Page Page Malthus Redux: Is Doomsday Upon Us, Again? The New York Times June 15, 2008 Sunday Correction Appended 1 of 1 DOCUMENT The New York Times June 15, 2008 Sunday Correction Appended Late Edition - Final Malthus Redux: Is Doomsday Upon Us, Again? BYLINE: By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. SECTION: Section WK; Column 0; Week in Review Desk; THE WORLD; Pg. 3 LENGTH: 1242 words During the last American food-and-gas-price crisis, in the 1970s, one of my colleagues on the Berkeley student newspaper told me that he and his semi-communal housemates had taken a vote. They'd calculated they could afford meat or coffee. They chose coffee. The decision was slightly less effete than it sounds now -- the Starbucks clone wars were still some years off, so he was talking about choosing Yuban over ground chuck. But it nonetheless said something about us as spoiled Americans. Riots were relatively common in Berkeley in those days. But they were never about food. (That particular revolution was starting without us on Shattuck Avenue, where Chez Panisse had just opened.) However, elsewhere on the globe, people were on the edge of starvation. Grain prices were soaring, rice stocks plummeting. In Ethiopia and Cambodia, people were well over the edge, and food riots helped lead to the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the victory of the Khmer Rouge. Now it's happening again. While Americans grumble about gasoline prices, food riots have seared Bangladesh, Egypt and African countries. In Haiti, they cost the prime minister his job. Rice-bowl countries like China, India and Indonesia have restricted exports and rice is shipped under armed guard. And again, Thomas Malthus, a British economist and demographer at the turn of the 19th century, is being recalled to duty. His basic theory was that populations, which grow geometrically, will inevitably outpace food production, which grows arithmetically. Famine would result. The thought has underlain doomsday scenarios both real and imagined, from the Great Irish Famine of 1845 to the Population Bomb of 1968. But over the last 200 years, with the Industrial Revolution, the Transportation Revolution, the Green Revolution and the Biotech Revolution, Malthus has been largely discredited. The wrenching dislocations of the last few months do not change that, most experts say. But they do show the kinds of problems that can emerge. The whole world has never come close to outpacing its ability to produce food. Right now, there is enough grain grown on earth to feed 10 billion vegetarians, said Joel E. Cohen, professor of populations at Rockefeller University and the author of ''How Many People Can the Earth Support?'' But much of it is being fed to cattle, the S.U.V.'s of the protein world, which are in turn guzzled by the world's wealthy. Theoretically, there is enough acreage already planted to keep the planet fed forever, because 10 billion humans is roughly where the United Nations predicts that.

1. Page
Page
Malthus Redux: Is Doomsday Upon Us, Again? The New York
Times June 15, 2008 Sunday Correction Appended
1 of 1 DOCUMENT
The New York Times
June 15, 2008 Sunday
Correction Appended
Late Edition - Final
Malthus Redux: Is Doomsday Upon Us, Again?
BYLINE: By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
SECTION: Section WK; Column 0; Week in Review Desk; THE
WORLD; Pg. 3
LENGTH: 1242 words
During the last American food-and-gas-price crisis, in the
1970s, one of my colleagues on the Berkeley student newspaper
told me that he and his semi-communal housemates had taken a
vote. They'd calculated they could afford meat or coffee. They
chose coffee.
The decision was slightly less effete than it sounds now -- the
Starbucks clone wars were still some years off, so he was
talking about choosing Yuban over ground chuck. But it
nonetheless said something about us as spoiled Americans.
Riots were relatively common in Berkeley in those days. But
they were never about food. (That particular revolution was

2. starting without us on Shattuck Avenue, where Chez Panisse
had just opened.)
However, elsewhere on the globe, people were on the edge of
starvation. Grain prices were soaring, rice stocks plummeting.
In Ethiopia and Cambodia, people were well over the edge, and
food riots helped lead to the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie
and the victory of the Khmer Rouge.
Now it's happening again. While Americans grumble about
gasoline prices, food riots have seared Bangladesh, Egypt and
African countries. In Haiti, they cost the prime minister his job.
Rice-bowl countries like China, India and Indonesia have
restricted exports and rice is shipped under armed guard.
And again, Thomas Malthus, a British economist and
demographer at the turn of the 19th century, is being recalled to
duty. His basic theory was that populations, which grow
geometrically, will inevitably outpace food production, which
grows arithmetically. Famine would result. The thought has
underlain doomsday scenarios both real and imagined, from the
Great Irish Famine of 1845 to the Population Bomb of 1968.
But over the last 200 years, with the Industrial Revolution, the
Transportation Revolution, the Green Revolution and the
Biotech Revolution, Malthus has been largely discredited. The
wrenching dislocations of the last few months do not change
that, most experts say. But they do show the kinds of problems
that can emerge.
The whole world has never come close to outpacing its ability
to produce food. Right now, there is enough grain grown on
earth to feed 10 billion vegetarians, said Joel E. Cohen,
professor of populations at Rockefeller University and the
author of ''How Many People Can the Earth Support?'' But much
of it is being fed to cattle, the S.U.V.'s of the protein world,
which are in turn guzzled by the world's wealthy.
Theoretically, there is enough acreage already planted to keep
the planet fed forever, because 10 billion humans is roughly
where the United Nations predicts that the world population will
plateau in 2060. But success depends on portion control; in the

3. late 1980s, Brown University's World Hunger Program
calculated that the world then could sustain 5.5 billion
vegetarians, 3.7 billion South Americans or 2.8 billion North
Americans, who ate more animal protein than South Americans.
Even if fertility rates rose again, many agronomists think the
world could easily support 20 billion to 30 billion people.
Anyone who has ever flown across the United States can see
how that's possible: there's a lot of empty land down there. The
world's entire population, with 1,000 square feet of living space
each, could fit into Texas. Pile people atop each other like
Manhattanites, and they get even more elbow room.
Water? When it hits $150 a barrel, it will be worth building
pipes from the melting polar icecaps, or desalinating the sea as
the Saudis do.
The same potential is even more obvious flying around the
globe. The slums of Mumbai are vast; but so are the empty
arable spaces of Rajasthan. Africa, a huge continent with a mere
770 million people on it, looks practically empty from above.
South of the Sahara, the land is rich; south of the Zambezi, the
climate is temperate. But it is farmed mostly by people using
hoes.
As Harriet Friedmann, an expert on food systems at the
University of Toronto, pointed out, Malthus was writing in a
Britain that echoed the dichotomy between today's rich
countries and the third world: an elite of huge landowners
practicing ''scientific farming'' of wool and wheat who made fat
profits; many subsistence farmers barely scratching out livings;
migration by those farmers to London slums, followed by
emigration. The main difference is that emigration then was to
colonies where farmland was waiting, while now it is to richer
countries where jobs are.
Malthus's world filled up, and its farmers, defying his
predictions, became infinitely more productive. Admittedly,
emptying acreage so it can be planted with genetically modified
winter wheat and harvested by John Deere combines can be a
brutal process, but it is solidly within the Western canon. My

4. Scottish ancestors, for example, became urbanites thanks to the
desire of English scientific farmers (for which read ''landlords
and bribers of clan chiefs'') to graze more sheep in the
highlands. Four generations later, I got to mull the coffee-meat
dilemma while actually living on newsroom pizza.
So it ultimately worked out for one spoiled Scottish-American.
But what about the 800 million people who are chronically
hungry, even in riot-free years?
Dr. Friedmann argues that there is a Malthusian
unsustainability to the way big agriculture is practiced, that it
degrades genetic diversity and the environment so much that it
will eventually reach a tipping point and hunger will spread.
Others vigorously disagree. In their view, the world is almost
endlessly bountiful. If food became as pricey as oil, we would
plow Africa, fish-farm the oceans and build hydroponic
skyscraper vegetable gardens. But they see the underlying
problem in terms more Marxian than Malthusian: the rich grab
too much of everything, including biomass.
For the moment, simply ending subsidies to American and
European farmers would let poor farmers compete, which
besides feeding their families would push down American food
prices and American taxes.
Tyler Cowen, a George Mason University economist, notes
that global agriculture markets are notoriously unfree and
foolishly managed. Rich countries subsidize farmers, but poor
governments fix local grain prices or ban exports just when
world prices rise -- for example, less than 7 percent of the
world's rice crosses borders. That discourages the millions of
third world farmers who grow enough for themselves and a bit
extra for sale from planting that bit extra.
Americans are attracted to Malthusian doom-saying, Dr.
Cowen argues, ''because it's a pre-emptive way to hedge your
fear. Prepare yourself for the worst, and you feel safer than
when you're optimistic.''
Dr. Cohen, of Rockefeller University, sees it in more sinister
terms: Americans like Malthus because he takes the blame off

5. us. Malthus says the problem is too many poor people.
Or, to put it in the terms in which the current crisis is usually
explained: too many hard-working Chinese and Indians who
think they should be able to eat pizza, meat and coffee and
aspire to a reservation at Chez Panisse. They get blamed for
raising global prices so much that poor Africans and Asians
can't afford porridge and rice. The truth is, the upward pressure
was there before they added to it.
America has always been charitable, so the answer has never
been, ''Let them eat bean sprouts.'' But it has been, ''Let them
eat subsidized American corn shipped over in American ships.''
That may need to change.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
LOAD-DATE: June 15, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
CORRECTION-DATE: June 22, 2008
CORRECTION: An article last Sunday about the population
theory of Thomas Malthus, a British economist and
demographer at the turn of the 19th century, misstated the
population of Africa. The estimated population last year was
about 944 million people, not 770 million.
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Thomas Malthus
LAST RESORT Haitians searching for food or anything else at
a dump. Rising food prices led to riots in April. Most Haitians
earn less than $2 a day. (PHOTOGRAPH BY TYLER
HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

6. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Sarah-Jane (Saje) Mathieu|
The African American
Great Migration Reconsidered
M ovement has always charac-terized the African Ameri-can
experience. Whether
forcibly removed from Africa during
the slave trade or sold across planta-
tions in the American South and Ga-
ribbean, people of African descent in
the Americas remained acutely aware
of how movement—open or clandes-
tine—set the terms of their existence.
As historian Steven Hahn so astutely
reminds us, even before the Givil War,
African Americans voted with their
feet, utilizing mass migration as a
powerful indictment of slavery and
white supremacy's dehumanizing
effects (!}. Therefore, when slavery
ended in 1865, African Americans did
what most had never done: they cast
down their pickets and hoes and be-
gan walking off the plantations many
had occupied their whole lives. In his
acclaimed autobiography Up From
Slavery, Booker T. Washington, whose

7. family members essentially walked the
five hundred miles to their new home
in a West Virginia salt mining town,
recalled that "[a]fter the coming of free-
dom ... most of the coloured people left
the old plantation for a short while at
least, so as to be sure, it seemed, that
they could leave and try their freedom
on to see how it felf (2).
African Americans turned to migration as one of the earliest and
most compelling exercises of their new autonomy and saw mass
move-
ment as a politicized response to their region's social,
economic, and
political climate. Simultaneously domestic and international
migrants,
African Americans used relocation as a measure of their
freedom, as
an exercise of their civil rights, and as a safeguard against
mounting ra-
cialized violence during the Jim Crow era (1877-1954), When it
seemed
that meaningful citizenship remained out of reach, even after
migra-
tion. African Americans moved once again, this time heading
abroad.
Consequently, African Americans lived out migration as a
repeated
pattern, whereby they followed the work, their families, their
dreams,
and the promise of safer havens wherever they became
available. As
with other migrant groups, African Americans did not so much
move
from township to city, but rather from small city, to slightly

8. bigger
city, then from metropolis to metropolis or region to region
until they
found conditions conducive to their success. Likewise, it is
imperative
Booker T. Washington, here photographed ¡n his late aos, joined
fam-
ily members, as a boy, on a 500-mile trek, mostly on foot, to a
West
Virginia salt mining town. Such migration was an eariy
expression of
freedpeople's autonomy and determination to better their lives.
Later,
Washington became a vocal opponent of African American
migration
out of the )im Crow south. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)
to highlight that blacks also came to
the United States after Reconstruc-
tion, namely from the Garibbean,
Ganada, Africa, and even Europe,
They came as soldiers, artists, stu-
dents, workers, and athletes, drawn
by the same possibilities enticing
scores of Europeans, Asians, and
Latin Americans crossing into the
United States.
Whatever their ultimate motiva-
tions, it is important to remember
that the Great Migration—nearly
a century-long movement of Afri-
can descended people—was part
of a broader international pattern
of population relocation. Especially

9. since the Industrial Revolution,
migration was spurred on by labor
needs, food crisis, political persecu-
tion, urbanization, natural disaster,
and of course free choice. To be
sure, African American migration
since Reconstruction was a distinct-
ly American experience, with im-
portant social, political, economic.
and demographic ramifications for
the nation's history. For one thing,
racialized violence served as an
unyielding push factor for African
American migration. By the same
measure, it is useful for students to
contemplate that same black migration alongside other
migrants—
Asians, Latin Americans, Southern and Eastern Europeans—also
on
the move as of the mid-nineteenth century.
Motivations to Migrate
African Americans migrated for a host of reasons. Many took
the
roads to see for themselves the country that they had inherited,
feed-
ing in the process a wanderlust strictly forbidden during
slavery. Many
more African Americans spent months and sometimes even
years
searching for family members torn apart by slave trade or war,
often
chasing rumors of their whereabouts as far as Ganada and the
Garib-

10. bean. Others migrated first across the South, then throughout
North
America, with the singular goal of controlling the nature and
value
of their wages. As newly waged workers, African Americans
hoped
that their agrarian know-how could either ensure their own
success
as landowning farmers or at the very least set the terms for their
labor
as sharecroppers. Alternatively, jobs north of the Mason-Dixon
line
OAH Magazine af History • October 2009 19
attracted thousands of southern black migrant workers eager for
relief
from debt peonage, a thinly veiled form of re-enslavement.
Most problematically, throughout the Jim Crow era, scores of
African Americans urgently escaped the South due to rising
racial
terrorism. The escalation of white supremacist violence by the
1890s
presented a crisis for African Americans, who raced out of the
region
with increasing vigor. The particular nature ofthat mass
migration
calls into question America's under-examined political tradition
of
ethnic cleansing through banishment, race rioting, and lynching.
In Pierce City, Missouri (:9Oi), Harrison. Arkansas (1905),
Forsyth
County, Georgia (1912), Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921), and

11. Rosewood, Flori-
da (1923), nearlyall African Americans were run out of town on
rumor
of misconduct across the color line {3}. To be sure, this choice
of lan-
guage is polemical and may generate passionate responses, but
it will
also help students to think about the persecution of African
Ameri-
cans more globally since many other migrant groups in the same
era
were also targeted for removal, tor-
ture, human experimentation, and
outright extermination because of
white supremacist beliefs.
The majority of African Ameri-
cans who migrated during the late
nineteenth century did so to estab-
lish agrarian utopias west of the
Mississippi. In this respect, those
heading into Kansas, as some sixty
thousand did during 1870s Kan-
sas Fever, were fuelled by similar
forces sending white Americans
rushing west since the Homestead
Act of 1862. )ust like Scandina-
vian, German, Amish, and other
European immigrant groups es-
tablishing Utopian colonist com-
munities, African Americans who
chased their fortunes west of the
Mississippi throughout the Cilded
Age were driven by the same hope
for peaceful autonomous lives on
their own terms. In Buxton. Iowa,

12. or Muskogee County, Oklahoma,
African Americans created thriv-
ing black townships (4). Whether black or white, domestic or
foreign-
born, these migrants craved self-rule, with African Americans
citing
full control over local governments, the right to an education,
free
enterprise, and freedom of religion as their chief political
concerns.
Accordingly, for African Americans relocating to southern
Plains
states, migration functioned as a last ditch effort at rescuing
Recon-
struction's promise by living outside of the South's emerging
Jim
Crow system.
For some African Americans, even Kansas could not provide
sufficient safeguard from Jim Crow's touch, with many opting
for
emigration to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe, and
Africa as
safer alternatives to life in the United States. The intensification
of
racial terrorism as of the late nineteenth century forced many
Afri-
can Americans into exile abroad. African Americans, who sang
the
praises of Canada as a promised land, braved rough terrain,
danger-
ous passage, and even death to reach that "land of Canaan."
They
did so cognizant of the fact that their emigration served as a
politi-
cal indictment of white supremacy and the exercise of an

13. American
democratic ideal. Haiti and Cuba also held an exalted place for
African
Second Baptist Church of Bismarck, North Dakota, c. 1920.
Fleeing the racist
brutality of the |im Crow south, African American migrants
spread out across
the American west, and here formed part of a racially integrated
congrega-
tion. (Courtesy of State Historical Society of North Dakota,
O739-Vi-pi4b)
Americans, who continually migrated there, namely from
Louisiana.
Similarly, many African Americans looked to Africa for
political asy-
lum, with prominent black clergymen championing Back-to-
Africa
movements as early as the 1870s. Reverend Henry McNeal
Turner
bluntly made the case for emigration, telling readers of his
Voice of
Missions. "[e]very man that has the sense of an animal must see
that
there is no future in this country for the Negro. We are taken
out and
burned, shot, hanged, unjointed and murdered in every way. Our
civil
rights are taken from us by force, our political rights are a
farce"(5).
Taking up the black clergy's call, a modest yet steady flow of
African
Americans set off for Liberia and Sierra Leone from the 1830s
to the
1920s (6). Thus, migration overseas, a small yet consistently

14. seductive
movement, was held up not only as a viable migration option
but also
as a check and balance against worsening domestic conditions.
In this
respect then. African Americans demonstrated another classic
migra-
tory reflex, making them very much like other European
migrants
escaping racial, religious, and po-
litical persecution by taking to the
roads and seas during the Age of
Empire {1875-1914).
Great Migration
African American migration
turned from trickle to flood dur-
ing the twentieth century. Be-
tween 1910 and 1940, the United
States witnessed the largest and
most dramatic mass movement
of African descended people, as
nearly two million African Amer-
icans abandoned hope for a better
life in the south and headed for
points north, west, and overseas.
To their numbers were added
more than one hundred thou-
sand Caribbean migrants dur-
ing the first two decades of the
twentieth century alone. In what
historians increasingly under-
stand as a three-pronged Greal
Migration that spanned nearly a

