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It can be said that U.S. immigration started in 1607, when the first settlers joined the original colonists on the shores of the United States. Since then, people of every nation, ethnicity, and class have come to the United States, looking for freedom, prosperity, and stability. While originally immigrants flowed freely into the United States, over time many second- and third-generation U.S. people began to object to new arrivals competing for the same jobs and living quarters. This resentment influenced legislation on immigration and quotas, and created a hostile environment for people searching for the same dreams as those of the parents and grandparents of established immigrants. While the issue is complex, immigration has always been a major influence on the United States, and even today, the country continues to be the land of opportunity for people from around the world. This book provides hundreds of firsthand accounts of the period (from diary entries, letters, speeches, and newspaper articles) that illustrate how historical events appeared to those who lived through them. Among the eyewitness testimonies included are those of Powhatan, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Cabot Lodge, Emma Lazarus, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, and John F. Kennedy. In addition to firsthand accounts, each of the nine chapters provides an introductory essay and a chronology of events. The book also includes critical documents such as the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Johnson-Reed Act, and the McCarran-Walter Act as well as capsule biographies of 95 key figures, a bibliography, an index, nine maps and graphs, and 95+ photographs. (BT)

This volume of essays, spanning philosophy, history, sociology, and political science seeks to demonstrate that the democratic purposes of education are not outmoded but can continue to be driving forces in public education. Nine original articles examine how those democratic purposes might be redefined and revived. The volume both establishes the intellectual foundation for revitalizing U.S. schools and offers concrete ideas for how the educational process can be made more democratic. The collection is divided into three broad parts: "Part 1: The Philosophy and Practice of Civic Education"; "Part 2: Approaches to Studying the Politics of Education"; and "Part 3: Focusing on Democratic Purposes: Implications for Education Policy." The following essays are in the collection: (1)"Defining Democratic Purposes" (Lorraine M. McDonnell); (2) "What the American Founders Have To Teach Us about Schooling for Democratic Citizenship" (Lorraine Smith Pangle; Thomas L. Pangle); (3) "Toward a Political Economy of Citizenship: Historical Perspectives on the Purposes of Common Schools" (Carl F. Kaestle); (4) "Why Should Schools Care about Civic Education?" (Amy Gutmann); (5) "A Political Socialization Perspective" (Pamela Johnston Conover; Donald D. Searing); (6) "The Two Democratic Purposes of Public Education" (Terry M. Moe); (7) "Democracy and Schooling: An Institutional Perspective" (James G. March; Johan P. Olsen); (8) "Seeking a New Politics of Education" (Lorraine M. McDonnell; M. Stephen Weatherford); and (9) "Democratic Education and the American Dream" (Jennifer L. Hochschild; Nathan Scovronick). Each essay includes notes. (Contains a very extensive selected bibliography.) (BT)

Since 1965, changes in the immigration law have altered the influx from abroad and transformed the nation, especially California. This book examines the fundamental transformation of the state's population, focusing on local outcomes in California communities. Chapters 1 and 2 discuss social and economic causes of immigration, types of migrants, changing global contexts, migration patterns, the immigration link with Mexico, and the Immigration Reform and Control Act and its aftermath. Chapters 3 and 4 examine: statewide impacts in terms of population growth and composition, fertility rates, immigrants' educational attainment and skill levels, and poverty; county and community patterns; impacts on counties related to birth rates, health care needs, changing school enrollments, educational needs of students with limited English proficiency, and poverty; the economic contributions and costs of immigration; and immigrants' earnings, progress, and effects on U.S.-born workers' wages. Chapter 5 looks at the American Dream of home ownership and a good education for immigrants' children and discusses educational attainment and trajectories, college attendance, the link between poverty and educational outcomes, language factors, and bilingual education. While many immigrants are realizing the American Dream, Mexican and Central American immigrants are losing ground due to their more limited education and low skills. It is the very large numbers of these immigrants that are at the center of the problem of how to create a new and integrated society. Chapters 6-8 discuss assimilation versus a multi-ethnic society, the politics of immigration, the strained social fabric, the outlook for the future, and the pressing needs to reform immigration policy and increase funding for education. (Contains a large bibliography, an index, and many figures and data tables.) (SV)

