Powell J. Encyclopedia Of North American Immigration

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North Korea See K

OREAN IMMIGRATION

North West Company

The North West Company was, according to journalist and

historian Peter Newman, “the first North American business

to operate on a continental scale.” Between 1783 and 1821,

the company created an extensive fur-trading network that

stretched 3,000 miles from Montreal to the Athabasca

Country of the North West and included 100 outposts

along the way. The richness of the fur trade—including

beaver, bear, fox, otter, muskrat, marten, mink, lynx, wolver-

ine, fisher, and wolf, as well as deer and elk hides—yielded

extensive profits for its M

ONTREAL

UEBEC

, investors.

In response to the loss of territories south of the Great

Lakes in the American Revolution (1775–83), a number of

Montreal fur-trading firms joined together during the 1780s

to form the North West Company. By 1800, the company

was far exceeding all rivals, including the H

UDSON

’

OMPANY

. In 1811, T

HOMAS

OUGLAS

, fifth earl of

Selkirk, who owned controlling interest in the Hudson’s Bay

Company, obtained from the latter a grant of 116,000

square miles of land at the fork of the Red and Assiniboine

Rivers near Lake Winnipeg to establish a colony of Scottish

and Irish immigrants who had been driven from their lands

as a result of the

ENCLOSURE MOVEMENT

. In reaction, the

North West Company, fearing loss of access to the valuable

fur-bearing regions of the Northwest as well as to its essen-

tial supply of pemmican, joined with local Métis (Canadians

of mixed white and indigenous heritage) in an attempt to

drive the settlers away. This led to a frontier war, in which

Lord Selkirk hired German, Swiss, French, and Polish mer-

cenary veterans of the War of 1812 to attack the North West

Company’s interior headquarters at Fort William. Although

the North West Company had been successful at first,

sounder finance and a gradual adaptation to wilderness war-

fare enabled the Hudson’s Bay Company to prevail. Under

pressure from the British government, in 1821, the two

companies merged, with North West shareholders receiving

shares in the Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1824, a reorgani-

zation led to an almost complete loss of influence by former

shareholders of the North West Company.

Further Reading

Campbell, Marjorie Wilkins. The North West Company. Toronto:

Macmillan of Canada, 1957.

———. The Nor

’Westers: The Fight for the Fur Tr

ade. Toronto:

Macmillan of Canada, 1974.

Davidson, Gordon Charles. The North West Company. Berkeley: Uni-

versity of California Press, 1918.

Mitchell, Elaine Allan. “The Scot in the Fur

Trade.” In The Scottish

Tradition in Canada. Ed. W. S

tanford Reid. Toronto: McClelland

and S

tewart, 1976.

Newman, Peter C. Caesars of the Wilder

ness. Vol. 2, Company of Adven-

turers. New York: Viking, 1987.

Norwegian immigration

Norway was the number one source country for Scandina-

vian immigration to North America, and second only to

famine-ravaged Ireland in percentage of its population to

immigrate. According to the U.S. census of 2000 and the

Canadian census of 2001, 4,477,725 Americans and

363,760 Canadians claimed Norwegian ancestry. Because

most Norwegian immigration came before World War I

(1914–18), Norwegians have become largely assimilated to

North American life and live throughout most parts of the

United States and Canada. The greatest concentrations are

still in and around the early agricultural settlements of the

upper Midwest, with the greatest urban concentrations

located in New York City; Chicago, Illinois; and Min-

neapolis, Minnesota. Almost one-third of Canadian Norwe-

gians live in British Columbia.

Norway occupies 118,700 square miles of the western

part of the Scandinavian peninsula in northwest Europe and

extends farther north than any other European country.

Sweden, Finland, and Russia border Norway on the east. In

2002, the population was estimated at 4,503,440. About

96 percent of the population is Norwegian, with ethnic

roots in both Germanic and Lapp cultures. About 88 per-

cent of Norway’s population is Evangelical Lutheran. Dur-

ing the period of Norwegian immigration to North

America, religion played an important role in everyday life;

by 2002, however, much of the adherence was nominal.

Norway’s first ruler was Harald the Fairhaired, who came to

power in 872. Between 800 and 1000, Norwegian Vikings

raided and occupied many coastal areas of Europe, includ-

ing Russia, Ireland, England, and France. The country was

united with Denmark under a common king between 1380

and 1814. Norway was ceded to Sweden in 1814 after the

Napoleonic Wars but became independent in 1905. Norway

remained neutral during World War I and attempted to do

so during World War II (1939–45) but was occupied by

Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1945. The country aban-

doned its neutrality after the war and joined the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Abundant hydro-

electric and petroleum resources provided a solid economic

base, giving Norway one of the highest living standards in

the world. In 1994, Norwegians chose not to join the Euro-

pean Union.

