Menlo School Library: Immigration: Resources

Background information (tertiary sources)

Immigration: Student Discovery
A free ebook provided by the Library of Congress containing background information and primary sources.
Immigration and Multiculturalism: Essential Primary Sources
This is a reference book that is part of the database collection. You will need to log in to use this resource. We also have this in print on the cart with the other books.
Immigration before 1965
Overview article describing America's various waves of immigration.
Immigration to the United States, 1789 - 1930
A dense site from Harvard University, with background information and primary sources (letters and memoirs).
Migration Policy Institute
Data and analysis of the movement of people around the world.

Where each state's largest immigration population was born

Click the image to see the animated graphic

Websites

Bracero History Archive
Oral histories from the program that brought Mexican agricultural workers to the United States from1942 to1964.
Expressions
Memoirs of 13 Mexican migrants. Written in Spanish and English.
Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990
Historical immigration statistics from the US Census Bureau.
Irish Immigrant Letters Home
A collection of letters from the mid-1800's, sent by Irish immigrants to Pennsylvania.
Italian-American Immigrant Oral History Catalog
Audio interviews with 150 people who immigrated to Michigan from Italy in the 1900s.
Rostros y Rastros
Memoirs of Mexican migrants. This book is written in Spanish.
Yearbook of Immigration Statistics
Detailed immigration information for the years 1996 - 2015 from the Department of Homeland Security.

Additional resources:

Books: A number of books are on a cart in the library including Historical Statistics of the United States which has historical immigration data.

Newspaper databases: Read about the immigrant experience and the reaction to immigrants in newspapers from your time period.

Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
Access archived copies of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.
America's Historical Newspapers (Newsbank)
350 years of historical newspapers from the United States.