Geographie Infothek: USA - Geschichte

Oscar Handlin has said, "Once I thought to write a history of the immighrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." In the same sense, we cannot really speak of a particular "immigrant contribution" to America because all Americans have been immigrants or the descendants of immigrants; even the Indians ... migrated to the American continent. We can only speak of people whose roots in America are older or newer. Yet each wave of immigration left its own imprint on American society; each made its distinctive "contribution" to the building of the nation and the evolution of American life...