Norwegians began immigrating to the United States in

significant numbers in the 1840s and continued to come

until the outbreak of World War I. Although the population

of Norway grew rapidly during the 19th century, so too did

personal freedoms and industry. The old social distinctions

remained, however, and many among Norway’s peasantry—

about 80 percent of the population—sought land and polit-

ical equality in North America. Unlike many immigrants

from eastern and southern Europe after 1880, most Norwe-

gians came to North America with their families, intending

to stay and establish a new life. By 1865, nearly 80,000 had

214 NORTH KOREA

settled in the United States, and with the end of the Civil

War that same year, a great wave of Norwegian settlers

arrived: 110,000 between 1866 and 1873 alone. By the

1870s, they had established a strong ethnic presence in

southern Wisconsin, northern Iowa, Minnesota, and eastern

parts of the Dakota territories. With a larger tide of immi-

gration in the 1880s (176,586), 1890s (95,015), and 1900s

(190,505), more Norwegians, both first and second genera-

tion, spread westward to Oregon, Washington, British

Columbia, and Alaska. The Pacific coastal regions were rem-

iniscent of western Norway, and Norwegians slipped

smoothly into the fishing and trading economies. In a sepa-

rate movement, the shipping boom of the late 1870s and

1880s brought 1,200 Norwegian ships to New York City

annually, leading thousands of skilled seamen to jump ship

and establish residence in the area, mainly Brooklyn, where

they found ready employment. As a result, Brooklyn became

the single largest Norwegian community in the United

States. Of approximately 900,000 Norwegian immigrants to

the United States, more than 85 percent came between 1865

and 1930. Between 1992 and 2002, an average of about 450

Norwegians immigrated to the United States annually.

The Canadian government encouraged Norwegian set-

tlement, though cheaper land prices and better condition in

the United States inhibited settlement in large numbers in

the Canadian West until after 1900. As better lands in the

United States were taken, an increasing number of Norwe-

gians sought farmsteads on the Canadian prairies. Between

1900 and 1914, almost 20,000 Norwegians came directly

from Europe and thousands more from the United States.

With severe economic depression in Norway during the

1920s, 20,000 more Norwegians came before the Great

Depression in the 1930s almost halted immigration. With

a healthy economy at home since World War II, few Nor-

wegians have chosen to emigrate. Average immigration in

the 1980s and 1990s was only about 100 per year. Of

Canada’s more than 360,000 Norwegians in 2001, barely

6,000 were immigrants, three-quarters of whom immigrated

before 1971.

Further Reading

Bergmann, L. N. Americans from Norway. Westport, Conn.: Green-

wood Press, 1950.

Bjor

k, K

enneth O. West of the Great Divide: Norwegian Migration to

the Pacific Coast, 1847–1893. N

orthfield, Minn.: Norwegian-

American Historical Association, 1958.

legan, Theodor

e. Norwegian Migration to America, 1825–1860.

1931. Reprint, Northfield, Minn.: Norwegian American Histor-

ical Association, 1940.

Gjer

de, Jon. From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand,

Nor

way, to the Upper Middle West. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-

versity P

ress, 1985.

———. The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural

iddle W

est, 1830–1917. Chapel Hill: University of North Car-

olina Pr

ess, 1997.

Loken, Gulbrand. From Fjord to Frontier: A History of the Norwegians

in Canada. Tor

onto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980.

Lovoll, Odd S. The Promise Fulfilled: A Portrait of Norwegian Ameri-

cans

Today. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P

ress, 1998.

———. The Promise of America: A History of the Norwegian-Ameri-

can People. R

ev. ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

1999.

auk, D

avid C. The Colony That Rose from the Sea: Norwegian Mar-

itime Migr

ation and Community in Brooklyn, 1850–1910. North-

field, Minn.: N

orwegian-American Historical Association, 1997.

Niemi, Einar. “Emigration from Northern Norway: A Frontier Phe-

nomenon? Some Perspectives and Hypotheses.” In Norwegian-

merican E

ssays 1996. Eds. Øyvind Gulliksen, Dina Tolfsby, and

David M

auk. Oslo, Norway: Norwegian Emigrant Museum, 1996.

Schultz, April R. Ethnicity on Parade: Inventing the Norwegian Ameri-

can thr

ough C

elebration. Amherst: University of Massachusetts

ess, 1994.

Semmingsen, Ingrid. Norway to America: A History of the Migration.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978.

Nova Scotia

The peninsula of Nova Scotia was a continual source of con-

flict between France and Britain from the establishment of

NOVA SCOTIA 215

A Norwegian woman (with her back turned to the camera)

bids her family farewell as she prepares to immigrate to

America. Norway suffered more pressure from want of

agricultural land than any other European nation in the 19th

century, and the percentage of the Norwegian population to

emigrate was second only to Ireland’s.

(Library of Congress,

Prints & Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-94442])

its first settlement by France at Port Royal (1605) until

France was driven completely from North America in the

EVEN

EARS

’W

(1756–63). The Treaty of Utrecht

(1713) had forced France from A

CADIA

, but the region was

ill defined, and the British only substantively occupied the

peninsula of Nova Scotia. The French were allowed to retain

the almost uninhabited Île Royale (Cape Breton Island),

where they constructed the fortress of Louisbourg. In 1749,

British settlers established Halifax, which became the capi-

tal. Fleeing European persecution, French, German, and

Swiss Protestants immigrated to Nova Scotia in the early

1750s. In 1755, British colonial troops began to drive out

Acadians who refused to swear loyalty to the British Crown.

