Us Immigration and Migration Reference Library

The Human Genome Diversity Project tells us that between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago people from Mongolia crossed Beringia to what we now call the Americas. "U.S. Immigration and Migration" chronicles and interprets the phenomenal waves of immigration to the United States from the earliest times through the period from 1820 to 1930, when the United States was the destination of some 60% of the world's immigrants -- up to the present day, when restrictive policies have temporarily stanched the flow of immigrants.

Features include 300 black-and-white illustrations, including about 10 maps; chronology; sidebars; words to know; research and activity ideas; further reading; and a subject index. The "Almanac" volumes tell of the economic, religious and political forces that compelled people to seek a better life in a new land. These same forces later inspired the migration of many Americans to other areas in mass movements such as the Westward Expansion; the rural to urban migration; the Great Migration of blacks in the early part of the 20th century; and the migration to the Sunbelt starting in the 1960s. The "Biographies"volumes bring the panorama of immigration and migration to a personal level by profiling both prominent and less well-known people of the immigrant experience. Insights into the movement of people are provided in the "Primary Sources" volume via excerpts from such key documents as the Maryland Toleration Act (1649), the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784), the Homestead Act (1862), the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), and the Immigration Act (1924), as well as personal observations from two Mexican immigrants and concerns about the rise in U.S. immigration from conservativetalk-show host Patrick J. Buchanan.

For table of contents, sample pages or other volume specific information see the entry for the "Almanac, Biographies" or" Primary Sources."