15. century—1865-1896; 1910-1940:
and 1940-1970—more than six million blacks shifted the weight
ol
their numbers, culture, and politics from the ostensibly rural
south
to various urban northern and western regions. The full social,
cul-
tural, political, and economic impact of this domestic racialized
demo-
graphic reallocation cannot be overstated. During the 1920s,
outward
migration from Alabama alone topped 81,000. Whereas
Cleveland's
black population hovered around 1.5 percent of the city's total
in 1910.
a decade later it increased more than 300 percent—from 8,448
to
34,451—presenting a new set of difficulties for municipal
managers
(7)-
Black migrants overwhelmingly headed to cities where an
insatia-
ble demand for labor in sectors like coal, steel, meatpacking,
railroad-
ing, and war industries paid handsomely compared to
sharecropping.
These black migrants often sojourned in smaller southern cities
be-
fore moving onto other ones north and west of the Mason-Dixon
line,
a pattern frequently seen with other migrant groups also
charting a
course across the United States at this time. Students must
consider

16. the urban impact of so great and so quick—if also at times
tempo-
rary—a population shift. For example, within a decade, the
black pop-
20 OAH Magazine of History • October 2009
ulations in Chicago, Toledo, and Detroit ballooned by 148
percent,
200 percent, and 611 percent respectively. Of course. African
Ameri-
cans headed west as well, with the Pacific coast's black
population in-
creasing nearly sixfold from 1950 to 1950 (8). Yet the cities
receiving
these new migrants faced a host of challenges, including
hurriedly
accommodating newcomers' varied needs while also upholding
Jim
Crow conventions. Housing, transportation infrastructures, and
em-
ployment quickly experienced the greatest pressure, especially
be-
cause of red lining and other measures designed to lock black
people
into small residential pockets.
Migrants and the Black Press
The black press brought these urban African American immi-
grant communities to life within its pages. Black migrants, who
may
not yet have had a voice in local governments, found it in the
nascent

17. black press, that during the interwar years effectively
functioned as
a defacto immigrant press. In fact
by the 1920s, most African Ameri-
can newspapers dedicated several
pages to events from across the
country and from abroad, vî ith The
Messengerand the Chicago Defender
most committed to fostering con-
nections between black migrant
communities. Historians initially
believed that reports on weddings,
concerts, and lectures were filler or
insignificant society page gossip,
but in truth these pages are actu-
ally a rich source for examination.
Students marvel at the range of lei-
sure activities adopted by African
Americans, but also at the extent to
which events like piano recitals or
poetry readings were the stuff of ev-
eryday life, at least for the aspiring
urban black middle class. Teachers
should unpack these pages to see
what more they reveal about black
urban immigrant life.
Likewise, this affords a won-
derful opportunity for a gendered
analysis of black migrants' experi-
ences. For example, the abundant advertisements for beauty
prod-
ucts do more than push whitening creams. Instead, they often
point
to the most lucrative business opportunities afforded to blacks,
but

18. especially women. In other words. Bee's House of Beauty was a
woman-owned business—and hkely an immigrant woman at t h
a t -
providing employment autonomy and shielding the owner from
the
types of exploitation common in industries that typically
employed
women. That black immigrant women raised venture capital and
en-
joyed success, most notably millionaire Madame C. J. Walker,
is truly
noteworthy for an era when few women—white or black—
headed
their own businesses (9). Most pertinently, these black
entrepreneur-
ial women's experiences also emulated classic immigrant
patterns of
profiting from tending to their own communities' needs.
Cultural Diversity
Urban black neighborhoods were richly diverse spaces thanks
to migration. On the streets of Chicago's South Side,
Louisianan,
Kansan, and Tennessean accents, foods, and musical tastes
melded
Daughterof former slaves, born into freedom in Louisiana in
1867, Mad-
am C. J. Walker (behind wheel, c. 1912) migrated to St. Louis
and then
to Indianapolis, where she developed a flourishing hair care
products
and cosmetics empire, joining her in Indianapolis are, to her
right, niece
Anjetta Breedlove, behind Walker, Alice Kelly, her factory

19. "forelady." and
back right, Lucy Flint, her bookkeeper. (Courtesy of A'Lelia
Bundles.
Walker Family Collection, <http://www,madamcjwalker.com>)
together, producing a culture distinct from Philadelphia's, where
Ja-
maican, Georgian, and North Carolinian migrants might wed
their pal-
ettes. It is important to remember that foreign-born black
immigrants
continually making their way to major American cities
introduced a
new cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity that redefined
the
American black experience in the process. In pre-World War I
Phila-
delphia, for instance, Jamaican longshoremen, who first learned
their
trade in Trinidad and Jamaica, worked on the docks and made a
name
for themselves in Local 8 of the radical Industrial Workers of
the World
lahor union. Well into the 1920s, people of African descent
made up
50 percent of the local's members {10}. To be sure, the black
migrant
experience could be both embracing and alienating. For
example, some
Spanish, French, and Dutch-speaking black migrants remained
large-
ly linguistically marginalized, where African Canadians could
move
seamlessly through American society. A Trinidadian accent
singled
one out with the bosses, just as an Alabaman accent would, but

20. with
different obstacles to each workers'
advancement.
To date, much of the Creat Migra-
tion narrative has unfortunately over-
looked how the south's deeply region-
alized social and political cultures
underwent an amalgamation by way
of migration to the north and west
and gave birth to pan-southern cul-
tures in the regions receiving these
migrants. Moreover, homogenizing
the social and pohtical contributions
of foreign-born black migrants, such
as Claude McKay (|amaicanj or Stoke-
ly Carmichaei (Trinidadian). who are
so often writ as Americans, waters
down the lived diversity of the urban
black experience in America. It miss-
es the extent to which the lives and
experiences of blacks in the United
States have been far more culturally
and politically diverse than otherwise
discussed in the literature.
Whatever their place of birth,
black migrants ultimately faced pre-
dictable, or at the least common.
challenges presented by migration,
making them once again more like than unlike the millions of
other
immigrants pouring into Philadelphia. New York, Chicago, and
Los

21. Angeles prior to World War II. The Chinese migrant from
Guangzhou,
the Mexican from Oaxaca, or the Pole from Wielkopolska, all
rural re-
gions, had no greater handle on city life than the Mississippi
sharecrop-
per turned Pittsburgh Hill Sider; at least the latter spoke
English. In all
cases, new migrants had to learn how to navigate the city, its
sundry
bureaucracies, and its noisy new technologies—streetcars,
elevators,
subways, and of course cars. Students should consider African
Ameri-
cans alongside other migrants also trying to make sense of their
new
urban lives.
A New Historical Vision
For too long, historians of immigration and of African American
life have worked in isolation. When their tales intersect, it is
often at
the site of conflict: Pennsylvania Poles beating back black
scabs; Irish
hoodlums chasing down black South Siders in 1919; Brooklyn
Italians
reinforcing their whiteness by blockading blacks out of their
neighbor-
OAH Magazine of History • October 2009 21
hoods. This story of conflict and contrast, while in many
instances

22. true, obfuscates the many similarities in domestic and foreign-
born
migrants' lives. That so many European. Asian, and Latin
American
migrants still lived in ethnically divided neighborhoods during
the
twentieth century undermines the myth that the path to the
Ameri-
can dream was smooth for all. or at least for those more white
than
others (ii). Put differently, assumptions about the fitness of
southern
and eastern Europeans also segregated them in ways that
students
should explore. Positioning the mass movement of African
descended
people alongside other global migratory trends during the
twentieth
century prompts students to think more broadly about Great
Migra-
tion patterns as a confluence of both domestic and international
push
and pull factors. This uniquely black domestic migratory
movement
forced real dramatic change in American society, including
producing
new levels of racialized violence in the areas that received these
osten-
sibly southern African American migrants. At the same time,
blacks
who headed to American cities ran headlong into European.
Latin
American, and Asian migrants also trying to outpace famine,
crop
failures, poverty, malady, and totalitarian regimes. New York,
Chica-

23. go, and Los Angeles offer wonderful examples of cultural
mélange,
particularly after World War II (12). African American and
foreign-
born migrants pouring into early twentieth century cities did so
with
the same thirst for freedom, entrepreneurial spirit, and the
desire to
chisel out their own version of the American dream.
Established migrant communities, black or foreign-born, taught
newcomers how to navigate the workplace, the neighborhood,
and the
area's leisure options, with the apparent tradeoff that new
migrants
would not upset the fragile balance created between
migrant/ethnic
communities and their host neighbors. For example, Italian
migrants
avoided flaring up tensions with their Anglo-American
neighbors and
likewise, African Americans who escaped white supremacist
tyranny
in the south would not want to relive it in Pittsburgh,
Minneapolis, or
San Francisco. In the end, migrants—whether from Milan,
Memphis,
or Mexico City—each had to learn how to make their way
around their
new host city and the Progressive Era bureaucracy that targeted
all
of them as major scourges on the nation and white women's
morali-
ties. Moreover, the arrival of African Americans. Chinese, and
Poles.
for instance, generated comparable demands for quarantine,

24. control
of sexual behavior, and ever stricter policing of perceived
criminal
acts. In other words, African descended people and foreign-born
im-
migrants were frequently vilified, criminalized, and
pathologized in
very similar ways during the same historical periods, as
evidenced by
eugenicists who trained their nascent "science" on Mexicans,
Asians,
blacks, and "low-grade functioning morons," thinly cloaked
language
reserved for poor whites and eastern European and Irish
migrants.
Fugenicists. doctors, scientists, and public policy makers alike
ques-
tioned v/hether African Americans in Georgia, Mexicans in
Califor-
nia, or poor whites in West Virginia should reap the full
rewards of
citizenship (13). Might we not better understand immigrants'
experi-
ences^and by extension ourselves—by bridging the racialized
gap
between these relocation narratives? Besides, as Lizabeth
Cohen's
Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago. 1919-1939
reminds
us, immigrants wove a complex network of relations that
extended
beyond the workshop floor.
Whether because of work, the desire to travel, natural disaster,
or racial violence, the flush of African descended people
relocating

25. across North America since Reconstruction has had tremendous
cul-
tural, economic, and political implications for the regions both
losing
and receiving these migrants. Though the obstacles they faced
were
surely many, black migrants did not shy away from the
challenges
presented by their arrival, precisely because for so many—
especial-
ly those strong-armed out of their homes by white supremacist
vio-
lence—the option of going back was simply off the table. The
Great
Migration effectively ended by the 1970s, in part because the
rewards
of decades of civil rights work forced new openings in the south
that
attracted at least some African Americans back to the region.
Since
the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, ever more
foreign-born
blacks have been coming to America, infusing once again a
linguis-
tic, cultural, and religious diversity first witnessed over a
century ago.
While the era of mass black population relocation may well be
over.
African Americans still turn to migration as the need arises, as
most
hauntingiy seen in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina threw scores of
Af-
rican Americans' lives into chaos, uprooting yet another
generation of
black southerners.