Following the Seven Years’ War, Britain hoped to spur

settlement in the Maritime Provinces—Nova Scotia, N

RUNSWICK

, Isle St. John (P

RINCE

DWARD

SLAND

)—

EWFOUNDLAND

, and Q

UEBEC

, both to offset the pre-

dominant French population and to weaken the more

independent colonies to the south. By issuing the Procla-

mation of 1763, which prohibited settlement west of the

Appalachian Mountains, Britain believed that settlers

would flock northward. Nova Scotia’s population did grow,

to 13,500 by 1767, but few of the immigrants came from

the thirteen colonies. With its rugged terrain and proxim-

ity to the sea, the province became the favored destination

for destitute Scottish Highlanders, who began arriving in

1773. By the early 19th century, eastern Nova Scotia had

taken on a distinctly Scottish character (see S

COTTISH

IMMIGRATION

The most dramatic demographic change came with the

resettling of some 35,000 United Empire Loyalists at the end

of the American Revolution in 1783 (see A

MERICAN

EVO

LUTION AND IMMIGRATION

). Almost all were American-

born civilians of the lower and middle classes, and most had

lived in New York and Pennsylvania. In return for their loy-

alty, they were evacuated at government expense to Nova

Scotia and given land and provisions. Fearing friction

between these newcomers and native Nova Scotians, the

British government hoped to resettle them along the sparsely

populated St. John River valley of New Brunswick, but about

19,000 remained and founded on the rocky southeastern

coast Shelburne, making it almost instantly the largest city in

British North America. Within three years, however, the

town was deserted. Most of the Loyalists were eventually

resettled on the eastern end of the peninsula and in the val-

leys behind Annapolis Royal. Loyalist settlements at Sydney

and Baddeck on Cape Breton led to Cape Breton’s brief exis-

tence as a separate colony (1784–1820). Among the Loyalists

were 3,000 free blacks, many of whom had been granted

freedom under a British policy encouraging slaves to aban-

don their masters during the war. Most were settled around

Shelburne and Birchtown. Encountering prejudice and dif-

ficult farming conditions, almost 1,200 decided to emigrate,

leaving Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone in 1792.

With Canadian weaknesses exposed during the War of

1812 (1812–15), the British government once again encour-

aged immigration, prompting a steady stream of Scottish

immigrants between 1815 and 1850. Large numbers of Irish

also immigrated after the potato blight of 1845. In 1848,

Nova Scotia became the first completely self-governing

colony in the British Empire. The economy remained strong

into the 1860s, based on the shipbuilding and timber indus-

tries, but began to decline with the advent of steamships. In

1867, Nova Scotia became a charter province of the newly

confederated Canada, along with New Brunswick, Ontario,

and Quebec.

Further Reading

Brown, Wallace. The King’s Friends: The Composition and Motives of the

American Lo

yalist Claimants. Providence, R.I.: Brown University

ess, 1965.

Careless, J. M. S., ed. Colonists and Canadiens, 1760–1867. Toronto:

Macmillan of Canada, 1971.

Cowan, Helen I. British Emigration to British North America: The

First Hundred Y

ears. T

oronto: University of T

oronto Press, 1961.

Ells, Margaret. “Settling the Loyalists in Nova Scotia.” Canadian His-

torical Association Repor

t for 1934. Ottawa: Canadian Historical

Association, 1934.

ohnson, Stanley. A History of Emigration from the United Kingdom to

th America, 1763–1912. London: George Routledge and

Sons, 1913.

MacNutt, W

. S. The Atlantic Pro

vinces:

The Emergence of Colonial Soci-

ety, 1712–1857. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965.

Moor

e, Christopher. The Loyalists: Revolution, Exile, Settlement.

Toronto: M

acmillan of Canada, 1984.

ilson, Bruce. Colonial Identities: Canada from 1760–1815. Ottawa:

National Ar

chives of Canada, 1988.

216 NOVA SCOTIA

Oregon Treaty

The Oregon Country was a huge expanse of lightly inhab-

ited territory north of Mexican California, south of Russian

Alaska, and southwest of the British trapping lands of the

Athabasca Country. During the first decade of the 19th cen-

tury, Britain, the United States, Mexico, and Russia all

claimed this vast Pacific watershed of the Rocky Mountains,

roughly from the 42nd parallel northward to parallel 54

degrees 40 north, the southern boundary of Alaska. In 1818,

Britain and the United States agreed to a joint occupation

and in the following year, secured former Spanish claims in

the south. Generally speaking, the British N

ORTH

EST

OMPANY

and H

UDSON

’

OMPANY

were most active

in the northern portion of the region, and the American

Pacific Fur Company, in the south. Although a few settlers,

both British and American, ventured to Oregon, significant

permanent settlement did not begin until the early 1840s.

