supply needed labor. St. Jean de Crevecoeur, an immigrant farmer from France, first stated in 1782 the idea that in America “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of man”. The only people who mixed in his vision, however, were north-west Europeans, and he required that the people in this first version of the melting pot had to turn their backs on their homeland cultures. This first wave was possible only because after 1660 the Crown opposed emigration from England and Wales but encouraged it from other nations. In 1662, King Charles II licensed the Royal African Slave Company as the supplier of slaves to English colonies, and during the next century about 140,000 Africans arrived after surviving the appalling conditions and brutal treatment on slave ships. Roughly a quarter of a million of Scots-Irish left northern Ireland for the American colonies after 1680 because of economic discrimination by the English. The largest non-English speaking group in the colonies, German immigrants believed their descendants had to learn German if their religion and culture were to survive in North America. For mutual support, they concentrated their settlements. For some immigrants, the last straw was the Germans' prosperity. Renowned for their hard work, caution, farming methods and concern for their property, they were too successful, according to their envious neighbors. Benjamin Franklin expressed what many feared when he said they might “Germanize us instead of us Anglicizing them”.
The “old” immigrants (1776 - the late 1820s)	Immigration slowed to a trickle. The struggle for independence and the founding of the American nation diverse people. The dominant Anglo-American culture and time weakened the old ethnic communities. Dutch and German areas of influence remained locally strong, but most ethnic groups assimilated. In the 1820s most Americans and newcomers therefore thought the situation was unprecedented when the second wave gathered strength. A range of factors pushed Europeans from their homelands. Religious persecution drove many German Jews to emigrate, and political unrest forced out some European intellectuals and political activists, but economic push factors were decisive for most of the so-called “old” north-western immigrants. The rapid growth of cities encouraged farmers to switch to large-scale production based on farm machinery, the elimination of smallholdings and enclosure of common lands. With these changes, such a large population could not make a living in the countryside. During the 1800s, the industrial revolution and an international trade boom spread from Britain to the Continent and the USA during this period, but reached different regions at different times. Following changes in the Atlantic labor market, people moved to where the jobs were. Steamships and trains made migration abroad safer, faster and cheaper, and “America letters” from family and friends in the USA gave a remarkably accurate picture of changing economic conditions there. Of the 60 million people who left their homelands between 1820 and 1930, two - thirds settled in the USA. During the “old” immigration, 15.5 million people made America their home. The largest immigrant groups, in order of size, were Germans, Irish, Britons and Scandinavians, but many other peoples, including French Canadians, Chinese, Swiss and Dutch, also came in large numbers. Unlimited supply of land and work were the factors pulled most people to the USA. News of boom times in the USA, land giveaways such as the Homestead Act of 1862 and the discovery of gold in California brought peaks in the rising immigration.
The 'new' immigrants, ()	The “new” immigration marked a change in the origin of most immigrants. Around 1890 immigration from north-western Europe declined sharply, while arrivals from southern and eastern Europe rose. In numerical order, the largest “new” groups were Italians, Jews, Poles and Hungarians, but many Mexicans, Russians, Czechs, Greeks, Portuguese, Syrians, Japanese, Filipinos and others also immigrated. The religions, languages, manners and costumes of the Slavic peoples seemed exotic or incomprehensible. But this tidal wave of people was in several ways similar to its predecessors. The basic economic push and pull factors had not the late 1800s falling train and steam-ship ticket prices made migration affordable even for the very poor and the young. In general, the new immigrants were younger, more often unmarried, and more likely to travel as individuals rather than in family groups.
The fourth wave (1965 to the present)	The fourth major wave of immigration rose to a peak in the late 1990s and produced the highest immigration totals in American history by the end of the decade. The wave has included hundreds of thousands of immediate relatives and refugees outside those limits. It has also contained millions of illegal aliens, who cross borders without (or with false) papers or arrive at airports on student or tourist visas and then overstay. Between 1960 and 2007 nearly 39 million people settled legally in America. Like the earlier waves of newcomers, the fourth includes a broad range of socio-economic groups. One result of saving visas for needed occupations is that a very noticeable minority are highly skilled workers, professionals (especially engineers, doctors and nurses) and entrepreneurs with capital. The large majority of both legal and illegal immigrants are similar to those who have arrived since the 1820s. At the socio-economic bottom of this wave are often recently arrived groups of refugees from wars and other disasters. The nationalities and skin colors of most people in this wave are different and more various.

The United States is a society of immigrants. Since its early days, the country has admitted more than 50 million newcomers, a larger number of immigrants than any country in history.

So, just the brief survey of American story gives us the clear understanding of reasons to immigrate to America. Religious freedom, fraternity, independence, land-owning and people’s dreams about gold are among them.

"Melting Pot," "Salad Bowl," or "Pizza"?

Douglas K. Stevenson writes that of all the many different nationalities and ethnic groups which have gone into the making of America, some have quickly assimilated. They have largely lost or intentionally given up many of those specific markers which would make them much different from their neighbors. This process of assimilation or Americanization - becoming part of the «melting pot» has characterized the immigrant experience in American history, at least for most Europeans. In this sense, there is some truth in the statement, recently made by European politicians, that "what in United Europe is still theory, can be seen in the United States in practice."

