Immigration Summary
There have been four great waves of immigration in American history. The first wave came in the colonial period, peaking in the years just preceding the American Revolution. The greatest single source of newcomers to the New World in this first phase was not any European country at all but rather Africa, as the slave trade far outpaced European settlement. European settlers in the colonies that later became the United States included many nationalities—English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, French—but the English predominated, with English immigrants and their descendents comprising 60% of America's white population by the time the first Census was taken in 1790.
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The second wave came in the middle decades of the 19th century. Most immigrants during the second wave continued to derive from Northwestern Europe, although now large numbers of Irish Catholics began to arrive for the first time, amidst great controversy. The California Gold Rush that began in 1849 brought migrants from around the world, including the first substantial Chinese population in the U.S.
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The third wave came in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth, when millions of so-called "New Immigrants" came to the United States from homes in Southern and Eastern Europe. This influx, mostly comprised of Catholics and Jews, generated a massive nativist backlash, which eventually led to strict limitations on immigration in the 1920s.
The fourth wave began in 1965, when new legislation lifted many of the restrictions imposed in the 1920s, and continues today. Today's immigration is dominated, for the first time since the colonial period, by non-Europeans, with a large majority of immigrants from Latin America or Asia.
The fourth wave began in 1965, when new legislation lifted many of the restrictions imposed in the 1920s, and continues today. Today's immigration is dominated, for the first time since the colonial period, by non-Europeans, with a large majority of immigrants from Latin America or Asia.