United States as a land of immigrants

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Introduction

United States is a land of immigrants and the recent census statistics have indicated that about 99% of the United States population can trace their origin to various nations across the sea, which includes European nations, African and Asian counties. The main reason behind various nationalities in the United States is attributable to heavy immigration through four American history centuries that have played a major role in stimulating United States’ dramatic population increased from a minor backwater across the distant British Empire fringe to the wealthiest economy in the globe and the top most populous nation with different nationalities. The discussion will analyze nationalities in the United States and discuss their economic impacts to the United States. It will also outline the benefits and limitations of multinational society, laws that were established in the US because of diverse nationalities, and the established challenges of multinational society as well as ways of coping with multinational society challenges.

Discussion

Nationalities in the United States and their economic impacts to the nation have be a point of discussion by various economists. Literature reviews that the US has experience dramatic immigration waves during the colonial era, in the 19th century and between 1880 and 1920s. Most of the US immigrants came to the nations looking for increased economic opportunities and others came seeking religious liberty – Muslim pilgrims of the 1600s. Similarly, started the 17th and 19th centuries, various slaves from African arrived in US against their wishes, (Bankston, Carl and Danielle 12). The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the earliest fundamental legislations by the US government to stop migration to the United States. Individual states also put some laws to restrict migration before the Ellis Island launch in the 1892 and in 1995, new immigration laws halted quota system that allowed European immigration, and currently, most of the US immigrants are Latin Americans and Asians.

Most of the United States population has European origin, with the largest population having the main origin traceable to nations like UK, Ireland, and Germany. Various Americans report duo or multiple nationalities with primary racial and national minority groups such as black Americans – with United States, African or Caribbean origin, china, Filipinas, Japanese, and Mexican nationals, and some from Americans with Spanish origin (Dvorak 14). The 2000 census suggested that United States population comprised of about 75.2% were whites, 12.6% Hispanics, 12.4 blacks 3.6% Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, 0.8% American Indians or Natives (Rothenberg 25).

Large immigrants groups from Europe came to the United States to search for economic opportunities; therefore, they had economic benefits and limitations to the US. For instance, because of steep price of passage, the largest group of the white Europeans to the US became indentured servants to the US companies and industries. Even though, some immigrants willingly indentured themselves, some were enslaved and trafficked from cities in Europe and held as slaves in the US (Friedman 69). In addition, various English convicts were transported across the Atlantic Ocean as slaves.

Immigrants from different countries are mainly hard workers who brought diverse talents, competences, expertise and skills to US companies and markets. They were principled people who promote the reputation of the US and were beneficial to the nation. Cultural diversity added value to the US companies, governments, and cultures (Massey, Jorge and Nolan 58). Multiculturalism makes the country rich in that they participate and offer their skills, expertise, and knowledge in international business. Similarly, US efficiently utilized ethnocultural aspects in the society to obtain a share of developing markets. This is because availability of diverse ethnic people is a critical mechanism for America.

Immigrants can create tension to Native Americans as they take natives jobs since they have specialized skills expertise and can provide cheap labor. Consequently, United States experience economic hardships because of increased unemployment as most of unskilled labors and American natives remain jobless (Gragnon and James 41). Joblessness causes tension between natives and immigrants especially because immigrants have employments opportunities – though lowly paid – and natives remain jobless. This causes hatred and racial segregation in the country.

Immigrants from different national origins bring skilled labor, expertise, and new technologies to Americans industries and companies, which is a plus to the economy. For instance, 2000 census evidence indicated that most finance and banking sector of the United States, as well as the agricultural sector benefited from employment of about 75% immigrants.

Additionally, immigrants have also stifled down the economy of America because 50% of them are known to send much of their money to their relatives and families in their nations of origin. Economically, this is a challenge to the US because the economy is gains very little from the immigrants.

Different nationalities in the United States created what experts refer to as multinational society (Johnstad 45). Multicultural society is the acceptance of diverse ethnic groups and cultural at the national level. This occurs in a nation where different people with diverse nationalities come together, form one society, and are accorded similar status. In the colonial era United States experienced a massive migration of people from different regions of the world mostly Europe, which is a key feature of the United State society. This massive immigration of people from different nationalities has resulted to multiculturalism in the US.