By 1845, 6,000 permanent American settlers inhabited the

Willamette Valley, with the promise of more to follow. Ore-

gon had become part of the bitter presidential election of

1844, in which candidate James K. Polk campaigned on the

slogan, “Fifty-four forty or fight!” claiming the northern-

most boundary of Oregon as his foreign-policy goal. By

1846, political considerations on both sides dictated a com-

promise. The United States was on the verge of war with

Mexico, while Britain was on bad terms with France and

dealing with the significant potential effects of the repeal of

the Corn Law. As a result, a compromise was reached, divid-

ing the Oregon Country along the 49th parallel to the

Pacific but giving Britain control of the whole of Vancouver

Island. The United States gained formal recognition of the

primary settlement areas, as well as its first deep water port

on the Pacific, while British control of the rich fur-bearing

regions of the north was conceded. The Hudson’s Bay Com-

pany nevertheless continued to operate trading posts in Ore-

gon until 1871.

Further Reading

[Adopted Citizen]. Will There Be War? N

ew York: W. Taylor, 1846.

Francis, Daniel. Battle for the West: Fur Traders and the Birth of West-

ern C

anada. Edmonton, Canada: Hurtig Publishers, 1982.

Morrison, D

orothy Nafus. The Eagle and the Fort: the Story of John

McLoughlin. 2d ed. Portland: Press of the Oregon Historical

Society

Western Imprints, 1984.

Pletcher, David M. The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and

the M

exican

War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973.

Oriental Exclusion Act (United States) (1924)

The Oriental Exclusion Act, actually a special provision of

the J

OHNSON

-R

EED

of 1924, excluded immigrants who

were ineligible for U.S. citizenship from entrance to the

United States, even at the new ethnic-based, lower levels. It

was the natural extension of racialist and increasingly restric-

tive immigration policies including the C

HINESE

XCLUSION

of 1882, the G

ENTLEMEN

’

GREEMENT

of 1907, and

the I

MMIGRATION

of 1917. Although the Japanese were

not explicitly named, they were the clear targets of the amend-

ment, as Chinese and Asian Indian immigration had been

217

prohibited prior to this new legislation. Two years earlier, in

ZAWA V

NITED

TATES

(1922), the Supreme Court had

ruled that Japanese were not eligible for U.S. citizenship

because they were not “white.” The Oriental Exclusion Act

seemed to violate the Gentlemen’s Agreement, which put

the burden of immigration restriction on the Japanese gov-

ernment. There was an attempt to exempt Japanese as “enti-

tled to enter the United States under the provision of a treaty

or an agreement relating solely to immigration,” but it was

overwhelmingly defeated. The Japanese government

protested at being singled out but to no avail.

Further Reading

Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigrants and

Immigr

ation Policy since 1882. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004.

———. The Politics of Prejudice: The A

nti-J

apanese Movement in Cal-

ifornia and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion. Berkeley: Univer-

sity of California Pr

ess, 1977.

Hutchinson, E. P. Legislative History of American I

mmigr

ation Policy,

1798–1965. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.

Murray

, Francis J. “An Investigation of the Influences Responsible for

Oriental Exclusion in the American Immigration Act of 1924.”

M.A. thesis, Niagara University, 1962.

Our Country: Its Possible Future and

Its Present Crisis

Josiah Strong’s influential 1885 polemic, Our Country: Its

Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, represented both Amer-

ica’s sense of manifest destiny and nativist fears as the

NEW

IMMIGRATION

began to bring hundreds of thousands of

eastern and southern Europeans into the country (see

NATIVISM

). It became a national best-seller and made Strong

a celebrity.

A Congregationalist minister and missionary in the

American West, Strong was a staunch expansionist, who

wholeheartedly embraced the ideals of Anglo-Saxon civiliza-

tion and its benefits for the uncivilized world. He believed

that the English-speaking peoples were favored by God and

that in “the final competition of races,” they would eventu-

ally “move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and

South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon

Africa and beyond.” This would be accomplished by taking

trade and the Christian gospel to the world. Strong argued

that Catholics could not be good U.S. citizens, as they owed

their first allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church. There

is, he wrote, “an irreconcilable difference between papal

218 OUR COUNTRY: ITS POSSIBLE FUTURE AND ITS PRESENT CRISIS

For a fee, immigrants could get help in completing naturalization papers in all the major cities of the United States—unless they

were Asian. Between 1870 and 1943, most Asian immigrants were prohibited from becoming naturalized citizens.

(U.S. National

Archives #119-G-81-M-3)

principles and the fundamental principles of our free insti-

tutions.” Strong was also an early proponent of the Social

Gospel movement, seeking to serve God by improving the

condition of the poor. He helped found the League for

Social Service and the Federal Council of Churches. Our

Countr

y was pr

ovided as an outline for a progressive and

healthy America, an important par

t of which was immigra-

tion restriction.

Further Reading

Chai, Dong-bai. “Josiah Strong: Apostle of Anglo-Saxonism and

ocial Christianity.” Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1972.

Edwards, Wendy Deichmann. “Forging an Ideology for American

Missions: Josiah Strong and Manifest Destiny.” Currents in

World Christianity Project 59. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

sity, 1998.

