ABSTRACT
A central narrative of American nationhood holds that the United States has been a haven for immigrants from all over the world who have left the hardships of their home countries to start life anew in a land of opportunity and promise. In his famous essay, ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History’, published in 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner linked America’s distinctive national identity to the frontier and westward expansion. The frontier was a crucible, he explained, where ‘the immigrants were Americanised, liberated, and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics’.1 In the late twentieth century, Arthur Schlesinger expressed a similar belief in exceptional character of the American nation. For him, the crucible of transformation of immigrants into Americans was not the frontier but the nation’s political ideals – the equality of all humans, democratic government, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.2
