Common Sense: Immigration

My approach here, as a U.S. and Pennsylvania historian for fifty years, is to examine briefly how immigrants and immigration have been viewed and have adapted from colonial times to the present in Pennsylvania and in the nation as a whole; and to suggest that perspective may increase our understanding of immigration.

Many residents of the Cove are proud of their Pennsylvania German/Pennsylvania Dutch heritage (as I am, though not from the Cove), which stems from William Penn and his sons’ welcoming immigrants from Germany as they sought to populate their colony. Perhaps most of us would be surprised to learn that one of Pennsylvania’s most famous residents, Benjamin Franklin, had a poor opinion of German immigrants, stating in the 1750s that “Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation,” and “Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it.” He also commented that they were “of what we call a swarthy Complexion,” using an English term derived from the German word “schwartz,” or black, and complained that those immigrants would “never adopt our Language or Customs.”

But Franklin’s remarks were rebutted 20 years later by the hundreds of Pennsylvania Germans who became the core of George Washington’s army. The army’s roster of the famed “Pennsylvania Line” is full of German names, and the Continental Congress recruited a “German regiment” specifically from German-speaking Pennsylvanians and Marylanders. The first commander of that regiment was Frederick Muhlenberg, a leader of the Lutheran church in Pennsylvania. Baron Von Steuben, an officer from Germany who joined Washington’s forces at Valley Forge, easily melded with the Continental Army because so many soldiers were German-speaking.

The pattern of prejudice against immigrants, and their later contributions as Americans, is a continuing theme in American history. To illustrate, let me draw briefly on the history of three “I” immigrant groups: the Irish, the Italians, and immigrants from India.

Residents of the Cove are undoubtedly familiar with the first substantial group of immigrants from Ireland – the Scotch-Irish – so-called because many of them were rebellious Scots, or their descendants, whom the British forcibly moved to northern Ireland. Waves of them, some of whom had intermarried with the Irish, settled in central and western Pennsylvania before the American Revolution. A later wave of truly Irish immigrants came to the new United States as refugees from British oppression from about 1790 onward, and became the labor force on the new nation’s major construction projects, such as the National Road in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the Erie and Pennsylvania canals, many railroads, and the building of Washington, DC.

The most memorable Irish migration to the U.S. was the result of the potato famine of the 1840s, which brought around a million mostly destitute refugees across the Atlantic. They were demeaned as illiterate, diseased, and unworthy of citizenship, and job notices were known to contain the phrase “Irish need not apply.” Yet only a few years later the Union Army in the Civil War had several “Irish regiments,” and by the 1880s major American cities, notably Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, had police forces heavily staffed by the sons of the refugees. About 9 percent of Americans today have Irish ancestry.

Italian immigration to the United States was mostly a phenomenon of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many of the immigrants clustered in cities, creating multiple “Little Italys” throughout the United States. Others, often recruited by American businesses needing cheap labor, went directly from arriving ships to mines, factories and other work sites.

Among other contributions Italian migration had an enormous impact on American eating habits. Lee Iacocca, later well-known as leader of the American automobile industry, grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the 1920s and 1930s. He remarked in his best-selling autobiography (1984) that his schoolmates had ridiculed him for eating pizza but that fifty years later there were pizza shops or restaurants everywhere in America – even in towns that never had a “Little Italy.”

The migration of people from India is by comparison a recent phenomenon, occurring mostly after United States reformed its immigration policy in 1965. A substantial portion of Indian immigrants have arrived with advanced education in medicine and science because India has several world-class colleges and universities. Others have come with entrepreneurial skills and have started or revitalized businesses throughout the United States. In our travels across Pennsylvania and other states my wife and I have encountered small-town gas stations/convenience stores, motels and other small businesses operated by Indian families willing to take on the long hours and modest returns associated with such enterprises. In New York City about 40 percent of the taxi driver/owners are from south Asia, which includes India. The 2020 census counted over 14,000 Indians in Pittsburgh.

Overall, it is estimated that there are about 4 million Americans of Indian origins or ancestry at this time, who are often seen as “model immigrants” because of their education and business skills. Yet a recent survey indicated that 50 percent of Indian immigrants or their descendants had experienced discrimination because of skin color, religion or other identifiers. I personally know a person from India who has been in the United States for 30 years, is an American citizen, and holds a professional position, but has told me that almost every day he experiences discriminatory behaviors.

This brief survey suggests that immigrants typically experience strong initial reactions to their presence as newcomers, but soon adapt to and contribute to American culture in distinct and positive ways. As the vast majority of Americans are descendants of immigrants who have made such contributions we would do well to consider our own heritages, and our own ancestors’ immigration experiences, as we ask our elected representatives to shape current and future immigration policies.