Muller, Dorothea. “Josiah Strong and the Challenge of the City.”

Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1956.

Schulz, Richard W. “Josiah Strong: Cultural Assimilation and the

Immigrant Question.” Thesis, Millersville University, 1993.

Strong, Josiah. Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis.

New York: Baker and Taylor for the American Home Mission-

y S

ociety, 1885.

Ozawa v. United States (1922)

In this dramatic court case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled

that Japanese were not white and therefore could not be nat-

uralized as U.S. citizens. The decision led to complete pro-

hibition of Japanese immigration in the J

OHNSON

-R

EED

of 1924 in abrogation of the G

ENTLEMEN

’

GREE

MENT

of 1907.

In 1914, Takao Ozawa applied for citizenship, chal-

lenging a 1906 American law that limited naturalization to

“free white persons,” “aliens of African nativity,” and “per-

sons of African descent.” He had arrived as a student in

1894, graduated from a California high school, and

attended the University of California for three years before

joining a U.S. business firm in Honolulu. After his applica-

tion was denied, he appealed to the U.S. District Court for

the Territory of Hawaii (1916). The district court ruled that

Ozawa was “in every way eminently qualified” for citizen-

ship except he was not white and clearly not of African

ancestry. He then appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme

Court, where he presented his good character, his com-

plete loyalty to the United States, and his adoption over 20

years’ residence of English and American culture in favor

of his petition. He was, “at heart . . . a true American.” In

its decision, however, the Court held that although the term

white was more broadly conceived than Caucasian—taking

into account, for instance, character traits that might be

linked to race ethnicity—Ozawa clearly did not qualify for

citiz

enship

Further Reading

Curran, Thomas J. Xenophobia and Immigration, 1820–1930. Boston:

Twayne, 1975.

Ichioka, Yuji. “

The Early J

apanese Immigrant Quest for Citizenship:

The Background of the 1922 Ozawa Case.” Amerasia 4, no. 2

(1977): 12.

O’Brien, David J., and S

tephen Fugita. The Japanese American Expe-

rience. B

loomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A H

istor

y of Asian

Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

OZAWA V. UNITED STATES 219

Pacific Islander immigration

The islands of the vast Pacific Ocean stretch over thousands

of miles but have a small total population. Immigration to

North America was therefore small in numbers but of great

significance because of U.S. political involvement in the

Hawaiian Islands, Samoa, Guam, and the islands of

Micronesia and the British colonial connection to Fiji. In

2000, it was estimated that about 200,000 Pacific Islanders

lived in the United States. About half were immigrants, and

most came from Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, and the Federated

States of Micronesia. In Canada in 2001, there were 31,905

immigrants from the Pacific Islands (excluding Australia),

70 percent of them from Fiji. The highest concentrations of

Pacific Islanders in the United States were in Hawaii and on

the West Coast, and in Canada in Vancouver and lower

British Columbia.

The Pacific island region, or Oceania as it is sometimes

called, covers an area almost 9,000 miles in width and

5,500 miles in length, from New Guinea in the west and

New Zealand in the south to Easter Island in the southeast

and Midway Island in the north. There are more than

20,000 islands in this vast area, many of which are unin-

habited. The region is divided into three main culture areas:

Micronesia (including Guam, the Federated States of

Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Nauru,

and Wake Island), Melanesia (Fiji, Irian Jaya, New Caledo-

nia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanu-

atu), and Polynesia (American Samoa, the Cook Islands,

Easter Island, French Polynesia, the Hawaiian Islands, Mid-

way Island, New Zealand, Niue Island, Pitcairn Islands

Group, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna Islands,

and Western Samoa). Most of the islands of the Pacific fell

under European or American control during the 18th and

19th centuries and became economically and technologi-

cally dependent on the great powers. Most were also con-

quered by Japan during World War II (1941–45), liberated

by the United States, then economically supported in

rebuilding their economies by the United States or former

colonial powers. By 2003, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New

Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga,

Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Samoa had become independent. A

number of the other islands or island groups were in vari-

ous stages of negotiation regarding self-governance or inde-

pendence. Of the thousands of islands, New Guinea and

New Zealand compose more than 80 percent of the entire

land mass of Oceania.

Polynesians and Melanesians immigrated to the United

States in small numbers from the 1830s, when they began

to form an important part of whaling crews in the South

Pacific. Tens of thousands of native Hawaiians and Chi-

nese and Japanese laborers also immigrated to the United

States from Hawaii between the 1850s and 1898, when

the island kingdom was annexed by the United States. That

same year, Guam also was ceded to the United States as a

result of a U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War. Gua-

manians were made U.S. citizens in 1950. There was little

immigration to the United States from the non-American

Pacific Islands until after World War II. In almost every

220

island or island group, economic opportunities were

severely limited, and there was growing population pres-

sure. A significant number of Guamanians and Samoans

worked for the U.S. military, and thousands eventually

chose to work on bases in Hawaii or on the U.S. mainland.

Second only to Samoa as an Oceania source country was

Tonga, most of whose immigrants first came to study at

Brigham Young University campuses in Hawaii and Utah.

