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At J.E.B. Stuart High School
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New Americans: Their Origins, Their Destinations
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By
Joel L. Swerdlow
Photographs by
Karen Kasmauski
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Record waves of immigration deliver teens from around the world to a rocky shore—high school in the U.S.A.
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Read or print the full story.
J. E. B. Stuart High School opened in Falls Church, Virginia, in 1959. At that time the school, named for a famous Confederate cavalry commander in the American Civil War, possessed a student body of 1,616—virtually all Anglo-American. Change came slowly, accelerating during the mid-1990s, when immigration to the United States—legal and illegal —reached today’s near-record level of a million people a year. According to the 2000 census, 10 percent of America’s 281 million residents were born in other countries, the highest percentage since 1930 and the largest number in U.S. history. Before 1965 more than three-quarters of all immigrants to the U.S. came from Europe, owing largely to quotas that favored northern Europeans. In 1965 Congress removed those quotas, and since then more than 60 percent of immigrants have come from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Latin America.
Says Kenneth Prewitt, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, “We’re on our way to becoming the first country in history that is literally made up of every part of the world.”
Immigration patterns worldwide show a flow of people from poor countries to those with stronger economies, especially to industrialized countries with aging workforces. The influx is changing the makeup of populations in Britain, now 7 percent foreign-born, and France, also 7 percent. Immigrants now constitute nearly 10 percent of Germany’s population, and 17 percent of residents in Canada are non-Canadian. In many ways J. E. B. Stuart mirrors this immigration revolution. Half of its 1,400 students were born in 70 countries.
In “Combating Intolerance,” an elective course for juniors and seniors at Stuart, class discussions cover such topics as hate crimes, Ku Klux Klan violence, and why “No Irish Need Apply” appeared on job posters in cities where Irish immigrants looked for work in the 19th century. The morning I sit in, one of the students remarks: “America is a country of immigrants but also a country that sometimes hates immigrants.”
“So why would anyone want to immigrate to the U.S.?” I ask, wondering if the students can reconcile this country’s ideals with its shortcomings.
Subscribe to National Geographic magazine.
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VIDEO It’s back to high school for photographer Karen Kasmauski. Click Here
AUDIO (recommended for low-speed connections)
RealPlayer WinMedia
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We offer this forum board in Spanish and English.
Around a million people immigrate legally to the U.S. each year. Are levels too high or too low? Share your thoughts.
Cerca a un millón de gente inmigra a los Estados Unidos cada año. ¿Es que son los niveles muy altos ó muy bajos? Comparta sus ideas.
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| In More to Explore the National Geographic magazine team shares some of its best sources and other information. Special thanks to the Research Division. |
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A graph on page 53 of the September issue of National Geographic charts the flow of immigrants from Latin America to the United States each decade since 1820. Until 1900 the numbers are fairly small, but by the middle of the 20th century they begin to increase. The most recent figures show that some 3.6 million people immigrated to the U.S. from Latin America between 1990 and 1998. The low numbers shown for the early years, however, don’t tell the whole story.
There were few restrictions on immigrants coming via Mexico until 1917. Before then, people were permitted to enter the U.S. from Mexico in unlimited numbers; many people simply walked over the border without ever being counted.
Immigration and Naturalization Service records, our source for the graph, include only immigrants who entered the U.S. at seaports or checkpoints along borders, and the recording of land border arrivals was sporadic until around 1908. For a time, even those who arrived by sea from either Mexico or Canada were not counted, since officials realized that without information on land arrivals, the seaport data gave an incomplete record of immigration from those countries.
Limited horseback patrols of the southern border began in the early 1900s, but their primary concern was stopping Chinese and European immigrants who had been unable to enter the country at Ellis Island and were trying to make an end run at the southern border.
—Robin Adler
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J. E. B. Stuart High School
www.fcps.edu/StuartHS/
Learn more about J. E. B. Stuart High School, the Virginia school featured in our story on immigration. The site includes statistics, contact information, and descriptions of some of the school’s academic and extracurricular programs.
