ABSTRACT
Robert Kennedy wrote, ‘our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal’.1 That ideal being that immigrants of all ethnic backgrounds could prosper in US society; that talent and energy and not race or creed would decide their fate. To a certain extent the reality of the American past has reflected the ideal. Many who entered the country prospered and made a vital contribution to the development of their new homeland. This, however, tells only half the story because ethnic identity so often determined the extent to which immigrants were included in American national identity. Indeed from the beginning Americans worried about how this identity could be constructed by such a diverse array of new arrivals. Washington wrote to John Adams in 1794 expressing concern that immigrants ‘retain the language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them’.2
