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United States Immigration Act of 1790 |
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Immigration Act of 1790
Ellis Island
" Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-post to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door ! " - From "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus
Stills from the Thomas A. Edison, Inc. film: Emigrants Landing at Ellis Island, 1903; Courtesy the Library of Congress
The immigrant in the United States is a story as old as the country itself, woven into the very mythic fabric of how this nation has defined itself since the landing of the first pilgrims. In recent years, millions of legal and illegal immigrants have arrived in the United States, representing the largest, most diverse influx in history. Ethnic minorities now make up one-fourth of the U.S. population, and by the year 2010, it will rise to one-third. During the colonial era most migrants came from northern European countries. Their numbers declined with the onset of the Revolutionary War during the 1770s, but immigration picked up strongly again during the 1840s and 1850s. New arrivals came from several European countries during this period, but most came from Ireland and Germany, where devastating crop failures forced many residents to leave their homelands. Many settled in New York City, where the population increased from 200,000 residents in 1830 to 515,000 in 1850. By 1860, New York was home to over one million residents. More than half of the city's population at that time were immigrants and their American-born children.
After the Civil War, America's growing industrial economy required the addition of many more workers, and this need was filled once again by immigrants arriving from Europe. Approximately 25 million arrived between 1866 and 1915. While earlier immigrants had come mainly from northern European countries such as England, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, by the 1880s most new immigrants were arriving from southern and eastern European countries such as Italy, Poland and Russia. Like their Irish predecessors, most of these new arrivals were poor and uneducated. Many were peasants from rural regions who were being pushed out by Europe's industrial revolution.
With the U.S. entry into World War I in 1919, immigration declined dramatically, and remained low through the Depression era of the 1930s and the World War II years of the early 1940s. The number of new arrivals began to increase again during the late 1940s, and has risen steadily since that time.
Today's immigrants arrive from all parts of the world. The current phase of immigration history began in 1965, when strict quotas based on nationality were eliminated. In 1978, the United States government set a single annual world quota of 290,000, and this ceiling was raised again in 1990 to 700,000. During the 1990s, immigrants have arrived at a pace that at times has exceeded one million new arrivals per year, and have settled in all parts of the country. How do Americans feel about the rising tide of immigration? America's historic ambivalence about immigration continues. "Immigrant bashing" was a feature of the 1996 presidential campaigns and that same year, Congress enacted the Immigration and Welfare Reform Act which stripped many immigrants of the government protections and benefits enjoyed by citizens. It was called the most devastating setback to immigrants rights in this country in decades.
Now, only four years later, immigrants have become a cherished voting block in this year's presidential election, wooed by Republicans and Democrats alike. And the AFL-CIO reversed its longstanding opposition to the granting of amnesty to an estimated six million undocumented workers in the U.S. History has shown though, that should the booming economy - which immigrants are helping fuel - turn downward, feelings of amity towards immigrants will go with it: The INS has already increased border security and enforcement to an all-time high to stop what CBS News breathlessly reported as the "illegal invasion that's taken on the tactics and size of an advancing army.
America's ambivalence is tied in part, perhaps, to the perception that there is no longer a "typical immigrant" in America. Where once most immigrants were white Europeans coming in search of the American Dream and American citizenship, today's influx represents a diversity of culture, races and reasons for coming unheard of even a generation ago. Many of today's immigrants no longer just come to America, they come and go back home, sometimes treating America as kind of way station on their way to more prosperous careers in their own country; or as a temporary haven from political upheaval; or, increasingly as a secondary residence in an emerging global culture made possible by modern communication and travel. In the 1950s, almost 80% of immigrants in the US applied for citizenship. Today, only one third of the 26 million foreign-born residents do so. And many more immigrants today seemed determined to retain a connection to their cultural heritage.
Introduction From the very beginning, America has been a land of immigrants. They have come for many reasons: religious freedom, educational opportunities, better jobs and working conditions, to earn money to send to their homeland, freedom of speech, to escape wars and famine and some have been forced to migrate to America. Immigration has made and continues to make America what it is today.
Immigration Timeline
1492 Christopher Columbus encounters North America, while looking for a water passage from Europe to the Far East. He discovers Cuba and claims the island for Spain.