During the colonial period, the ideology of work--the American work ethic--took root. Americans valued work and considered it an obligation to society, to oneself, and to one's family. The key to the agrarian culture was an ethic that recognized the importance of hard, physical labor within a framework of yearly cycles of tasks. The world of the colonial artisan was a landmark of a work ethic that wedded morality to manual labor and individual industry to community service. Colonial women's work ethic was part of the feminine ethic that stressed mothering, nurturing, and dedication to the needs of their families. The American Revolution brought a revolution of ideas and the promise of creating a genuinely democratic society. In the nineteenth century, there was a mixture of work ethics, including wage workers, craftsmen, slaves, the unskilled, immigrants, farmers, and women. No one work ethic fit all of these groups. It was the industrialized society that reduced most workers to wage workers and that eventually imposed a time-centered discipline in the workplace. This homogenized the mixture of work ethics of the nineteenth century into the profit-oriented, marketplace, consuming, and producing work ethic of the twentieth century. In twentieth century America, along with the work ethic began to grow a leisure ethic, a life ethic, an education ethic, and a caring ethic, all of which can combine to make life richer and more fulfilling. (A bibliographic essay concludes each chapter. An index is appended.) (YLB)

This history of the GI Bill of Rights, enacted in 1944, describes how its provisions affected 16 million veterans. The legislative history of the Bill reflects how support and criticism grew from the various political views in Congress and the nation during and immediately after World War II. Through the GI Bill, 7.8 million veterans received education benefits and 8.5 received unemployment assistance. The Bill also provided access to low interest mortgages and thus helped spur the growth of suburbs. The growth of the American middle class was stimulated by the economic growth related to the Second World War, and by the education and housing provisions of the GI Bill. In 1942, 213,000 college degrees were conferred and in 1951, 454,000. In less than a decade, the number of graduates more than doubled and the number of new two- and four-year colleges increased by 10 percent. The GI Bill impacted higher education in other ways, including greater student diversity and more social integration. The impacts of the initial GI Bill and its successors extended beyond educational access and into modern American society. (Individual chapters contain references.) (JLS)

This study, originally commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation in 1938, makes it clear that the root of the "Negro problem" is the conflict between American moral valuations preserved in the American ideal and the valuations existing on specific planes of individual and group living. There is a jarring discrepancy between the professed respect for the inalienable rights of all and the pervasive violations of the dignity of blacks. Volume II continues the exploration of Volume I, with the 22 chapters in the following sections: (6) "Justice"; (7) "Social Inequality"; (8) "Social Stratification"; (9) "Leadership and Concerted Action"; (10) "The Negro Community"; and (11) "An American Dilemma." The 10 appendixes included in this volume provide information on the methodology of the study and additional information about the condition of blacks at various times and places in the United States. (Volume II contains 11 tables, including those in footnotes, 8 appendix tables, and 784 references.) (SLD)

The United States has been called a "melting pot," a container in which separate materials are heated and blended. When people call the United States a melting pot, they are using a metaphor for the blending of cultures that some feel has occurred in this country. Others doubt that America has been a melting pot, and many doubt that it should be. These issues are debated for young people in terms of what it means to be American. The idea popularized by Israel Zangwill's play "The Melting Pot" is that the United States would absorb and transform all immigrants. In fact, immigrants have not found the melting process smooth. The experiences of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and other ethnic groups are described. The debate about the importance of multiculturalism will not be soon resolved, but Americans on both sides might consider the compromise involved in a Pledge of Allegiance that refers to "one nation, united in our diversity." (Contains 1 graph and 14 suggestions for further reading.) (SLD)