Between 1992 and 2002, the largest average annual migra-

tions were from Fiji (1,200), New Zealand (800), and

Tonga (360).

The largest Pacific Islander immigrant groups in

Canada in 2001 were Fijian (10,035) and New Zealander

(8,600). Well over 90 percent of Fijians immigrating to

Canada are the descendants of indentured (Asian) Indian

laborers taken to the islands between 1879 and 1920. Most

Fijians immigrated for a combination of reasons, including

economic opportunity and fear for the fate of the Indo-

Fijian minority after independence in 1970. Immigration

averaged more than 500 annually during much of the

1970s and 1980s but increased in the wake of two political

coups in 1987. Of 22,335 Fijian immigrants in Canada in

2001, about half came after 1987. Almost all New Zealan-

ders came to Canada for economic opportunities.

Further Reading

Barkan, Elliott. Asian and Pacific Islander Migration to the United

States. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Barringer, H

erbert R., Robert W. Gardner, and Michael J. Leven.

Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. New York: Rus-

sell Sage Foundation, 1993.

Buchigani, Norman. A Social History of South Asians in Canada.

Tor

onto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985.

Campbell, I. C. A H

istory of the Pacific Islands. Berkeley: University of

California Pr

ess, 1989.

Cowling, W. E. “Motivations for Contemporary Tongan Migration.”

In Tongan Culture and History. Eds. P. Herda, J. Terrell, and N.

Gunson. Canberra: Australian National Univ

ersity, 1990.

Franco, R. Samoans in Hawaii: A Demographic Profile. Honolulu,

Hawaii: P

opulation Institute, East-West Center, 1987.

McCall, G., and J. Connell, eds. World Perspectives on Pacific Islander

Migr

ation. Sydney, Australia: Center for South Pacific Studies,

University of N

ew South Wales, 1993.

Rogers, R. F. Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam. Honolulu: Uni-

versity of H

awaii Press, 1995.

Souder, L. M. T. Daughters of the Island: Contemporary Chamorro

Women O

rganizers on Guam. Lanham, Md.: University P

ress of

America, 1992.

Spickard, P. R., ed. Pacific Island Peoples in Hawaii. Honolulu: Uni-

versity of Hawaii Press, 1994.

Spickar

d, P.R., et al. Pacific Islander Americans: An Annotated Bibliog-

raphy in the Social Sciences. Laie, H

awaii: Institute for Polynesian

Studies, B

righam Young University, 1995.

padrone system

A padrone (from the Italian padroni for “patrons” or

“bosses”) was a middleman in the labor trade, helping poor

immigrants obtain transportation to North America, jobs

upon arrival, and basic needs in an alien society. Though

most often associated with Italian immigration during the

19th century, the labor middleman was common in many

ethnic groups from colonial times, especially in arranging

contracts for

INDENTURED SERVITUDE

. With industry

largely unregulated before World War I (1914–18), it was

easy for labor bosses to take advantage of poor, uneducated

immigrants. In organizing labor gangs to fill contracts nego-

tiated with railroads and other companies, padrones did pro-

vide jobs and often advanced money for transportation or

other essentials, but they also charged fees for every transac-

tion and sometimes required their clients to purchase goods

from their own stores. It has been estimated that more than

half the Italian labor in large U.S. cities during the late 19th

and early 20th century worked under the padrone system.

As progressive legislation was passed and immigrants in

the wave of

NEW IMMIGRATION

found more family, friends,

and social contacts to assist them upon arrival, the role of

the padrone changed from labor boss to economic adviser.

Often well connected to economic and political leaders, the

padrone was frequently able to help clients qualify for mort-

gages or improve their chances of moving up the business

ladder. As Italians and other new immigrants became

increasingly assimilated into American society after World

War II (1939–45), the role of the European padrone

declined. Labor brokers continued to play a significant role

in the lives of poorer immigrants, especially those from Mex-

ico, Central America, and Asia, though the modern padrone

was seldom as well connected to the community as he had

been early in the 20th century.

Further Reading

Harney, Robert F, and Nicholas De Maria Harney. From the Shores of

Har

dship: Italians in Canada, Essays. Welland, Canada: Soleil, 1993.

Iorizz

o, Luciano J. Italian Immigration and the Impact of the Padrone

System. N

ew York: Arno Press, 1980.

Lopreato, J

oseph. Italian Americans. New York: Random House,

1970.

elli, H

umbert S. “The Italian Padrone System in the United States.”

Labor History 5 (1964): 153–167.

Peck, Gunther. Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Work-

ers in the Nor

th American West, 1880–1930. Cambridge: Cam-

bridge Univ

ersity Press, 2000.

Pozetta, George E., ed. Pane e Lavoro: The Italian American Working

Class, P

oceedings of the Eleventh Annual Conference of the Ameri-

can Italian Historical Association . . . 1978. Toronto: Multicultural

History S

ociety of O

ntario, 1980.