Experts agree that multinational societies experience various benefits and challenges. For instance, living together in a multinational society that has people with diverse nationalities and perspectives, make citizens interact together; share their cultures, experiences, skills, and expertise. People in a multinational society have to develop a common language that will enable them to communicate and share ideas, perspectives, and talents because each citizen has to learn from one another- promoting development in an intellectual manner (Marckey 63). A multinational society promotes an increasingly open-minded community and people start seeing situations from their neighbor’s perspective.

Shared communication and language has a economic and social importance because it enable people to respect , tolerate, and accept each their cultural differences and coexist in harmonious way (Simcox 23). People feel comfortable interacting and working together to increase productivity. Multinational society promotes togetherness in work and life and makes people less racists creating a non-discriminative society and a peaceful society.

Multinational society also face various challenges, for instance, people in multinational society – American natives or nationals – thing of immigrants as a threat to their culture, traditions and society because they can ruin the definition of the culture. Similarly, immigrants consider multinational society as a pool to ruin them of their morals, identity and culture because they have to adopt foreign cultures, language, and tradition to be able to fit in the society.

Multinational society at times promotes inequalities in social-economic opportunities for minor ethnic groups and this is a major problem in the US (Sen and Fekkak 42). Experts agree that multinational society concept has a major role to play in the US economics of gender and race. Experts define economics of gender and race as the theory of economics – this is how different nationals make choices and how such choices affect the US economy and the productivity of the person. Economics of gender and race looks into how practicality that diverse people have varied opportunities to make decisions, varied capacities to make choice and varied results from such decisions when their ethnicity and gender is considered.

For instance, racial segregation in the United States because of immigration laws has created a different between American natives and immigrants. This has affected their participation and motivation in economic activities (Carrare 42). Oppressed races and gender such as black’s women ware not give equal rights and recognition in job placement, hiring process and education systems. Additionally, in trade, business, and public fields, inequality was evident as blacks were given hardship jobs and low paying jobs.

However, this is not the case in the modern US population because of various modern immigration laws and regulations. For instance, modern immigration policy promotes equal rights for all people irrespective of their nationality, (Axelrad and Robert 52). The oppressed groups are now free to choose their job opportunities and racism has reduced because US is now an egalitarian society and the immigration and Nationality Act eliminates any case of racism and discrimination of immigrants.

Conclusion

In conclusion, therefore, United States is a multinational society and has a lot to celebrate in the heritage of immigration. Irrespective of the various disadvantages associated with the multinational society, United States has enjoyed economic prosperity because of various talents and skills that immigrants inject of the US economy.

Works cited

Axelrad, Lee, and Robert A. Kagan. Regulatory Encounters: Multinational Corporations and American Adversarial Legalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Internet resource.

Bankston, Carl L, and Danielle A. Hidalgo. Immigration in U.s. History. Pasadena, Calif: Salem Press, 2006. Internet resource.

Carrera, Sergio. In Search of the Perfect Citizen?: The Intersection between Integration, Immigration, and Nationality in the Eu. Leiden: M. Nijhoff, 2009. Internet resource.

Dvorak, William. Immigration in the United States. New York: H.W. Wilson Co, 2009. Print.

Gagnon, Alain, and James Tully. Multinational Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Print.

Fernandez, Ronald. America’s Banquet of Cultures: Harnessing Ethnicity, Race, and Immigration in the Twenty-First Century. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000. Print.

Friedman, Lawrence M. American Law in the 20th Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.Print.

Johnstad, Trygve. Group Dynamics and Society: A Multinational Approach. Cambridge, Mass: Published for the European Institute for Trans-National Studies in Group and Organizational Development [by] Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, 2000. Print.

Mackey, William F. Multinational Society. , 2005. Print.

Massey, Douglas S, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002. Print.

Mackey, William F, and Albert Verdoodt. The Multinational Society: Papers of the Ljubljana Seminar. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House, Publishers, 1975. Print.

Rothenberg, Paula S. Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. Print.

Sen, Rinku, and Fekkak Mamdouh. The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008. Internet resource.

Simcox, David E. U.s. Immigration in the 1980s: Reappraisal and Reform. Boulder: Westview Press, 1988. Print.