26. There is, to be sure, an exceptionally American dimension to
the
great rush of black migrants cutting across North America since
the
mid-nineteenth century. These mostly southern migrants
abandoned
a region wholesale on the promise that life in the north and west
might
be outside lim Crow's reach. And when it was not, they moved
fur-
ther still, into Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and across the
Atlantic.
While a host of push and pull factors fed this migration, the
most
important one, the most urgent one, the most uniquely domestic
one
is without a doubt the rise of racial terrorism in the form of
ethnic
cleansing, banishment, and lynching. Accordingly, African
Ameri-
cans on the run from Jim Crow became part of a more global
wave
of racially and religiously persecuted ethnic minorities forced
into
exile—in this case simultaneously, domestically, and
internationally.
Thus, for so many African descended people, their Great
Migration
amounted to a century-long quest for safe haven. Ü
Endnotes
1. Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political
Struggles in the Rural
South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge: Belknap

27. Press of
Harvard University Press, 2005), 1-12.
2. Fitzhugh Brundage ed.. Up From Slavery hy Booker T
Washington with
Related Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2003), 50.
3. James W. Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension on
American
Racism (New York: Touchstone. 2006); and Elliot [aspin.
Buried in the Bitter
Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America
(New York: Basic
Books, 2008). Marco Williams' documentary Banished:
American Ethnii
Ckansings. Two Tone Productions, 2007 aiso explores the
forced exile of
African Americans.
4. David A. Chang, The Color of the Land: Race. Nation and the
Politics 0/
Landownership in Oklahoma, 1S66-1929 (Chapel Hill:
University of North
Carolina Press, 2010); Dorothy Schwieder, ¡oseph Hraba, and
Elmer
Schwieder, Buxton: A Black Utopia in the Heartland. An
Expanded Edition
(Iowa City: University oflowa Press, 2003): and Quintard
Taylor, In Search
of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the West, 152S-
1990 (New York:
W.W. Norton & Co., 1999).
5. Ibid.. }66.
6. Emigration to Africa remained powerfully seductive well into
the 1920;;

28. with Marcus Garvey's Back-to-Africa campaigns. See Claude A.
Ill Clegg.
The Price of Liberty: African Americans and the Making of
Liberia (Cbapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003): Marie Tyler-
McGraw,
An African Republic: Black and White Virginians in the Making
of Liberia
(Chapel Hill: University of Nortb Carolina Press, 2007): and
Colin Grant.
Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey (New
York: Oxford
University Press, 2008).
7. Within ten years. Cleveland's population grew from 8,448 to
34,451. See
Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The
African
American Odyssey, Combined Volume, 4 t h e d . ( U p p e r S a
d d l e River, N.J.:
Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2008), 436.
8. Ibid., 481.
9. Tiffany Melissa Cill, "I Had My Own Business...So I Didn't
Have to Worry:
Beauty Salons, Beauty Culturists. and the Politics of African-
American
Female Entrepreneurship" in Beauty and Business: Commerce.
Gender, and
Culture in Modern America, ed. Philip Scranton (New York:
Routledge,
22 OAH Magazine of History • October 2009

29. 2OOO), 169-194- 3nd A'Lelia Bundles, On Her Own Ground:
The Life and
Times of Madame C.j. Walker (New York: Scribner. 2002).
10. Peter Cole, Wohhlies on the Waterfront: interracial
Unionism in Progressive
Bra Philadelphia {Champaign: University of Illinois Press,
2007).
11. Matthew Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color:
European Immigrants
and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1999); and
David Roediger. Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past
(Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
12. Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and
Japanese Americans
in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton: Princeton
University
Press, 2007): and [anet Abu-Lughold, Race. Space, and Riots in
Chicago.
New York, and Los Angeles (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007).
13. Natalia Molina, Fit To Be Citizens: Public Health and Race
in Los Angeles,
)S79-jg39 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006);
Alexandra
Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation: Eaults and Frontiers of Better
Breeding in
Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2005); Wendy

30. Kline. Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics
from the
Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (Berkeley: University of
California
Press, 2005).
Sarahfane (Saje) Mathieu is assistant professor in the history
department
at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She received her
PhD from
Yak University in 2001 and specializes in twentieth-century
American
and African American history with an emphasis on immigration,
social
movements and political resistance. Her forthcoming book from
University
of North Carolina Press, North of the Color Line: Race and the
Making
of Transnational Black Radicalism in Canada, 1870-1950,
examines the
social and political impact of African American and West
Indian sleeping
car porters in Canada.
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OAH Magazine of History • October 2009 23
Kitty Genovese and the Bystander Effect
Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, born in New York City in 1935,
was a young bar manager at the time of her murder on March
13, 1964. While her murder in itself was a truly horrific event,
having been stabbed more than 17 times, becoming the third
victim of serial rapist and killer Winston Moseley, the fact that
Kitty could have possibly been saved by the more than 38
witnesses to the murder makes this case even more disturbing.
The bystander inaction, known at the time as the Kitty
Genovese Syndrome, and later as the bystander effect, has now
been accepted as an observable psychological syndrome.
In the early morning hours of March 13, Kitty Genovese was
walking to her Queens apartment from the parking lot located
only 20 feet from her front door, shortly after leaving work.
The 5’1”, 105 pound woman was quickly overtaken by a
stranger who emerged from the shadows. The man, serial rapist
and killer Winston Moseley, jumped on top of Kitty and stabbed
her several times with the knife he was carrying. After the
initial attack, Genovese screamed, “Oh my God! He stabbed me!

34. Please help me! Please help me!”
At this point, several lights turned on in the nearby apartment
complex and some of the tenants took notice of the attack
occurring on the street below. Irene Frost, a resident of Kitty’s
apartment building, later testified that she heard Kitty’s screams
plainly. “There was another shriek and she was lying down
crying.” Robert Mozer, a resident on the seventh floor of the
same building, slid open his window and observed the struggle
taking place. Upon observing Moseley attacking Genovese,
Mozer yelled, “Hey, let that girl alone!” Moseley took notice of
Mozer’s request and quickly ran away. Mozer closed his
window, the lights in the apartment complex went out, and
everyone went back to sleep.
The apartment tenant’s failed to take notice of Kitty, who was
now lying on the ground, sobbing, bleeding badly from several
open stab wounds. Despite her injuries and her neighbors’
indifference, Catherine managed to drag herself to the side of
the building. Her attacker returned once more and stabbed the
Genovese, who screamed, “I’m dying! I’m dying!” As
happened the time before, several lights in the apartment
building went on and windows opened to survey the scene
below. Majorie and Samuel Koshkin witnessed the attack from
their apartment building. Mr. Koshkin wanted to call police,
but his wife advised against it, saying that “there must have
been 30 calls already.” Another woman on the second floor
even witnessed her assailant “bending down over [Kitty],
beating her,” yet failed to call police.
The attacker fled once more at the sight of the lights from
within the building. Kitty managed to pull herself to the back
of the apartment and managed to open a door leading to the
second floor, but collapsed in the lobby. Winston Moseley

35. returned again, calmly following the trail of blood to the back
of the building to the severely wounded Kitty lying on the floor.
Moselely then sexually assaulted the semiconscious woman and
violently stabbed her once again, finally ending her life.
Now why would 38 otherwise upstanding citizens simply ignore
a murder taking place only yards away from them?
Psychologists have explained the tragic case of Kitty Genovese
and the inaction of the apartment tenants in terms of the
bystander effect. Classically, the bystander effect is defined as
a social phenomenon in which a person is less likely to offer
help to a person in need when there are many people around.
For some witnesses to the murder, as in the case of Mr. and Ms.
Koshkin, this definition can be applied, as they perceived that
others were helping and therefore it was unnecessary to help.
Essentially, the witnesses felt no responsibility to act when they
perceived there were so many other witnesses who could and
most probably were helping.
While this classic definition of the phenomenon is the most
plausible one to have contributed to the inaction of the
witnesses, some social psychologists point to popular culture as
a major contributing factor in the bystander inaction.
Psychiatrist Ralph Banay explained that television was at least
partly to blame, as the witnesses became confused and
paralyzed by the violence occurring outside their window.
“They were fascinated by the drama, the action, and yet not
entirely sure what was taking place was actually happening.”
This hypothesis is consistent with some statements given by
witnesses, as they explained that they imagined it was an
argument taking place between two lovers, not an actual
murder.
Other psychologists explained that the complacency of the
bystanders as a product of the urban environment. Leading

