ABSTRACT
Colonial America was made up of distinct and distinctive populations—the natives, settlers, and slaves. Despite the poetic ring to the expression of Whitman’s “Nation of nations” imagery and to the motto “E pluribus Unum” (“Out of many, one”), historians of the various waves of migration have noted that not all or even most of the immigrants were welcomed with equanimity. As the European immigrants and their children began to move from the margins of society toward and, sometimes, into its mainstream, they increasingly began to identify themselves as part of the white majority. Many who came in the large wave of European Jewish immigrants were economically impoverished and traditional in their religious beliefs. Although there has been an American presence of the followers of the Koran for many decades, native-born Americans of the Muslim faith, as well as immigrants, have gained considerable attention in recent years.