Sheridan, F. J. “Italian, Slavic and Hungarian Unskilled Laborers in

the United States.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Bulletin 72. Washing-

ton, D.C.: U.S. Bur

eau of Labor, 1907.

PADRONE SYSTEM 221

Page Act (United States) (1875)

The Page Act was the first piece of American legislation to

attempt to directly regulate immigration. It was aimed at the

abuses surrounding C

HINESE IMMIGRATION

but in fact

reflected a growing anti-Asian sentiment in the United

States. It also marked a growing expansion of federal power

following settlement of states’ rights issues during the Civil

War (1861–65).

Tens of thousands of Chinese laborers were brought to

California and the American West as a result of the gold

rush (1849) and the building of the transcontinental rail-

road (1860s). Although the Chinese were usually considered

economic assets and good residents, their growing numbers

alarmed many people living in the West. In December 1874,

President Ulysses S. Grant called for curbs on two out-

growths of the Chinese immigration: forced labor and pros-

titution. California representative Horace F. Page, a

Republican, sponsored the immigration legislation enacted

on March 3, 1875. Its main provision included

1. prohibition of contracted labor from “China, Japan,

or any Oriental country” that was not “free and vol-

untary”

2. prohibition of immigration of Chinese prostitutes

3. exclusion of two classes of potential immigrants

from all countries: convicts and women “imported

for the purposes of prostitution”

Chinese women were so rigorously screened by U.S.

officials in China that most wives and other nonprostitutes

were prohibited from coming as well, their numbers prior to

the C

HINESE

XCLUSION

declining more than two-

thirds over the previous seven years. Among almost 40,000

Chinese who immigrated to the United States in the few

months prior to enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act,

only 136 of them were women. It is notable that in exclud-

ing convicts, an exception was made for “political offenses,”

thus forming the basis of American refugee policy (see

REFUGEE STATUS

Further Reading

Hutchinson, E. P. Legislative History of American Immigration Policy,

1798–1965. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

1981.

LeM

, Michael C. From Open Door to Dutch Door: An Analysis of U.S.

Immigr

ation Policy since 1820. New York: Praeger, 1987.

Peffer

, George Anthony. “Forbidden Families: Emigration Experiences

of Chinese Women under the Page Law, 1875–1882.” Journal

of A

merican E

thnic History 6 (1986): 28–46.

Pakistani immigration

Pakistanis only began to immigrate to North America in sig-

nificant numbers since the mid-1960s, when immigration

policies in both the United States and Canada abandoned

racial quotas. Pakistani immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s,

almost all Muslims, tended to be well-educated profession-

als who had been exposed to Western culture in Karachi,

Lahore, Rawalpindi, and other major urban areas. Accord-

ing to the U.S. census of 2000 and the Canadian census of

2001, 204,309 Americans and 74,015 Canadians claimed

Pakistani descent. Most observer believe the actual number

in Canada to be well over 100,000. The largest concentra-

tions of Pakistani Americans were in New York City,

Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. In Canada, they

have concentrated in the industrial centers of Ontario and in

Montreal, with significant concentrations in Vancouver,

Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg.

Pakistan occupies 300,300 square miles of South Asia

between 25 and 37 degrees north latitude. In 2002, the

population was estimated at 144,616,639. The country is

divided into four regions: Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, and

the North-West Frontier Province, each reflecting an

ancient cultural tradition and dominated by distinct ethnic

groups, most important among them the Punjabi, Sindhi,

Baloch, and Pashtun. Pakistan is bordered by Iran and

Afghanistan to the west, China to the north, and India to

the east. Islam provides a unifying factor and is practiced

by 97 percent of the population, though there are tensions

between the majority Sunni (77 percent) and the signifi-

cant Shiite minority (20 percent). The Indus River Valley,

site of the ancient Harappan civilization (ca. 2500–1700

.), gave its name to the South Asian region known as

India. Islam reached western India during the eighth cen-

tury and spread rapidly throughout the Indus valley during

extended periods of Muslim rule between the 11th and

19th centuries. Between about 1750 and 1947, the entire

South Asian region progressively fell under the control of

Britain, which ruled without representative institutions.

British India included the modern countries of India, Pak-

istan, and Bangladesh. From the 1880s, Britain began to

permit limited and narrowly prescribed forms of local self-

rule, but this tended to be dominated by the Hindu major-

ity in the country, particularly the Bengalis in the east.

When Britain finally withdrew from India in 1947,

attempts were made to partition the country along reli-

gious lines. The predominantly Muslim provinces of the

west joined with Muslim East Bengal, more than 1,000

miles away, to form the new state of Pakistan. In the vio-

lence that followed perhaps 1 million people were killed

and 12–14 million driven from one “new” land to the

other—the greatest single uprooting of people in modern

times. In 1971, civil war erupted between the eastern and

western portions of Pakistan. India sided with East Pak-

istan in the war that led to the creation of the newly

independent Bangladesh. Although Pakistan made con-

siderable progress toward democracy in the 1980s and

1990s, military disputes with India over the Kashmir

222 PAGE ACT

region and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism have led to

the maintenance of a largely military regime.