36. psychologist Stanley Milgram corroborated this theory,
explaining that “[the Genovese murder] has become the
occasion for a general attack on the city. It is portrayed as
callous, cruel, indifferent to the needs of the people and wholly
inferior to the small town in quality of its personal
relationships.” Dr. Iago Galdston also believed this explanation
was the most accurate corollary theory to the bystander effect,
stating: “I would assign this to the effect of the megalopolis in
which we live which makes closeness very difficult and leads to
the alienation of the individual to the group.” Another
professor added that Genovese’s murder “goes to the heart of
whether this is a community or a jungle.” These explanations
became fodder for a growing sentiment for the symbolic nature
of the murder as everything that was wrong with modern
society.
It is likely that all of these theories played some role in
contributing to the apathy of the witnesses that night in 1964.
What can be said with certainty is that the bystander effect is
largely responsible for the death of Kitty Genovese and that if
the witnesses had acted, Genovese’s life could have surely been
saved.
Kitty Genovese
The door where Kitty Genovese was found bleeding to death

37. 1
The Impact of Immigration on American Society: Looking
Backward to the Future
Charles Hirschman1
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology and Department
of Sociology
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-3340
Email: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
Even as most Americans celebrate their heritage and identity as
a “nation of immigrants,”
there is deep ambivalence about future immigration. There is a
strong base of support for
continued immigration as a necessary ingredient for economic
growth and as an essential
element of a cosmopolitan society among many Americans.
Almost 60 million people—
more than one-fifth of the total population of the United
States—are immigrants or the
children of immigrants. For most of this community,
immigration policy is not an
abstract ideology but a means of family reunification and an
affirmation that they are part
of the “American dream.”
On the other side, there is a substantial share, perhaps a

38. majority, of Americans who are
opposed to a continuation of large scale immigration. Many
opponents of immigration
are old stock Americans who have all but forgotten their
immigrant ancestors. They often
live in small towns or in suburban areas, and many have
relatively little contact with
immigrant families in their neighborhoods, churches, and
friendship networks. Beyond
the debate over the economic consequences of immigration,
there is also an emotional
dimension that shapes sentiments toward immigration. Many
Americans, like people
everywhere, are more comfortable with the familiar than with
change. They fear that
newcomers with different languages, religions, and cultures are
reluctant to assimilate to
American society and to learn English.
Although many of the perceptions and fears of old stock
Americans about new
immigrants are rooted in ignorance and prejudice, the fears of
many Americans about the
future are not entirely irrational. With globalization and
massive industrial restructuring
dominating many traditional sources of employment (both blue
collar and white collar),
many native born citizens are fearful about their (and their
children’s) future. The news
media often cite examples of industries that seek out low cost
immigrant workers to
replace native born workers. Some sectors, such as harvesting
vegetables and fruits in
agriculture, have very few native born Americans seeking jobs
in them, but immigrants
are also disproportionately employed in many other sectors,

39. including meatpacking,
construction, hospitals, and even in many areas of advanced
study in research
1 This paper was completed while the author was a Bixby
Visiting Scholar at the Population Reference
Bureau in Washington, D.C.
2
universities. These examples are fodder for unscrupulous
political leaders who seek to
exploit popular fears for their own ends.
While it is not possible to predict the role of immigration in
America’s future, it is
instructive to study the past. The current debates and hostility
to immigrants echo
throughout American history. What is most surprising is that
almost all popular fears
about immigration and even the judgments of “experts” about
the negative impact of
immigrants has been proven false by history. Not only have
almost all immigrants (or
their descendents) assimilated over time, but they have
broadened American society in
many positive ways. In this review, I discuss the popular fears
about immigrants by old
stock Americans and the historical record of immigrant
contributions to the evolution of
the industrial economy, political reform, and even to the
development of American
culture.

40. A SHORT OVERVIEW OF IMMIGRATION
Immigration to North America began with Spanish settlers in
the 16th century, and French
and English settlers in the 17th century. In the century before
the American revolution,
there was a major wave of free and indentured labor from
England and other parts of
Europe as well as large scale importation of slaves from Africa
and the Caribbean.
Although some level of immigration has been continuous
throughout American history,
there have been two epochal periods: the 1880 to 1924 Age of
Mass Migration, primarily
from Southern and Eastern Europe, and the Post 1965 Wave of
Immigration, primarily
from Latin America and Asia (Min 2002, Portes and Rumbaut
1996). Each of these eras
added more than 25 million immigrants, and the current wave is
far from finished. During
some of the peak years of immigration in the early 1900s, about
one million immigrants
arrived annually, which was more than one percent of the total
U.S. population at the
time. In the early 21st century, there have been a few years with
more than one million
legal immigrants, but with a total U.S. population of almost 300
million, the relative
impact is much less than it was in the early years of the 20th
century.
The first impact of immigration is demographic. The 70 million
immigrants who have
arrived since the founding of the republic (formal records have

41. only been kept since
1820) are responsible for the majority of the contemporary
American population (Gibson
1992: 165). Most Americans have acquired a sense of historical
continuity from
America’s founding, but this is primarily the result of
socialization and education, not
descent. The one segment of the American population with the
longest record of
historical settlement are African Americans. Almost all African
Americans are the
descendants of 17th or 18th century arrivals (Edmonston and
Passell 1994: 61).
Much of the historical debate over the consequences of
immigration has focused on
immigrant “origins”—where they came from. Early in the 20th
century when immigration
from Southern and Eastern Europe was at its peak, many old
stock Americans sought to
preserve the traditional image of the country as primarily
composed of descendants from
Northwest Europe, especially of English Protestant stock
(Baltzell 1964). The
3
immigration restrictions of the 1920s were calibrated to
preserving the historic “national
origins” of the American population (Higham 1988). The
American population has,
however, always been much more diverse than the “Anglo-
centric” image of the 18th
century. The first American census in 1790, shortly after the

42. formation of the United
States, counted a bit less than 4 million people, of whom at
least 20% were of African
descent (Gibson and Jung 2002). There are no official figures
on the numbers of
American Indians prior to the late 19th century, but they were
the dominant population of
the 18th century in most of the territories that eventually
became the United States. The
estimates of the non English-origin population in 1790 range
from 20 to 40 percent
(Akenson 1984; McDonald and McDonald 1980; and Purvis
1984).
Each new wave of immigration to the United States has met
with some degree of hostility
and popular fears that immigrants will harm American society
or will not conform to the
prevailing “American way of life.” In 1751, Benjamin Franklin
complained about the
“Palatine Boors” who were trying to Germanize the province of
Pennsylvania and refused
to learn English (Archdeacon 1983: 20).Throughout the 19th
century, Irish and German
Americans, especially Catholics, were not considered to be fully
American in terms of
culture or status by old stock Americans. In May 1844, there
were three days of rioting in
Kensington, an Irish suburb of Philadelphia, which culminated
in the burning of two
Catholic Churches and other property (Archdeacon 1983: 81).
This case was one incident
of many during the 1840s and 1850s—the heyday of the “Know
Nothing Movement”—
when Catholic churches and convents were destroyed and
priests were attacked by

43. Protestant mobs (Daniels 1991: 267-268).
The hostility of old line Americans to “foreigners” accelerated
in the late 19th and early
20th centuries as racial ideology and anti-Semitism also became
part of American
consciousness. The rising tide of nativism—the fear of
foreigners—had deep roots in
anti-Catholicism and a fear of foreign radicals. The new
dominant element of this
ideology in the late nineteenth century was the belief in the
inherent superiority of the
Anglo-Saxon "race" (Higham 1988: Chapter 1). These beliefs
and the link to immigration
restriction had widespread support among many well-educated
elites. The Immigration
Restriction League, founded by young Harvard-educated Boston
Brahmins in 1894,
advocated a literacy test to slow the tide of immigration
(Bernard 1980: 492). It was
thought that a literacy test would reduce immigration from
Southern and Eastern Europe,
which was sending an "alarming number of illiterates, paupers,
criminals, and madmen
who endangered American character and citizenship" (Higham
1988: 103).
Cities, where most immigrants settled, were derided and feared
as places filled with
dangerous people and radical ideas (Hawley 1972: 521). These
sentiments were often
formulated by intellectuals, but they resonated with many white
Americans who were
reared in rather parochial and homogenous rural and small town
environments. While
some reformers, such as Jane Adams, went to work to alleviate

44. the many problems of
urban slums, others such as Henry Adams, the descendent of
two American presidents
and a noted man of letters, expressed virulent nativism and anti-
Semitism (Baltzell 1964:
111).
4
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first step toward a
closed society. From the
1880s to the 1920s, a diverse set of groups, ranging from the
old line New England elites,
the Progressive Movement in the Midwest, to the Ku Klux Klan
led a campaign to halt
immigration from undesirable immigrants from Europe (Higham
1988; Jones 1992: chap.
9). In the early decades of the 20th century the nascent pseudo
science of Eugenics was
used to support claims of the inferiority of the new immigrants
relative to old stock
Americans. Passing the national origins quotas in the early
1920s was intended to exclude
everyone from Asia and Africa and to sharply lower the
numbers of arrivals from
Southern and Eastern Europe.
The period from 1924 to 1965, when a highly restrictive
immigration policy was in place,
was exceptional in American history. For those who were reared
in this era, it might seem
that the high levels of immigration experienced during the last

