The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity

摘要

It is the oldest cliche in the world that the American people are a patchwork of ethnicities. There may be some countries which have not sent migrants to the USA but I cannot think of any. Every cab I have ever taken in America was driven by a recent immigrant - I always ask! But despite its famous reputation as a "melting pot", America's racial problems are unresolved: some of its ethnic groups are not "molten" at all. It is ironical that the most vexed relationship of all is between the white majority and African-Americans, one of the country's oldest minorities. Some black Americans may have an ancestry in the new world which goes back to the seventeenth century and is therefore older than that of most whites. But this lineage is obscure because their forbears were usually slaves. Today, so far from being accepted, African-Americans walk the streets with banners saying "Black Lives Matter" - 152 years after emancipation.