Ethnic Americans - A History of Immigration (Hardcover, fifth edition)

Since its debut in 1975, "Ethnic Americans" has become a classic study of immigration to America. The authors begin with a brief historical overview of immigration during the colonial and early national eras (1492 to the 1820s), focusing primarily on the arrival of English Protestants, while at the same time stressing the diversity brought by Dutch, French, Spanish, and other small groups, including "free people of color" from the Caribbean. Chapter 2 closely follows the wave of large-scale European immigration from 1830 to the 1880s. For the first time in America, Catholicism became a major force during this period, with immigrants-five million in the 1880s alone-creating a new mosaic in every state of the Union. Germans were the largest group, settling primarily in the Midwest. The section also touches on the arrival, beginning in 1848, of Chinese immigrants and other groups who hoped to find gold and get rich. Subsequent chapters address eastern and southern European immigration from 1890 to 1940; newcomers from the Western Hemisphere and Asia who arrived from 1840 to 1940; immigration restriction from 1875 to World War II; and the postwar rise of Asian, Mexican, Hungarian, and Cuban refugees.

Immigration to America during the past fifteen years has been at its highest levels yet. The fifth edition of this volume takes recent influxes of Asians and Hispanics into account, especially the surge in the Mexican population, and expands its section on nativist sentiment in American politics and thought.