45. three decades of the 20th
century are unusual. However, high levels of immigration
characterized most of the 18th
and 19th centuries as well as the first two decades of the 20th.
The impact of the 1965 Amendments to the Immigration and
Nationality Act, also known
as the Hart-Cellar Act, was a surprise to policy makers and
many experts. The primary
intent of the 1965 Act was to repeal the national origin quotas
enacted in the 1920s,
which were considered by the children and grandchildren of
Southern and Eastern
European immigrants. The advocates of reform in the 1960s
were not pushing for a major
new wave of immigration. Their expectation was that there
would be a small increase of
arrivals from Italy, Greece, and a few other European countries
as families that were
divided by the immigration restrictions of the 1920s were
allowed to be reunited, but that
no long-term increase would result (Reimers 1985: chap. 3).
The new criteria for admission under the 1965 Act were family
reunification and scarce
occupational skills (Keely 1979). The new preference system
allowed highly skilled
professionals, primarily doctors, nurses, and engineers from
Asian countries, to
immigrate and eventually to sponsor their families. About the
same time, and largely
independently of the 1965 Immigration Act, immigration from
Latin America began to
rise. Legal and undocumented migration from Mexico surged
after a temporary farm
worker program known as the Bracero Program was shut down

46. in 1964 (Massey, Durand,
and Malone 2002). Migration from Cuba arose from the tumult
of Fidel Castro’s
Revolution, as first elites and then professional and middle
class families fled persecution
and the imposition of socialism in the 1960s and 1970s.
Beginning in the 1970s, there
were several waves of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Hmong
refugees following from the
collapse of American supported regimes in Southeast Asia.
Then in the 1980s, there were
new refugees from Central American nations such as Nicaragua,
El Salvador, and
Guatemala (Lundquist and Massey 2005).
Each of these streams of immigration as well as refugee inflows
has spawned secondary
waves of immigration as family members followed. By 2000,
there were over 30 million
foreign born persons in the United States, of whom almost one-
third arrived in the prior
decade. Adding together immigrants and their children (the
second generation), more
than 60 million people—or one in five Americans—have recent
roots from other
5
countries (U. S. Bureau of the Census 2005). Although the
current levels of immigration
are not equal—in relative terms—to the Age of Mass Migration
in the early 20th century,
the absolute numbers of contemporary immigrants far exceed
that of any prior time in

47. American history or the experience of any other country.
American history cannot be separated from the history of
immigration. Or as Handlin
(1973:3) put it “immigrants were American history.” During the
middle decades of the
19th century, immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia played
a major role in settling
the frontier. Irish immigrants worked as laborers in cities and
were the major source of
labor in the construction of transportation networks, including
canals, railroads, and
roads. Some have estimated that the manpower advantage of
the Union forces during the
Civil War was largely due to immigrants who had settled in the
northern states (Gallman
1977: 31).
Immigrants have also played an important role in the transition
to an urban industrial
economy in the late 19th and early 20th century. Immigrant
workers have always been
over-represented in skilled trades, mining, and as peddlers,
merchants, and laborers in
urban areas. Immigrants and their children were the majority of
workers in the garment
sweatshops of New York, the coal fields of Pennsylvania, and
the stockyards of Chicago.
The cities of America during the age of industrialization were
primarily immigrant cities
(Gibson and Jung 2006). The rapidly expanding industrial
economy of the North and
Midwest drew disproportionately on immigrant labor from 1880
to 1920 and then on
African American workers from the South from 1920 to 1950.
In 1900, about three-

48. quarters of the populations of many large cities were composed
of immigrants and their
children, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, San
Francisco, Buffalo,
Milwaukee, and Detroit (Carpenter, 1927: 27). Immigrants and
their children remained
the majority of the urban population, especially in the industrial
cites of the Northeast and
Midwest until the 1920s (Carpenter, 1927: 27; Eldridge and
Thomas 1964: 206-209).
Immigrants and their children have also played an important
role in modern American
politics. They played an important role in forming the Roosevelt
coalition in the 1930s
and again in the 1960s with the election of John F. Kennedy.
The seeds of the 1932
Roosevelt coalition were established in 1928, when Al Smith,
an Irish American (on his
mother’s side) Catholic from New York City, attracted the
immigrant urban vote to the
Democratic Party. Although Herbert Hoover defeated Al Smith
in 1928, a number of
scholars have attributed the shift from the Republican
dominance of the government in
the 1920s to the New Deal coalition of the 1930s to the
increasing share, turnout, and
partisanship of the urban ethnic vote following several decades
of mass immigration
(Andersen 1979: 67-69; Baltzell 1964: 230; Clubb and Allen
1969; Degler 1964; Lubell
1952: 28).
Although the age of mass immigration had ended in the 1920s,
the children of
immigrants formed 20 percent of the potential electorate in

49. 1960 (U.S. Bureau of the
Census 1965: 8). The political leanings of the second generation
can be inferred from
research on the relationship between religion and political
preferences. In the decades
following the World War II era, white Protestants, and
especially middle class white
6
Protestants outside the South have been the base of the
Republican Party, while Catholic
and Jewish voters have been disproportionately Democratic
(Hamilton 1972: chap. 5).
The majority of early twentieth century Southern and Eastern
European immigrants were
Catholic or Jewish (Foner 2000: 11; Jones 1992: 192-95). The
reform periods of the New
Deal of the 1930s and the New Frontier (which lead to the Great
Society programs of
Lyndon Johnson) were made possible by the mass migration of
the late 19th and early
20th centuries.
Immigrants and their descendants were also important in the
development of popular
American culture and in creating the positive image of
immigration in the American
mind. Immigrants and the second generation have played a
remarkable role in the
American creative arts, including writing, directing, producing,
and acting in American
films and plays for most of the first half of the twentieth
century (Buhle 2004; Gabler

50. 1988; Most 2004; Phillips 1998; Winokur 1996). The majority
of Hollywood film
directors who have won two or more Academy Awards (Oscars)
were either immigrants
or the children of immigrants (Hirschman 2005: Table 4). Many
of the most highly
regarded composers and playwrights of Broadway were the
children of immigrants,
including George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz
Hart, Jerome Kern, Harold
Arlen, and Leonard Bernstein (Most 2004). These composers
and lyricists who wrote
much of the standard American songbook were largely second
and third generation
Jewish immigrants who were reared in ethnic enclaves, but their
music has defined the
quintessential American musical culture of the 20th century.
Although first and second generation immigrant artists have
always been anxious to
assimilate to American society and to adopt “Anglo-sounding”
names (Baltzell 1964),
they have also broadened American culture to make it more
receptive and open to
outsiders. The Hollywood theme “that anyone can make it in
America” is an
Americanized version of the rags to riches story—one that is
appealing to people who are
striving for upward mobility. Many Hollywood and Broadway
productions have also
given us poignant accounts of outsiders who struggle to be
understood and accepted.
Perhaps it is not so surprising that the Statue of Liberty has
become the preeminent
national symbol of the United States (Kasinitz 2004: 279).

51. LESSONS FROM 20TH CENTURY
From our current vantage point, it is clear that popular beliefs
and fears about immigrants
in the early 20th century were completely mistaken. In the early
20th century, most elites
and many social scientists thought that immigrants were
overrunning American society.
Based on the prevailing theories of the time (social Darwinism
and Eugenics),
immigrants were thought to be culturally and “racially” inferior
to old stock Americans.
The arguments used to restrict continued Southern and Eastern
European immigration in
the 20th century paralleled those made earlier to end Chinese
and Japanese immigration
(in 1882 and 1907, respectively). For three decades, the battle
over immigration
restriction was waged in the court of public opinion and in
Congress. In 1910, the
Dillingham Commission (a congressionally appointed
commission named after Senator
William P. Dillingham of Vermont) issued a 42 volume report,
which assumed the racial
7
inferiority of the new immigrants from Eastern and Southern
Europe relative to the old
stock immigrants from Northwestern Europe (Bernard
1980:492).
Social Darwinism and scientific racism were in full flower with
many leading scholars
warning against allowing further immigration of "beaten

52. members of beaten breeds"
(Jones 1992: 228-230). When the passage of a literacy test in
1917 did not have the
intended impact of slowing immigration from Southern and
Eastern Europe, Congress
passed the Quota Act in 1921 to limit the number of annual
immigrants from each
country to three percent of the foreign-born of that nationality
in the 1910 Census
(Bernard, 1980: 492-493). These provisions were not strong
enough for some
restrictionists, who passed another immigration law in 1924 that
pushed the quotas back
to two percent of each nationality counted in the 1890 census, a
date before the bulk of
the new immigrants had arrived.
Looking backward, we can see that the impacts of the Age of
Mass Migration from 1880
to 1924 were almost entirely opposite to those anticipated by
contemporary observers.
Based on standard measures of socioeconomic achievement,
residential location, and
intermarriage, the children and grandchildren of the “new
immigrants” of the early 20th
century have almost completely assimilated into American
society (Alba and Nee 2003).
Even groups such as Italian Americans that were considered to
be a “community in
distress” as late at the 1930s, have blended into the American
mosaic. A closer
examination reveals that the “new immigrants” have remade
American society in their
image. The Anglo-centric core of the early 20th century has
been largely replaced with a
more cosmopolitan America that places Catholicism and