Technically, there were no Pakistanis prior to 1947, all

simply being Muslim citizens of British India. Undoubtedly,

by the 1920s, when South Asian immigration was virtually

halted, a few hundred had already emigrated from the region

to North America. Numbers prior to the 1970s are prob-

lematic because immigrants might identify themselves by

place of birth, religious affiliation, or ethnic identity. In

1947, the U.S. Congress passed a measure allowing for the

naturalization of South Asians, which eventually led to a

small stream of immigrants. There were perhaps 2,500 Pak-

istanis in the United States when the I

MMIGRATION AND

ATIONALITY

was passed in 1965, repealing the lim-

ited quotas then in effect. Pakistani immigrants arriving in

the 1960s and early 1970s tended to be well educated,

including many engineers, scientists, and pharmacists. As a

result, they generally were successful in adjusting to life in

New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and

other major U.S. cities. As they became naturalized citizens

in the later 1970s, they sponsored parents and other rela-

tives, who were generally less well educated. By 1980 the

number had risen to more than 20,000, and five times that

by 1990. Between 1992 and 2002 an average of more than

12,000 Pakistanis immigrated to the United States each year.

About one-third of them lived in the Northeast.

Around the start of the 20th century, perhaps a few

hundred Muslims and Sikhs from the Western Punjab

migrated to British Columbia before the 1907 ban on

South Asian immigration. Most of the Muslims either

returned to India or migrated to the United States. After

World War II (1939–45), the prohibition of all non-Euro-

pean immigration was amended to allow reunification of

immediate family members, a provision that some of the

earlier immigrants were able to take advantage of. In 1951,

Canada’s new quota for South Asian immigrants provided

for 100 Pakistani immigrants annually, slots taken mainly

by Punjabi Sikhs. With few Canadian contacts and virtu-

ally no government facilities for processing requests, Pak-

istanis were slow to emigrate. In the first decade under the

quota system, only 901 immigrated, most of them well-

trained professionals. During the 1970s and 1980s immi-

gration quickened, with many Pakistanis coming from

countries such as Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania where they

were perceived as outsiders and a threat to the traditional

societies. Whereas most immigrants prior to 1980 were

well educated, many who came after were less well edu-

cated, fleeing economic and communal instability in their

homeland. Of the 79,315 Pakistani immigrants in Canada

in 2001, 57,990 (73 percent) arrived between 1991 and

2001. Fewer than 3,000 had arrived before 1971. By 1980

the number had risen to more than 20,000, and five times

that number by 1990. About one-third of them lived in

the Northeast. Between 1992 and 2002, an average of

more than 12,000 Pakistanis immigrated to the United

States each year.

Further Reading

Awan, S. N. A. People of the Indus

Valley: Pakistani-Canadians. Ottawa,

S. N. A. Awan, 1989.

Buchignani, Norman, Doreen M. Indra, with Ram Srivastava. Con-

tinuous J

our

ney: A Social History of South Asians in Canada.

Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985.

ossain, M

okerrom. “South Asians in Southern California: A Socio-

logical Study of Immigrants from India, Pakistan and

Bangladesh.” South Asia Bulletin 2, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 74–83.

ensen, Joan M. Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North

America. N

ew Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988.

Khan, S. “A Brief H

istory of Pakistanis in the Western United States.”

M.A. thesis, California State University–Sacramento, 1981.

Malik, Iftikhar Haider. Pakistanis in Michigan: A Study of Third Cul-

ture and Acculturation. New Yor

k: AMS Press, 1989.

etvich, Carla. The Expanding Landscape: South Asians in the Diaspora.

Chicago: Manohar, 1999.

Tinker, Hugh. The Banyan Tree: Ov

erseas Emigrants from India, Pak-

istan, and Bangladesh. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Van der Veer, Peter, ed. Nation and Migration: The Politics of Space in

the South Asian Diaspora. Philadelphia: University of P

ennsylva-

nia Press, 1995.

Palestinian immigration

Palestinians are Arabs and generally were counted as part of

Ottoman or A

RAB IMMIGRATION

figures prior to World

War II (1939–45). Political events since then have made it

impossible to accurately count the number of Palestinians

arriving in North America. According to the U.S. census of

2000 and the Canadian census of 2001, 72,112 Americans

and 14,675 Canadians claimed Palestinian descent, but the

actual number of Palestinians in the United States and

Canada was much higher. Palestinians have been resettled

widely throughout the United States, with Detroit, Michi-

gan; New York City; Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; and

Jacksonville, Florida, all having large Palestinian communi-

ties. Canadian Palestinians have favored settlement in most

of the metropolitan areas of Ontario, and there is a large

community in Montreal.

There is no independent Palestinian state. Most of the

6 million Palestinians live in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon

(2.5 million total); the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the

autonomous portions of Palestinian settlement within Israel

(2 million); Israel itself (750,000); and the United States

(200,000). Ancient Palestine was located on the eastern

shore of the Mediterranean Sea at the crossroads between

the great civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Asia

Minor. For a brief period, Palestine was unified as a powerful

PALESTINIAN IMMIGRATION 223