Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees - GCIR

Race has had--and continues to have--a profound impact on the well-being of the Native American and African-American communities. Although less well-known, race has also contributed to the shaping of immigration laws and policies since our nation's founding. The connection between race and immigration has significant implications for immigrant integration because how immigrants are perceived and treated affects how well they fare, integrate, and contribute to U.S. society.^[source]

Race and ethnicity have stimulated fear and anxiety since the first wave of non-Anglo immigrants in the 1700s. Alarmed by the swelling number of Germans, Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1753, "Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant stupid sort of their own nation... Few of their children in the country learn English."

Similarly, Italian and Irish immigrants faced ethnic stereotypes and discrimination in the late 1800s, while new arrivals from southern and eastern Europe in the early 1900s were castigated as racially inferior to those of Anglo-Saxon stock.^[source] But as these European immigrants incorporated into society, anxiety and fear about them faded over time.

This certainly was not the case for African-Americans and Native Americans--nor was it the case for Asian and Latino immigrants. As Native Americans and African-Americans endured legalized segregation and other forms of discrimination, Asian immigrants, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, were denied citizenship and other rights. U.S. laws during that time period also restricted new entries from Asian countries. During World War II, 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned. In the 1920s, thousands of Mexican workers, including U.S. citizens, were deported. And in 1954, Operation Wetback deported more than 1.1 million Mexican immigrants. These laws and policies undermined the ability of Latino and Asian immigrants to integrate fully into American society.

The Immigration Act of 1965, supported by civil rights leaders, eliminated the national-origins quota system that favored European immigrants and paved the way for expanded immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This law markedly changed the racial composition of immigrants to the United States: In 1960, seven of the top-ten sending countries were European; today, all of the top-ten sending countries are either Latin American or Asian.

In the twenty-first century, the diversity of immigrants--and their dispersed settlement pattern--make race a central issue, requiring U.S. society to consider how race affects the ability of immigrants to integrate. This is an especially critical concern for more homogenous new immigrant gateways and in communities where the black-white paradigm has long been the dominant frame. Housing segregation, employment discrimination, and educational inequities, though experienced by European immigrants at the turn of the nineteenth century, are even more daunting barriers to integration for today's increasingly Latino, Asian, and African immigrants. And they continue to limit opportunity for Native Americans and African-Americans as well.

How can receiving communities address these barriers, so that they do not impede immigrants' social and economic mobility? How can immigrants and native-born Americans find common ground and work together toward shared goals? Within this context, the integration of immigrants must be a process that reaps clear benefits not only for immigrants but for society as a whole.