America prides itself on being a country that is primarily composed of immigrants.

The United States is one of those countries with a long history of assimilation of

individuals belonging to various parts of the globe. The culture of the United States is

thus a mix of the cultures of different other nations. The successful consolidation and

assimilation of immigrants, as well as their offsprings, plays a huge role in the economic

vitality and the ever-changing culture of the Americans.

Americans have since the beginning provided various opportunities to immigrants

to become a part of U.S. society. Many immigrants have turned into Americans by

accepting American citizenship and identity, bringing technological innovation, and

enriching all the aspects of the nation like education, art, and music. At present, 13.1%

of the population of America is composed of 41 million immigrants. However, the

subject of whether the immigrants are successfully integrated into society remains an

important question.

The U.S. witnessed significant waves of immigration from the early 19th century.

They can be classified into colonial-era immigration, immigration during the mid 19th

century, and immigration between 1880 and 1920. Immigration in America can be

traced back to the 1500s when Spanish and French started to develop their settlements

in the area that will become the U.S. In 1607, the English established their first

settlement in Jamestown in Virginia. After that, in 1620, a group of people called

Pilgrims came and settled in Massachusetts, where they also developed a colony. They

were followed by Puritans, who founded the Massachusetts Bay colony. Many

immigrants came to America for better economic opportunities.

 America also became a home to a group of people who came here without their

will. They were the African people who were enslaved from West Africa. By 1790, there

were 700,000 Africans who had come to America as slaves. Another period of

immigration occurred during the mid 19th century from the period between 1815-1865.

In this wave, people from northern and western European regions like Ireland came to

America. They settled on the East Coast. During the same century, the U.S. also

witnessed the arrival of approximately 5 million German immigrants. They wanted to

come to Midwest to purchase farms. By the 1850s, a huge number of Asian immigrants

came into the United States. The Chinese had come in the hope of finding gold during

the California Gold Rush. Such a great increase in the number of immigrants led to the

development of anti-immigration sentiments among native American citizens. The new

immigrants were seen as being unwanted and stealing jobs from Americans.

One of the first laws that were aimed at limiting immigration was the Chinese

Exclusion Act of 1882. It prohibited Chinese laborers from coming to the U.S. Between

1880-1920, when America witnessed enormous industrialization and urbanization, over

20 million immigrants entered the U.S. They came from eastern, central, and southern

Europe. In 1907, immigration reached its climax when 1.3 million people entered the

U.S. In 1917, Congress enacted legislation in which the immigrants who were more

than 16 years of age had to qualify for a literacy test. In the 1920s, literacy quotas were

put up. The Immigration Act of 1924 developed a quota system that denied entry to 2

percent of the original amount of people of every nationality in America.

After WW II, immigration dipped, and Congress, after the war, passed legislation

that allowed refugees from Europe and Russia to arrive in the U.S. In 1965, the
Immigration and Nationality Act was passed, which abandoned the previous quota

system and led to a shift in immigration.