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Immigrant Contribution - Levelled Text

This document discusses the contributions of immigrants to American culture and history. It argues that America's population is made up entirely of immigrants or their descendants. Immigrants have contributed greatly to industries, inventions, arts, religion, and other aspects of American life and culture. Immigration has helped build America's spirit of equality, opportunity, and pioneering frontier spirit.

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IRFAN ZAIN ULABIDEEN
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204 views2 pages

Immigrant Contribution - Levelled Text

This document discusses the contributions of immigrants to American culture and history. It argues that America's population is made up entirely of immigrants or their descendants. Immigrants have contributed greatly to industries, inventions, arts, religion, and other aspects of American life and culture. Immigration has helped build America's spirit of equality, opportunity, and pioneering frontier spirit.

Uploaded by

IRFAN ZAIN ULABIDEEN
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Immigrant Contribution

Everett Historical/Shutterstock
from A Nation of Immigrants
John F. Kennedy
ANCHOR TEXT | ESSAY

This version of the selection


alternates original text
Oscar Handlin has said, “Once I thought to write a history of the with summarized passages.
immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were Dotted lines appear next to
the summarized passages.
American history.”

The author, John F. Kennedy, agrees with this statement. He believes it is not possible to NOTES
talk about immigrant contributions to American culture because America’s population
is made of immigrants. Even someone born and raised in America is the descendant of
immigrants. The only difference is that some groups of immigrants came before others.

But nearly all shared two great hopes: the hope for personal freedom and
the hope for economic opportunity.

Even the Declaration of Independence was signed by immigrants. Fifty-six men signed
it, and twenty-six of them were not of English descent. Immigrants at the time felt they
could be free and independent in America. Every new ethnic group has contributed to
the culture in some way. The President’s Commission on Immigration and Naturalization
lists all the immigrants, so far, who made exciting contributions. Immigrants made
differences in industrial as well as scientific industries. Many great inventions were
created by immigrants. Immigrants to America have also become famous painters,
musicians, and actors. Immigration itself is a subject that inspires many of these artists.
Daily American customs have also been heavily influenced by immigrants.

In the area of religion, all the major American faiths were brought to this
country from abroad.

Even the way Americans speak is different from how people speak English in Great Britain.
And in America, you can find food from almost any culture imaginable. Immigrant influence
is very widespread now, Kennedy notes. But it was not always easy on the people who
moved here. The struggle to assimilate is something common to many immigrants. Coming
together with people of other ethnicities is part of what defines America.

The ideal of the “melting pot” symbolized the process of blending many
strains into a single nationality, and we have come to realize in modern
© by Savvas Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

times that the “melting pot” need not mean the end of particular ethnic
identities or traditions. Only in the case of the Negro has the melting pot
failed to bring a minority into the full stream of American life.

But Kennedy vows to improve the treatment of African Americans in the United States.
He believes that this melting pot is what allows Americans to change their social status.
The act of immigrating to America is a sign of optimism. Those who come here do so in
order to make a better life for themselves or their children.

GRADE 9 • UNIT 1 • Accessible Leveled Text • The Immigrant Contribution 1


This is the spirit which so impressed Alexis de Tocqueville,1 and which NOTES
he called the spirit of equality.

Equality as it was laid out in the Declaration of Independence means that everyone
should be allowed the same opportunities. And as people continue immigrating to the
United States, Kennedy says, we can make sure those opportunities are given to both
old and new Americans. Immigration is what built America, and it will continue to build
America.

More than that, it infused the nation with a commitment to far horizons
and new frontiers, and thereby kept the pioneer spirit of American life,
the spirit of equality and of hope, always alive and strong. “We are the heirs
of all time,” wrote Herman Melville, ”and with all nations we divide our
inheritance.”

1. Alexis de Tocqueville  (uh LEHK sihs duh TOHK vihl) (1805–1859) French political thinker who
traveled through America in 1831. Afterward, he wrote about his experiences in a book called
Democracy in America.

Chapter 5: “The Immigrant Contribution” [pp. 32-5: 1500 words] from A Nation of Immigrants by John F.
Kennedy. Copyright © 1964, 2008 by Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Reprinted by permission of
HarperCollins Publishers.

© by Savvas Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

GRADE 9 • UNIT 1 • Accessible Leveled Text • The Immigrant Contribution 2

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