53. Judaism on a par with Protestant
denominations, and the Statue of Liberty has become the
national symbol of a nation of
immigrants. Perhaps, the most important legacy of the Age of
Mass Immigration is that
the children of Eastern and Southern immigrants helped to pave
the way for the New
Deal of the 1930s, the Great Society of the 1960s, and the 1965
Immigration Act that
allowed a new wave of immigration from Asia and Latin
America to arrive.
In his recent novel, The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
poses the possibility that
Charles Lindberg might have been elected president in 1940 and
then established a
cordial understanding with Nazi Germany. There was certainly
a lot of virulent anti-
Semitism in the United States at the time, and the hatred of
Franklin Roosevelt by the
WASP upper class could have led to elite support for a fascist
alternative. However, as
we look back to the 1930s, it appears that Jews and Catholics
were “protected,” at least to
some degree, by their alliance with many other segments of
American society as part of
the New Deal coalition. Ironically, the closure of the door to
immigration after 1924 and
the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South
to cities in the North and
Midwest may have helped the children of Southern and Eastern
European immigrants to
climb up the socioeconomic ladder in the middle decades of the
20th century (Lieberson
1980). All of these groups remained in the Democratic Party
well into the 1960s, and this

54. unusually broad base discouraged political alliances based on
race and nationality alone.
The examples of the Dixiecrats of 1948, George Wallace in
1968, and the Southern
Strategy of 1972 show that American politics are not immune to
appeals to the “race
8
card.” However, recent immigrants and their descendents, when
allied with other reform
groups, have played a major role in broadening democracy in
American society.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
The demographic challenges of 21st century America are not
unique. Immigration, like
race, seems to be a continuing source of tension in many
societies around the globe.
Immigration, especially clandestine immigration, is higher in
the United States than in
most other industrial countries, but the underlying dynamics are
common to almost all
industrial societies (Hirschman 2001).
Recent legal immigration to the United States has fluctuated
from 700,000 to 1,000,000
new permanent residents in recent years, but with an upward
drift that is evident from a
decadal perspective (U.S. Department of Homeland Security
2006). Only about one half
of legal immigrants are new arrivals to the country. The other
half consists of adjustments

55. of current residents who were able to obtain an immigrant visa
because of change in
employment or family status. Many refugees are eventually able
to obtain permanent
resident immigrant visas. There is also a large, but unknown
number of undocumented
(illegal) immigrants, perhaps upwards of 300,000 per year.
The major policy discussion in the United States (and
elsewhere) is focused on
immigration control. There is wide agreement that clandestine
immigration should be
stopped and legal immigration should be tightly controlled.
There are arguments over the
numbers and types of immigrants to be admitted, but the idea
that sovereign states can
and should control population movements across borders is
virtually unchallenged.
However, there is a considerable body of research which shows
that the motivations for
international migration are huge and that the rewards to
migrants, employers, and
societies (both sending and receiving) are enormous (Massey
1999). These forces suggest
that public policies of immigration control are unlikely to be
successful.
The mass media routinely report the extraordinary investments
and ingenuity of Latin
Americans, Chinese, and Africans who are seeking to migrate to
North America and
Europe. Many of these efforts lead to capture and humiliating
treatment as criminals. In
other instances, many migrants die when they are locked into
shipping containers or
attempt to traverse the deserts without sufficient water and

56. other provisions. Yet they
continue to come. The simple reason is that the economies of
the South and North are
increasingly integrated through flows of goods, capital, and
labor. International migration
is a functional component of modern societies, rich and poor,
that resolves the uneven
distribution of people and opportunities.
Most migrants come, not to settle, but to support their families
at home (Massey et al.
2002). Indeed the remittances from international migrants to
developing countries far
exceeds the funds going to poor countries from foreign aid,
direct capital investment, and
from manufacturing exports (Massey et al. 1998). The gains of
international migration to
the economies of advanced countries are also substantial. Most
industrial economies do
not have sufficient domestic supplies of low cost labor. If this
pattern were found in only
9
one country or in only a few sectors, then it might be possible
to consider a fairly narrow
explanation in terms of political cultures or market rigidities.
The demand for "cheaper
immigrant labor," however, spans many sectors (agriculture,
manufacturing, construction,
repair services, restaurants, and child care) in most industrial
countries, including a
number of rapidly growing developing countries.

57. The demand for immigrant labor is not restricted to unskilled
manual labor. The United
States and other industrial countries have encountered a
shortage of scientific and
engineering workers, particularly in the high tech sector. This
demand has been met, in
part, by allowing many talented foreign students in American
universities to convert their
student visas to immigrant status. In spite of political pressures
to control immigration,
almost all policy changes have broadened the scope of legal
immigration to allow
settlement by refugees, agricultural workers, "illegal"
immigrants with long residences in
the country, peoples in countries that have too few American
citizen relatives to sponsor
them, and workers in high demand by U.S. employers.
Standard economic theory posits that domestic migration is a
functional response to wage
differentials between areas. Migration allows for workers to
benefit from higher wages in
growing areas and stimulates the economy to operate more
efficiently by creating larger
and more porous labor and consumer markets. Indeed the logic
for lessening barriers to
migration is similar to that of international free trade. Economic
theory suggests that all
countries benefit from the free flow of capital, goods, and
technology across international
borders. International migration is often excluded from
discussions about expanding
international trade (such as in the NAFTA debate), largely
because of political
considerations rather than economic theory.

58. My reading of current trends and history suggests that the major
policy issue for
international migration is not immigration control, but the
creation of opportunities for
the socioeconomic advancement and social integration of
immigrants and their
descendants. Immigrants will continue to come in large numbers
for the foreseeable
future. If the borders are closed, they are likely to find
clandestine ways of entry—the
economic incentives of both the sending and receiving societies
are overwhelming.
However, it is an open question whether the immigrants will be
accepted as full members
of the receiving society. American society, even with all of its
failings, may offer a model
of how immigrants and their children have prospered and also
contributed to society.
Even the idea of what it means to be an American has evolved
as each immigrant wave
has broadened the outlook of all Americans. An awareness of
this history can help to
inform the contemporary debate over the significance of current
and future immigration
in other societies.
10
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SYMPOSIUM: IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, AND THE
AMERICAN DREAM
Immigration Benefits America
Steven J. Gold
Published online: 7 July 2009
# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract David Stoll suggests that because contemporary
immigrants are non-European, uneducated, poor, and
uninterested in joining the moral community of American
society, their presence threatens national unity, obscures
citizens’ obligations to one another and will shortly change
the US into a minority–majority society. Drawing from
historical accounts and statistical evidence, this article
asserts that immigrants provide American society with
social, economic and demographic benefits. Moreover,
while pundits have long predicted that immigrants with
national origins distinct from those of natives will transform

66. American life to its detriment, the record reveals the US has
been able to incorporate diverse nationalities to the benefit
of immigrants and the native-born alike.
Keywords Immigration . Nativism . Assimilation .
Skilled immigrants
David Stoll suggests that because contemporary immigrants
are non-European, uneducated, poor, motivated by financial
gain and uninterested in joining the moral community of
American society, their presence threatens national unity,
obscures American citizens’ obligations to one another and
will shortly change the US into a minority–majority society.
Since immigrants tend to be poor and powerless, their
burgeoning existence can be attributed to the endorsement
it receives from coastal elites who, Stoll contends, are
motivated by either economic self-interest (they seek to
exploit the low-cost labor of immigrants), naive idealism
(they assume that immigrants will both benefit themselves
and the country) or both.
According to Stoll, social transformations brought on by
immigrants and their allies will ultimately replace the
longstanding bases of American identity—ones rooted in
nationalism, shared origins and mutual obligation among
citizens—with the hazy concepts of transnationalism and
globalism. The economic outcome of this will allow the
well-heeled to grow more affluent while everyone else
becomes poorer.
Given the negative consequences of contemporary immi-
gration, Stoll encourages Americans to reject this “post
national” vision of American society. Instead, we should

67. strive to retain ethnic and nationalistic forms of moral
community that emphasize our obligations to the well-
being of our fellow citizens before concerning ourselves
with the fate of those from elsewhere.
Stoll’s characterization of migration’s impact on the
United States raises several important and controversial
issues. However, before we accept his conclusions, it is
worthwhile to evaluate the grounds upon which he calcu-
lates the negative impact of immigration—economically,
socially and morally—on American society.
Students of American history will find a familiar ring to
Stoll’s warnings. For over 100 years, some members of
established factions have worried that immigrants would
reduce wages, erode social solidarity and remain loyal to
their family, religion or country of origin rather than to the
US. While immigration does pose many challenges for the
US, there is every reason to believe that it will also provide
numerous benefits to the country just as it has in the past.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, both historical and contempo-
rary reports of American society’s demise as a consequence
of the arrival of impoverished and culturally dissimilar
immigrants have been greatly exaggerated.
Soc (2009) 46:408–411
DOI 10.1007/s12115-009-9235-4
S. J. Gold (*)
Department of Sociology, Michigan State University,
316 Berkey Hall,
East Lansing, MI 48824-1111, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