1534 Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, continues looking for a passage to the Far East and finds the St. Lawrence River. France claims that portion of North America.
1541 Spanish interest in the New World is seen by Hernando de Soto's founding of Florida and Francisco Coronado's founding of what is now Kansas.
1587 The English attempt to build a colony in the New World at Roanoke Island.
1607 Settlers from England, led by Captain John Smith, start the most successful American colony so far in Jamestown, Virginia.
1614 Dutch fur traders build a trading post in Albany, New York.
1619 In Jamestown, the House of Burgesses is established and passes local area laws. Women are now in the American Colonies. The first African Americans arrive in the American colonies as indentured servants.
1620 Captain Miles Standish and his settlers in Massachusetts write the Mayflower Compact. The colony of Plymouth is established.
1635 The founding of the thirteen colonies continues, by Swedish, English, and Quakers. This includes Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina and Georgia.
1754 The Albany Plan, an effort by Benjamin Franklin to unite the colonies, is rejected.
1754 The French and Indian War starts in the Ohio Valley. Britain fights both the French and the Indians for control of this region.
1763 The Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War. Britain gains control of North America east of the Mississippi River, including Canada and Florida. With the French and Spanish now removed from their frontiers and the Indians deprived of foreign support in their resistance to British expansion, the inhabitants of the colonies feel less dependent on Britain.
1770 Spanish begin to establish missions throughout California.
1773 Boston Tea Party marks first open opposition to Britain.
1776 Declaration of Independence is adopted by Congress.
1789 George Washington is chosen to be President of the United States.
1790 The Naturalization Act of 1790 first establishes process for becoming a
naturalized United States citizen.
1800 Native American Indians losing land at a rapid rate due to westward expansion.
1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition - exploring Northwest United States. They are assisted greatly by Native American Sacagawea. Sacagawea was a member of the Shoshone tribe, one of 50 different tribes encountered on the journey.
1820 The first Chinese immigrants arrive in the United States at what is now San Francisco.
1830 German farmers settle in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri.
1840 Irish immigrants first settle in New York seeking relief from potato famine in Ireland. German immigrants seek safety in America after collapse of revolutionary movement in Germany.
1846 The boundary line of the United States and Mexico is disputed and the United States conquers California, New Mexico and northern Mexico.
1848 Gold Rush of California caused people to migrate west for a better life. Californians use Chinese immigrants as part of the work force
1861 American Civil War begins with Confederates firing on Union Soldiers. Immigration decreases during the American Civil War.
1862 Homestead Act provides free land in the Midwest to settlers. Immigrant farmers from western and northern Europe settle here.
1863 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation frees the slaves.
1864 Immigration is encouraged to fill jobs left vacant from war and to settle unpopulated areas of the country.
1865 Civil War ends. Four million slaves freed.
1868 The first Japanese laborers arrive in Hawaii seeking a new way of life. Most of them work on the sugar plantations while some complete the migration to Southern California.
1875 Scottish immigrant Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.
1880 Anti-Chinese riots in San Francisco lead to treaty barring Chinese unskilled laborers.
1881 The nation begins to grow in population due to the migration of millions of immigrants looking for new places of employment and better living conditions. Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Russian and other Eastern Europeans enter United States. Most of these immigrants move to cities, where they find jobs in factories. Living conditions were very poor.
1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 - "to prohibit the coming of Chinese laborers into the United States" for 10 years. The first major restriction on immigration to the United States.
1885 Statue Of Liberty, a gift from France, erected at Liberty Island.
1892 Immigrants begin entering the United States at Ellis Island.
1901 First significant immigration from India or from the Canadian Province of British Columbia.
1901 Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie sells Carnegie Steel for $450 million and becomes The Richest Man in the World.
1910 Angel Island Immigration Station put into operation near San Francisco- primarily a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act..
1910 English immigrant Charlie Chaplin arrives in America.
1912 At the Olympic Games in Sweden, Native American Jim Thorpe wins Olympic Gold in Track and Field Competition. In 1950 Thorpe was selected by American sports writers and broadcasters as the greatest American athlete and the greatest football player of the first half of the 20th century.
1917 World War I-The conflict in Europe involves many countries. The United States declares war on Germany.
1918 Quota systems are set up that favor the British and Northern European
immigrants.
