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 sur...