68. To begin with, I question the author’s contentions about
the existence of a growing community of scholars and
immigration supporters who foresee or desire the end of
nations. During the 1980s and 1990s, a few theorists
speculated that forms of regional and global governance
coupled with free-flowing migration might result in the
diminution of the nation state. However, the overwhelming
consensus of research, especially that conducted since the
events of September 11, 2001, has affirmed the continued
importance of nation states as locations of political and
economic power as well as national identity.
Stoll’s assertions about the economic impact of immi-
grants on the US have been well-studied, and a preponder-
ance of resulting data would appear to contradict them.
First, although he fails to mention it, a considerable fraction
of contemporary immigrants to the US are not members of
a low-wage migration stream. On the contrary, they are
highly educated professionals. These newcomers find
employment in well-paid occupations for which there is
considerable demand. In 2006, 27% of the foreign-born
population age 25 or older had a BA or higher degree, a
fraction nearly identical to that of the US population at
large. [At the same time, it is true that a larger portion of
immigrants have only a high school degree or less than is
the case among the native-born US population (Terrazas et
al. 2007)].
Such educated migrants work as scientists, technicians,
engineers, economists, professors, physicians, nurses and
entrepreneurs. Their activities are vital to the most
advanced, innovative and profitable sectors in the US
economy. Since the US economy demands many more
persons with these skills than exist among the native-born,
immigrants provide a considerable fraction of the human
capital that allows American companies to function and

69. generate good jobs. 40% of PhD scientists working in the
US are foreign born. Indeed, according to Duke University
scholar Vivek Wadhwa, 52% of the technology start-ups in
Silicon Valley, one of the US’s greatest engines of recent
economic growth, had a CEO or chief engineer born
overseas (Bernstein 2009).
The work of these skilled immigrants is also vital to the
provision of a wide range of services including healthcare,
transportation and public works associated with the
standard of living and quality of life that Americans have
come to expect.
When highly educated persons come to the US, natives
reap the benefits of their costly skills without having to pay
for their training. In addition to those who arrive in the US
upon the completion of their schooling, immigrant students
increase their education here. Accordingly, a significant
fraction of the science and technology PhD degrees
awarded by American universities go to foreign-born
students. Between 70% and 96% of these students stay on
to work in the US for at least 5 years after their graduation
(Executive Office of the President 2007).
Over and above their professional know-how, foreign-
born workers often possess linguistic, cultural, and techni-
cal skills and contacts that permit American companies to
sell goods and services abroad. In this way, their presence
fosters American firms’ access to global markets.
Less-skilled immigrants also contribute to Americans’
economic well-being. They perform a wide array of
essential jobs that few native-born workers are interested
in taking, including food service, domestic jobs, meat
packing, farm work, construction, light manufacturing and

70. hospitality. Immigrants are disproportionately represented
among proprietors of the small businesses that generate
employment while making our lives more convenient and
communities more lively (Light and Gold 2000).
While opponents to immigration have long claimed that
newcomers drive down wages, a significant body of re-
search reveals that the economic impact of immigrants on
American life has been highly positive (Fix and Passell
1994). For example, a comprehensive study of the eco-
nomic impact of immigrants on American society con-
ducted by the National Research Council concluded that
immigration delivers a “significant positive gain” of $1
billion to $10 billion each year to native-born Americans
(Smith and Edmonston 1997). President George W. Bush’s
Council of Economic Advisors determined that 90% of the
US-born population benefited economically from the
presence of immigrants (Executive Office of the President
2007). Findings like these suggest that rather than consti-
tuting an economic threat to most American workers,
immigrants are an asset.
In addition to these short-term economic benefits, immi-
grants and their children also contribute to America’s long-
term population growth. Countries such as Japan, Spain and
Italy, which have low birth rates, aging populations and
relatively low levels of immigration, face demographic
crises, including labor shortages and a demographic crunch
in which a relatively small number of workers will be
expected to pay for the retirement and health care needs of
a sizeable elderly population. The presence of immigrants
and their children helps the US population remain compar-
atively youthful and stave off such troubling scenarios
(Wiseman 2005).
The consequences of overpopulation, including high real

71. estate prices, overburdened social services, congested
transportation systems and environmental pollution are
widely reported in coastal cities and Sunbelt regions of
the US. Other parts of the country, however, confront the
opposite problem of population loss, which yields labor
shortages, declining real estate values and an insufficient
Soc (2009) 46:408–411 409
level of consumer demand and tax revenue to sustain basic
services, schools, and businesses.
Immigrants and refugees are often willing to live in
small towns and accept unglamorous but essential jobs in
agriculture and other industries. They play critical roles
in delivering needed commodities, and allow smaller com-
munities to survive. For this reason, cities like Lansing,
Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Littleton, Colorado and
Boise, Idaho have established programs to attract, welcome
and assist refugees and immigrants (Migration Policy
Institute 2009).
Stoll observes with some alarm that America will soon
become a minority–majority society. However, the histor-
ical record shows that over time, a number of groups that
were initially thought to be inassimilable have found their
place in the American mosaic. Accordingly, there is reason
to believe that the most recent wave of immigrants will, like
those of earlier cohorts, prove to be good citizens and valu-
able assets to their adopted country.
A century ago, leading intellectuals of the progressive
era including Madison Grant, University of Wisconsin
sociologist E.A. Ross, Harvard psychologist William

72. MacDougall and patrician author Henry Adams endorsed
the eugenics movement. They warned that “alien races”
including the Irish, Italians, Greeks, Jews and Poles were
incapable of functioning in American society and, through
their limited intelligence, base urges and flawed ethics,
would pollute the national gene pool while bringing about
the downfall of the American way of life. In 1911, the
Dillingham Commission of the US Congress reported that
new immigrants were “racially inferior, inclined toward
violent crime, resisted assimilation” and likely to drive
native-born citizens out of work (Pedraza 1996: 8). Such
views were incorporated into the Immigration Act of 1924,
which placed stringent restrictions on the arrival of
immigrants who did not originate in Northern Europe and
completely excluded those from Asia. Its quotas were not
fully rescinded until 1965.
In retrospect, the concerns of these professors and
pundits now seem unfounded. Not only do we celebrate
the countless contributions of these populations to the
American way of life, but further no longer regard such
nationalities as racially distinct from other European
Americans. Based on this record, it appears quite likely
that the descendents of today’s immigrant minorities will be
regarded as equally American as those whose forebears
came from Europe.
David Stoll suggests that immigrants do not share
American notions of civic nationalism. However, various
indicators suggest otherwise. In a detailed study of
immigration and crime, Rubén G. Rumbaut and Walter
Ewing found that immigrants, including those lacking legal
documentation, have much lower rates of criminality than
the native born.

73. Another indicator of immigrants’ willingness to honor
established notions of American nationality is through their
military service. According to the Department of Defense,
as of February 2008, more than 65,000 immigrants (non-
US citizens and naturalized citizens) were serving on
active duty in the US Armed Forces. This accounts for
about 5% of all active duty personnel. Since September
2001, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has
naturalized more than 37,250 foreign-born members of the
US Armed Forces and granted posthumous citizenship to
111 service members who were killed in the line of duty
(Batalova 2008).
The fact that so many immigrants are willing to serve
in the American armed forces during a war that is both
dangerous and internationally unpopular demonstrates
their patriotism and willingness to literally put their lives
on the line to further the goals and values of their new
nation.
In conclusion, this brief review of contemporary and
historical patterns of immigration presents a far more
positive image of the impact of immigrants on American
society than does Stoll’s essay. While the presence of
immigrants will certainly challenge both the native-born
population as well as newcomers, such evidence suggests
that immigrants will continue to make life in the US more
affluent, more fulfilling and more inclusive for both natives
and new arrivals than it would be without them.
Further Reading
Batalova, J. 2008. Immigrants in the US Armed Forces,
Migration
Information Source. www.migrationinformation.org. Accessed 7
May 2009.

74. Bernstein, R. 2009. Letter from America: Don’t Deny Benefit of
Foreigners, New York Times, May, 6.
Executive Office of the President, Council of Economic
Advisors
2007. Immigration’s economic impact. Washington DC: The
White House, June 20.
Fix, M., & Passel, J. S. 1994. Immigration and immigrants:
Setting
the record straight. Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute.
Light, I., & Gold, S. J. 2000. Ethnic economies. San Diego:
Academic
Press.
Migration Policy Institute. 2009. E Pluribus Unum Prizes.
http://www.
migrationinformation.org/integrationawards/. Accessed 7 May
2009.
Pedraza, S. 1996. Origins and destinies: Immigration, race and
ethnicity in American history. In S. Pedraza, & R. G. Rumbaut
(Eds.), Origins and destinies: Immigration, race and ethnicity in
America (pp. 1–20). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
Rumbaut, R. G., & Ewing, W. 2007. The myth of immigrant
criminality and the paradox of assimilation: Incarceration rates
among native and foreign-born men. Washington DC: American
Immigration Law Foundation, Spring.
410 Soc (2009) 46:408–411
http://www.migrationinformation.org
http://www.migrationinformation.org/integrationawards/

75. http://www.migrationinformation.org/integrationawards/
Smith, J. P., & Edmonston, B. (Eds.) 1997. The new Americans:
Economic, demographic, and fiscal effects of immigration.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Terrazas, A., Batalova, J., & Fan, V. 2007. Frequently requested
statistics on immigrants in the United States. Migration
Information
Source. www.migrationinformation.org. Accessed 7 May 2009.
Weisman, J. 2005. Aging population poses global challenges.
Washingtonpost.com, Page A01. Accessed 7 May 2009.
S. J. Gold is professor, associate chair and graduate program
director in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State
University. He is past chair of the International Migration
Section
of the American Sociological Association and author, co-author
or
co-editor of five books, most recently, The Israeli Diaspora
(Routledge/University of Washington Press 2002). Together
with
Rubén G. Rumbaut, he is the editor of The New Americans book
series from LFB Publishers.
Soc (2009) 46:408–411 411
http://www.migrationinformation.orgImmigration Benefits
AmericaAbstractFurther Reading
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