Chances are you or someone you know has moved from one home to another or one community to another. Maybe you’ve even moved from one country to another, or from one continent to another.
People move, or migrate, for many reasons. Hard conditions may push people to leave their homes. Exciting new opportunities may pull them away. Many people have migrated to or within the United States, where dreams of possibility have thrived since its beginning.
Forced Migration
Dateline Africa, 1619–1859
People migrate for many reasons. Most do so by choice. . . but not all. From 1619 to 1859, more than 10 million Africans were forced onto ships. They traveled under horrible conditions and were sold into slavery after arriving in America. Despite this terrible beginning, they made important contributions to our country, and their descendants continue to do so today.
Push
Dateline Ireland, 1845–1851: The Potato Famine
A fungus known as potato blight created the Irish Potato Famine. It caused 2 million acres of potatoes to rot. Almost 1 million people starved to death as the food shortage spread throughout Ireland. Nearly 1 million went to the United States. Settling in Boston and New York City, the Irish were the first large group of immigrants to come to the United States in the nineteenth century.
Pull
Dateline California, 1849: Gold Fever
Gold! That was the call. It came from Sutter’s Mill in Sacramento and spread like fever—gold fever! Drawn by the idea of easy riches, people from all over the United States and Mexico flocked to California. They also came from Europe, South America, and even China. They came by ship and by land, hiking the famous California Trail over the Rocky Mountains. The population of California ballooned from 164,000 people in 1848 to almost 400,000 in 1852.
Dateline the West, 1862–1869: The Transcontinental Railroad
It was a race. Which company could lay the most railroad track? Would it be the Central Pacific, working east from Sacramento, California? Or the Union Pacific, working west from Omaha, Nebraska? The lure of work brought 12,000 Chinese immigrants to the Central Pacific line. Despite brutal prejudice, these immigrants played a major role in completing a railroad that would further aid settlement of the West.
Dateline the Great Plains, 1931–1939: The Dust Bowl
Years of severe drought turned soil to dust, and the Great Plains became a huge dust bowl. That came along with the Depression, the country’s worst economic conditions ever. Millions of people from Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico migrated west to find work. About 200,000 settled in California. That was one of the largest migrations in U.S. history. John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of one family’s journey from Oklahoma.
The Great Migration
▲ Recent research suggests that our oldest human ancestors lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. From there, some migrated to Asia, then to Indonesia and Australia, and finally to Europe about 40,000 years ago. But how did people ever reach North and South America?
▲ Beringia was an ancient, great land bridge. More than 15,000 years ago, it connected eastern Siberia and western Alaska. A popular theory holds that the land bridge let humans cross into North America. They were following herds of reindeer and mammoths to hunt them. If so, these humans were the first Americans. Then, as the climate warmed, sea levels rose and Beringia became submerged. The first Americans became isolated on their new continent.
Migration within the United States continues. The reasons are as varied as ever. For example, from 1975 to 2007, the population of Silicon Valley in northern California nearly doubled. That’s because people moved there to fill a rising number of technology jobs. On the other hand, after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, New Orleans suffered severe flooding and damage. More than 100,000 people migrated away from the city.
Migration to the United States also continues. ▼
Total number of immigrants to the United States from various countries:
Think Piece!
Often, migration means moving to a new culture as well as to a new region or country. Think about it. What might be the benefits of migration? What might be the drawbacks?