Encyclopedia of American Immigration

I remember reading once that most countries derive their social cohesion from community, from a sense of shared values and a common way of life. This may or may not involve racial solidarity although having the same language is certainly important. America has never been able to rely on either of these things. Today experts predict that Spanish may be as important as English in 30 years time. As for immigration, it is universal of course: France has Algerians, Germany has Turks; Russia has dozens of minorities. But in each of these cases, the incomers were grafted onto a big...