1924 The Immigration Act of 1924 limits numbers of non-European immigrants.
1940 Chinese Exclusion Act repealed. Limits on Chinese immigration lifted.
1940 German immigrant Albert Einstein, (The Theory Of Relativity) becomes a
US Citizen.
1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, war declared by the United States.
1943 British immigrant Elizabeth Taylor makes her screen debut in Lassie Come
Home.
1948 The Displaced Persons Act - United States accepts more than 395,000
refugees from war torn European nations.
1952 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter Act) under which quotas are placed on immigration. The total quota for Asia is 2,990, compared with 149,667 for Europe and 1,400 for Africa.
1955 Russian immigrant Irving Berlin was presented a Congressionally authorized medal for his many patriotic songs including "God Bless America".
1957 United States accepts qualified Haitian workers due to poverty and
the job market.
1959 Lorraine Hansberry writes A Raisin In The Sun. It becomes the first play by an African American woman to be performed on Broadway.
1960 700,000 Cubans flee communist takeover.
1961 Problems with Cuba , the invasion of Bay of Pigs. Cuban immigrants
allowed into United States.
1963 Medgar Evers is shot in Jackson, Mississippi. He was the secretary for the
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).
1963 Civil rights leader Martin L. King, Jr. makes his "I Have A Dream" speech
in Washington, D.C.
1963 President Kennedy is assassinated.
1965 The Immigration Act of 1965 - The quota system is changed to allow immigration from all countries into America. Ceilings of 120,000 from east and 170,000 from west hemispheres are established. Mexican, Cuban, Filipino, Italian, Taiwanese immigrants enter United States.
1968 Martin L. King is killed in Memphis, Tennessee and Presidential nominee Robert Kennedy is shot and killed in Los Angeles.
1970 About 20,000 to 25,000 Jamaicans a year are now coming to America.
1971 Italian immigrant and Nazareth, Pennsylvania resident Mario Andretti wins his first Formula 1 Race.
1973 German immigrant Henry Kissinger is sworn in as Secretary of State.
1974 Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union while touring with the
Kirov Ballet.
1975 Southeast Asians emigrate from Vietnam. The majority settle in
California.
1975 A world-wide immigration ceiling introduced.
1975 Indo-Chinese refugees seek political asylum.
1979 Wayne Gretzky from Canada plays his first professional season in the National Hockey League where he would hold many records including most points in a career.
1980 The Refugee Act of 1980 - Ten million permanent immigrants are admitted legally to the United States. Illegal immigration adds several million more to the population.
1980 Hakeem Olajuwon immigrates from Nigeria to play basketball for the University of Houston.
1981 Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian immigrant, stars in Conan the Barbarian propelling the action adventure genre to mega-blockbuster status.
1984 The Miami Sound Machine featuring Cuban immigrant Gloria Estefan releases its first English-only album.
1985 Nigerians emigrate to the United States, due to their homeland's economy and
religious riots.
1986 The Immigration Reform and Control Act is passed, granting amnesty to many illegal immigrants. Almost 2.5 million people emigrate from Asia and are granted legal permanent residence.
1990 Immigration Act of 1990 - The number of immigrants allowed into the US per
year is increased to 700,000.
1991 Haitians migrate to the United States. These events lead to a 1993 Supreme Court decision, a 1996 statutory adoption of a new legal standard, and a special 1998 law permitting certain Haitian migrants to apply for permanent residency in the United States.
1992 Ben Nighthorse Campbell is elected to the U.S. Senate. He is the first American Indian to serve in the Senate in more than 60 years.
1996 Welfare Reform Reconciliation Act of 1996 cuts government aid programs and will have a great effect on immigrants across America.
Madeleine Albright, a Czechoslovakian immigrant, named US Secretary Of
State.
1997 Frank McCourt, originally from Ireland, receives the Pulitzer Prize for Angela's Ashes.
2000 Mexican immigrant Carlos Santana wins nine Grammy awards, breaking the record for most won in one year by one artist.
Establishing a Uniform Naturalization Rule
Act of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat 103-104) (Excerpts) That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the Constitution of the United States, which oath or affirmation such court shall administer; and the clerk of such court shall record such application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States. And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States: . . .
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