Other Americans have, while becoming American in other ways, maintained much of their ethnic identities. In this sense, U. S. society has been likened to a "salad bowl." It does not follow, however, that these Americans are any less aware or proud of their American nationality. Japanese-Americans provide a well-known example. Although their loyalty in World War II was doubted by many other Americans, as a group they became the most highly decorated American soldiers fighting in Europe. Perhaps a better metaphor for American society than either "the melting pot" or the "salad bowl" would be that of a "pizza" (which has become, by the way, the single most popular food in America). The different ingredients are often apparent and give the whole its particular taste and flavor, yet all are fused together into something larger.

Still another factor to consider in describing "the American" is that the face of America is constantly, and often very rapidly, changing. It is estimated that by the year 2050, for instance, Hispanics (a term including all Spanish-speaking Americans, such as Mexican-Americans or "Chicanos," Cubans, Puerto Ricans, etc.) will be the largest "minority" in the United States. 65 They will then make up 21 percent of the total population (81 million people), followed by Blacks with 16 percent.

Crevecoeur’s old and often repeated question ("What then is the American, this new man?") cannot be answered simply or conclusively.

The "Average American"

The variety of ethnic identities, immigration experiences, and cultural choices that have gone into making Americans is so complex, however, that describing the "average American" is very difficult. Most Americans may be White, but Americans are not "normally" White. Most Americans are Christians, but America cannot be called "a Christian country." And a majority of Americans might still claim European ancestry, but this description also does not define Americans in general. Neither, in fact, does lan­guage [Stevenson, 5].

The United States is one of the few countries that have no "official" national language, or lan­guages. English is the common language by use, but it is not the national language by law. About 32 million Americans speak a language other than English at home. In fact, between 1980 and 1990, the number of people who speak lan­guages other than English increased by 38 percent. In 1980, one in nine Americans spoke a lan­guage other than English at home, one in seven do so now. If you meet a man in New Mexico who speaks Spanish as his first language, he could be a recent immigrant, having arrived in the U. S. only a few years ago, or his grandpar­ents could have arrived in the United States a hundred years ago. It could also be that his ancestors had been living in the area years before the thirteen British colonies were established on the East Coast. A so-called foreign accent does not necessarily mean that an individual is (or even was) a foreigner.

At best, we can say that an American is someone who meets the legal requirements of citizenship and who considers himself or herself to be an American. And, any person born on American soil automatically has the right to American citizenship. Significantly, when looking at what it means to be an American, whether legally or emotionally, the older categories used to define nationality often taken for granted in other so countries - race, religion, language, parents' ancestry - have become relatively unimportant in America.

There are some theories of American nations in literature: Melting pot, cultural pluralism, Anglo-conformity, multiculturalism.

The concept of multiculturalism was preceded by the concept of cultural pluralism which was first developed in the 1910s and 1920s, and became widely popular during the 1940s. The concept of cultural pluralism first emerged in the 1910s and 1920s among intellectual circles out of the debates in the United States over how to approach issues of immigration and national identity. Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture. During and immediately after the First World War, the concept of the melting pot was equated by nativists with complete cultural assimilation towards an Anglo-American norm ("Anglo-conformity") on the part of immigrants, and immigrants who opposed such assimilation were accused of disloyalty to the United States. The newly popularized concept of the melting pot was frequently equated with "Americanization", meaning cultural assimilation, by many "old stock" Americans.

Multiculturalism is the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e. g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities or nations. Multiculturalists note that assimilation, in practice, has often been forced, and has caused immigrants to have severed ties with family abroad/

Assimilationists tend to believe that their nation has reached its present state of development because it has been able to forge one national identity. They argue that separating citizens by ethnicity or race and providing immigrant groups "special privileges" can harm the very groups they are intended to help. Assimilationists suggest that if a society makes a full effort to incorporate immigrants into the mainstream, immigrants will then naturally work to reciprocate the gesture and adopt new customs. Through this process, it is argued, national unity is retained.

There also exists a view that attempts to reconcile some of the differences between multiculturalists and assimilationists. Proponents of this view propose that immigrants need not completely abandon their culture and traditions in order to reach the goal that the melting pot theory seeks. This reasoning relies on the assumption that immigrants can be persuaded to ultimately consider themselves a citizen of their new nation first and of their nation of birth second. In this way, they may still retain and practice all of their cultural traditions but "when push comes to shove" they will put their host nation's interests first. If this can be accomplished, immigrants will then avoid hindering the progress, unity and growth that assimilationsts argue are the positive results of the melting pot theory—while simultaneously appeasing some of the multiculturalists.
This compromise view also supports a strong stance on immigration and a primary language in school with the option to study foreign languages. (A consensus on affirmative action does not currently exist.) Proponents of this compromise claim that the difference with this view and that of the assimilationists is that while their view of the melting pot essentially strips immigrants of their culture, the compromise allows immigrants to continue practicing and propagating their cultures from generation to generation and yet sustain and instill a love for their host country first and above all. Whether this kind of delicate balance between host and native countries among immigrants can be achieved remains to be seen [Encyclopedia]

Cultural pluralismCultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture....

Works Cited

1.  Encyclopedia on www. /topics/Melting_pot

2.  Fiedler E., Jansen R., Norman M. America in close-up. – Risch. – 2008

3.  Moak, David and Oakland, John. American Civilization. An Introduction. – 2009

4.  Stevenson, Douglas K. American life & Institutions. – 1998

5.  Takaki, Ronald. A different mirror. A history of multicultural America. – 2008