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/index.htm
The website of the INS provides official information on immigration laws, INS forms and fee information, links to field offices, and frequently asked questions. There is also a useful glossary of immigration terms, in case you are unsure about who qualifies as an immediate relative, what the visa preference system is, or who has “acquired citizenship.”
Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)
www.cis.org/index.cgi
The CIS is a nonprofit think tank devoted to research and analysis of the impact of immigration on the United States—socially, economically, and demographically. Its website includes current articles on immigration, fact sheets, and research studies on topics ranging from refugee resettlement to homosexual immigrants to African Americans’ views of immigration.
INS Statistical Yearbook, 1998
www.ins.gov/graphics/aboutins/statistics/1998yb.pdf
1998 is the latest year for which INS data on immigration are available. The statistical yearbook is a fascinating document full of tables and charts with country-by-country information on the year’s immigrants—their ages, sexes, areas of employment, intended states of residence, and much more.
U.S. Census Bureau
www.census.gov/
Ten percent of the population of the United States, according to the 2000 census, was born in other countries. The number of Hispanics living in the U.S. now exceeds the number of blacks. Find these and other interesting statistics about the U.S. population at the Census Bureau’s information-packed site. In addition to data from the 2000 census (new information is added frequently), you’ll find essays on the characteristics of the population, “population clocks” showing current estimates for the U.S. and world populations, state-by-state “quick facts,” and more.
Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies
www.balchinstitute.org/index.htm
Based in Philadelphia, the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies promotes understanding and respect for immigrants and for the ethnic and racial diversity of the United States. The Balch Institute collects materials focusing on American immigrant experiences and shares them with the public through a museum, educational programs, a library, and lectures.
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Lollock, Lisa. “The Foreign-Born Population in the United States, March 2000.” Current Population Reports, Report #P20-534, U.S. Census Bureau, 2001. Also available online at www.census.gov/prod/2000pubs/p20-534.pdf.
Millman, Joel. The Other Americans: How Immigrants Renew our Country, our Economy, and our Values. Viking, 1997.
Purcell, L. Edward. Immigration. Oryx Press, 1995.
Singer, Audrey, and others. “The World in a Zip Code: Greater Washington, D.C. as a New Region of Immigration.” The Brookings Institution, 2001. Also available online at www.brook.edu/es/urban/immigration/immigration.pdf.
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Parfit, Michael. “Human Migration,” National Geographic (October 1998), 6-35.
Swerdlow, Joel. “New York’s Chinatown,” National Geographic (August 1998), 58-77.
Conniff, Richard. “Tex-Mex Border,” National Geographic (February 1996), 44-69.
Range, Peter Boss. “Europe Faces an Immigrant Tide,” National Geographic (May 1993), 94-125.
Conniff, Richard. “Chicago: Welcome to the Neighborhood,” National Geographic (May 1991), 50-77.
Van Dyk, Jere. “Growing Up in East Harlem,” National Geographic (May 1990), 52-75.
Hall, Alice J. “Immigration Today: New York’s New Immigrants,” National Geographic (September 1990), 103-105.
Hall, Alice J. “New Life for Ellis Island,” National Geographic (September 1990), 89-101.
Morgan, Neil. “San Diego—Where Two Californias Meet,” National Geographic (August 1989), 176-205.
Abercrombie, Thomas J. “Unsettled Immigrants,” National Geographic (July 1989), 121-129.
Zich, Arthur. “Japanese Americans: Home at Last,” National Geographic (April 1986), 512-539.
Hall, Alice J. “Liberty Lifts Her Lamp Once More,” National Geographic (July 1986), 2-19.
Everingham, John. “One Family’s Odyssey to America,” National Geographic (May 1980), 642-661.
Linehan, Edward J. “Cuba’s Exiles Bring New Life to Miami,” National Geographic (July 1973), 68-95.
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