weekend HW

Cultural Coherence and Diversity


North America is a region of immigrants; almost all of the population once immigrated into north America. Early immigrants had a considerable cultural influence even though they were small in numbers, over time their varied groups and changing goals created a culturally diverse landscape. In the U.S changing source regions of immigrants have split the country’s history of immigration into 5 chapters. There’s the first chapter (before 1820) there was little migration and it was mainly English and African, there were other source regions such as Irish, Dutch, French and German, but the English had more influence. During this time the number of African immigrants outnumbered the europian arrivals and they had a big influence on the South, they were part of a much larger forced migration to the Americas. In phase 2 (1820-1870) the emphasis shifted from the English to more Germans and Irish, the pace of migration also increased from 130,000 in the 1820’s the over 2.8 million in the 1870’s. In the 3rd phase 9 (1870-1920) the immigration rate rose even higher to 1 million immigrants annually, this time from the number of immigrants from northwestern Europe declined and immigrants started coming from south Europe and east European countries like Poland and Russia. By 1910 almost 14% of the country was foreign born, most of these immigrants stayed away from the job-poor south and and collected in big north eastern cities, setting cultural diverge that persists to today. Between 1920 and 1970 (stage 4) the immigration from neighboring countries (Latin America and Canada) grew but the overall immigration rate plunged due to stricter immigration protocols. From 1970 to present day( stage 5) the number of annual arrivers surpass those of the early 20th century, most from Latin America.