European Americans: From Immigrants to Ethnics

Ethnicity has exercised a persistent and pervasive influence upon American history. Americans have traditionally defined themselves and others as members of ethnocultural groups. On the basis of their origins, national, racial, religious and regional, they have shared with "their own kind" a sense of a common heritage and collective destiny. Ethnic cultures have sustained patterns of values, attitudes, and behaviors which have dif? ferentiated various segments of the population. The resulting ethnic plur? alism has profoundly affected all aspects of American life. Religion, poli? tics, social mobility, even the conduct of foreign affairs, have reflected this extraordinary diversity of ethnic identities. A series of migrations, internal as well as external, brought together peoples of various cultural, linguistic, racial and religious backgrounds. The peopling of this continent by transoceanic migration has gone on for over four hundred years. The original inhabitants, the true native Ameri? cans, were gradually displaced and dispossessed by successive waves of immigrants. They came from all over the world, Africans by the millions, brought to this land in chains, Asiatics by the hundreds of thousands, and others from countries to the north and south and from the islands of the Caribbean. But the vast majority came from Europe. In the greatest popu? lation movement in human history, some thirtyfive million Europeans immigrated to the United States in the century after 1830. This fact deter? mined the basic character of American society; it was to be predominantly Caucasian, Christian and Western. The study of immigration history involves not only the processes of physical migration, but the long-range consequences of this mingling of peoples as well. Despite its importance, the European immigration has been relatively neglected by American historians until recent decades. The reason appears to have been the general acceptance of an assimilationist ideology by scholars and laymen alike. The "Melting Pot," it was as? sumed, would transform the foreigners into indistinguishable Americans in a generation or two at most. Bemused by the alleged uniqueness of the American character and institutions, historians turned to environmental explanations. The frontier, material abundance, or mobility, rather than Old World influences, determined the values and behavior of the Amer-