Best Free Reference Web Site 2007 Today's Immigration Policy
Debates: Do We Need a Little History? By Donna R. Gabaccia
Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota
Immigrant children gathered at Ellis Island, New York (photo by
the Brown Brothers, ca. 1908, available on the National Archives
website). In their everyday life, most Americans seem to agree
with Henry Ford who once said, "History is more or less bunk...
We want to live in the present and the only history that is
worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today." Certainly a
great — but now also deadlocked — debate on immigration figures
prominently in the history being made today in the United States
and around the world. What is surprising is how often the
debaters evoke the past through references to "history." Some
insist that the United States has always been a nation of
immigrants. Others respond by insisting that today's immigration
problems — illegal entry, globalization of labor, and threats to
national security — are u