In 1993, Newsweek magazine asked a sample of Americans what they thought about immigration. Although most respondents felt immigration was good for the nation in the past, a majority thought it was undesirable in the present. (1) What the modern survey could not convey was that Americans have always been ambivalent about immigration and ethnic diversity. Some have valued the contributions immigrants made to economic growth. It was for this reason that midwestern states attempted to recruit newcomers in the nineteenth century. Others, however, feared for the future of American institutions and imagined that strange newcomers would not exhibit the same devotion to the values of democracy and freedom as the native born. In recent times employers dependent upon immigrant labor, such as agricultural interests in California, have lobbied to sustain the flow of unskilled workers. But many other Americans, often forgetting their own immigrant ancestry, have supported measures restricting immigration or denying newcomers access to various forms of government assistance. Whatever side one takes, the historical study of immigration and ethnic diversity in the United States makes it clear that despite controversy people of varying backgrounds continued to come to the United States and make a place for themselves regardless of whether they were welcome or not.

Both America and Indiana were affected deeply by the continual arrival of people with distinctive cultures. Whether the portal was Plymouth Rock, Ellis Island, or a train station in Hammond, new settlers, often with beliefs or traits vastly different from the majority, entered the nation and its states to play an active role in social and political events. While some fled political turmoil or religious persecution, most were motivated by economic considerations and were seeking places to earn a living. Some came to stay and others intended to return to a homeland. Although immigrants were often at the center of disputes, they invariably played vital historical roles wherever they located.

The volume of immigration to the United States was staggering. From 1820 to 1975, over forty-seven million people came as immigrants. That figure included eight million from the Western Hemisphere, two million from Asia, and nearly thirty-six million from Europe. By the time of the first federal census in 1790 one million African Americans and four million Europeans, mostly English, Welsh, Scotch-Irish, and Germans, already resided in the United States. In the nineteen century the ethnic structure of the colonial period was quickly transformed. The early English, Scotch-Irish, German and African-American groups expanded, and new clusters of Irish, Italians, Jews, Swedes, Norwegians, Slavs, Hungarians and Mexicans emerged. Canada also supplied nearly four million newcomers, including many who spoke French.

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