The Demography of Immigration to the United States

Abstract

The United States is the only major world power today that owes its existence primarily to the phenomenon of immigration. That this country is a nation of immigrants is a well-known commonplace. What is not so obvious is that the character of immigration, since colonial days, has been a dynamic process, ethnically and demographically. The purpose of this exposition is twofold: to describe the demographic pattern of immigration and its qualitative and quantitative effects upon the national population, and to examine the reasons for the developments in the migration flow. The volume and the composition of immigration depend upon changes occurring in the United States as well as in the sources of immigration. Perhaps the principal influence on the immigration stream was the successive passage of restrictive legislation in the United States between 1882 and 1924. The effects of this legislation have continued down to the present. Demographic and political developments in the traditional sources of immigration, particularly in Europe over the last half-century, have also shaped the character of the migration flow to this country.