Migration

Similarly problematic is the cultural classification of European migrants into "ethnic groups," a differentiation denied "Asians," "Indians," or "Negroes." European migrants were regionally diverse, nation-states having only come into being in the nineteenth century. Thus the nation-to-ethnic-enclave paradigm constituted an ahistoric simplification. At the end of the century biological-racist classifications (scientific racism) were increasingly applied to European newcomers from eastern Europe ("dark"), from Italy ("olive"), or of Jewish faith and excluded nonwhite populations from other continents altogether. While U.S. gatekeeper elites demanded Anglo conformity or assimilation, newcomers suggested a "melting pot" concept, a term that became popular after Israel Zangwill's play of that title of 1908. The prescription for Anglo conformity excluded by definition peoples from Europe's peripheries. Conceptual exclusion was paralleled by legal exclusion. Congress enacted restrictions on the open-door policy of admission to the United States starting in the 1880s. Further restrictions were legislated in 1917 and 1924. To access other labor reserves, men from Mexico were admitted under specific provisions covering temporary labor. With the closing of the front door facing the Atlantic, a back door on the Rio Grande was opened. The Pacific door was left ajar for merchants and students, in the interest of trade and cultural expansion. When scientific racism subsided, the paradigm of uprootedness emerged as a new hierarchization. While immigrants were recognized as "making the American people" (Handlin), immigrants in general and the Irish in particular were considered as suspended between cultures and thus in need of help with assimilation. Many European immigrants of the late 1940s and 1950s had in fact been uprooted but by war and forced labor camps—earning status as displaced persons—rather than by migration.

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality (Hart-Celler) Act intended to end discrimination of migrants based on skin color or cultural origin. A merit-based point system favored skilled, professional, and highly educated men and women in order to boost U.S. economic performance. The underlying assumption that Europeans could meet the new immigration criteria was wrong, and the composition of migration to the United States changed totally. Transatlantic migration subsided after Europe's recovery from the devastations of World War II with the exception of departures from southern European societies and refugees from the socialist countries. In contrast, transpacific migration from developed societies in Asia with high educational performance increased and surpassed transatlantic migration by the 1970s. Wage differentials—sometimes offset by cost-of-living levels—attracted men and women from low-wage societies in Asia. A humanitarian aspect of the point system and the citizenship legislation permitted highly qualified migrants to bring relatives regardless of their levels of qualification and English-language skills. U.S. soldiers stationed in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War led to the first "war bride" migration, and in the aftermath of Vietnam large numbers of refugees arrived in the United States in the mid-1970s. A further, but temporary, incentive for Chinese to migrate to the United States was the return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997.

Intracontinental northbound migration from Mexico and the Caribbean as well as from other Latin American states surpassed transpacific migration in the 1980s. Mexican laborers and laboring families continued to be recruited seasonally or without legal work documents. Puerto Rican (internal) and other Caribbean (external) migrants arrived in large numbers; Cuban exiles were hosted, while Haitian refugees were rejected. U.S.. governmental support for right-wing regimes in several Latin American states resulted in an exodus of political refugees. While Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Hispanics in general created civil rights movements, advocates of "whiteness" initiated another racial debate about "the browning" of the United States and generated new calls for conformity. Undocumented migrants, upon whom certain economic sectors relied, were offered legitimization, that is, were given legal status. From the mid-1960s on scholarship on the subject of migration departed from the ethnic-group and migrant-dislocation paradigms. Scholars observed the ability of migrants to function and negotiate in two cultures, to create relations between cultural groups, to fuse multiple elements into multicultural lives and hybrid forms of expression. The perspective of women's studies brought inclusion of migrant women—since the 1930s about one-half of all migrants to the United States—into the historical narrative (Gabaccia). However, race and culture continued to be reflected in scholarship. The experiences of African-Americans were studied separately under the heading of slavery, while research on Asian or Hispanic migrants utilized the model of European experience. Migrant origins, once nationalized, both as regards communities of origin and destinations, were regionalized as well as integrated into continental, hemispheric, or global migration systems (Gilroy; Hoerder; Ruíz; Takaki). Nation-or multicultural-state superstructures lost centrality of position in the analysis but remain important in establishing legal and institutional frames for admission (or rejection) and inclusion (or exclusion). Emphasis on exchange between cultural groups and on negotiating identities is reflected in concepts of diasporic belongings and societal embeddedness as well as in transnational or transcultural capabilities to chart life projects and develop ways of everyday life under conditions of high mobility (Portes; Rumbaut; Foner).