THE CENTURY OF IMMIGRATION

Becoming American: A Documentary Film and Discussion Series on Our Immigration Experience is a six-week public program featuring documentary film screenings and moderated discussions designed to encourage an informed discussion of immigration issues against the backdrop of our immigration history.

Immigration has been an ongoing and central component of American history, with identifiable peak periods. Between 1820 and 1924, forty million immigrants were added to the population of the United States and in the process made immigration a major and defining aspect of American life. Industrial expansion, the need for inexpensive labor, and mass migrations of peoples from Europe and around the world fueled unprecedented waves of immigration that changed the make-up, culture and social institutions of America and helped transform the United States into the most dynamic economy in the world.

This opening program provides a historical context for the study of immigration, looking at the reasons for and consequences of the period historians call America’s “Century of Immigration.‟

Film excerpts from New York: A Documentary Film Episode 4, The Power and the People and The Jewish Americans Episode 2, A World of Their Own
Followed by a discussion led by Marta Cieslak, UA Little Rock assistant professor