Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Thinking Global in Minnesota
Think Global: Public radio collaboration
A tale of two companies
How China saved the Iron Range
Timber competes in the global marketplace
Aveda goes global
Buying local: does it make a difference?
Tracking livestock to prevent disease
Bringing global goods to American markets
Volunteers share their time abroad
School lunches go international
Immigrants bring old grievances to new home
Walker redefines the art 'world'
Minnesota's global faces: An interactive map
An immigration timeline

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Minnesota's global faces: An immigration timeline
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. From the beginning, it has been molded by the push and pull of political, economic, and social upheaval and opportunity. U.S. policy and global events have combined with the migratory nature of humankind to draw and redraw the image of the nation and the global faces of Minnesota.

1776-1790 Immigration to the United States is largely unregulated. Exploration and the development of transatlantic trade routes foster global migration. Religion, commerce, indentured servitude, slavery, economic/agricultural hardship are among the factors that motivate international resettlement.
1786 The U.S. government establishes the first federal Native American Indian reservation. Over the next 150 years, the Native American population will be decimated by forced removal from traditional lands, disease, and war. By 1900, the native population will be reduced from pre-contact numbers estimated at 900,000 to 250,000.
1790 The first census of the population records 4 million European residents in the United States, mostly English, Dutch, Scotch-Irish and German. Enslaved Africans made up one-fifth of the population; Native Indians are excluded from the count.

Congress enacts the first legislation regulating citizenship. Any free white person could apply after two years of residency.
1819 Steerage Act establishes strict reporting on immigration into the U.S.
1845 Ireland's potato crop fails; widespread famine causes 500,000 Irish to immigrate to America over the next five years.
1848 The California Gold Rush triggers mass immigration from the Far East as more than 100,000 Chinese are recruited as laborers.
1850 For the first time, the Census Bureau includes information on nativity-country of birth-in the decennial census.

The American Party, or "Know-Nothings," organizes around staunch anti-immigration policies, including the exclusion of foreign-born residents from voting and holding office.
1862 Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law, turning over 270 million acres of public territory to private citizens and immigrants willing to settle and farm the land. Nearly 10,000 homestead entries were made in Minnesota.
1867 The Minnesota Legislature creates the State Board of Immigration. During the decade from 1860 to 1870, the foreign-born population nearly triples as the resettlement to Minnesota is aggressively promoted abroad.
1870 Sixty-five percent of Minnesota residents are immigrants, or the children of immigrants—mostly British, German, and Scandinavian.
1882 For the first time, immigration restrictions based on race are implemented in the Chinese Exclusion Act.
1891 The federal government assumes authority over immigration with the Immigration Act of 1891. The legislation establishes a federal enforcement agency responsible for processing all immigrants, and increases restrictions on certain classes of foreigners seeking admittance to the U.S.
1900 Minnesota ranks 7th among states in the number of foreign-born residents.
1910-1920 The Mexican Revolution, labor shortages during WWI and agricultural opportunities spur immigration from Mexico. Minnesota growers recruit "betabeleros," Mexican sugar-beet pickers.
1921 The Quota Act limits immigration from southern and eastern European countries.
1924 Native Americans are granted full citizenship.
1942 U.S. and Mexico initiate the Bracero Program, allowing temporary migration of Mexicans into the U.S. to work in the agricultural industry.
1975 Two years after the Paris Peace Accord is signed and American troops withdraw from Vietnam, the U.S. stages a massive airlift, evacuating Americans and Southeast Asian refugees. A year later, the first wave of Hmong refugees arrives in Minnesota.
1980 The Federal Refugee Resettlement Program is created to aid in the relocation and integration of international refugees into the U.S. mainstream.
1986 The Immigration and Control Act is passed to curb illegal immigration. The legislation mandates greater enforcement and employer sanctions, but also offers amnesty to illegal aliens who have lived in the U.S. since before 1982.
1989 The collapse of the Berlin Wall signals the breakup of the Soviet Union; by 2004 the number of recent Russian immigrants in Minnesota grows to nearly 13,000.
1990 The outbreak of civil war in Somalia begins the flow of Somali refugees to the U.S., many settling in Minnesota. In 2003, more Somalis immigrate to Minnesota than any other ethnic group.
1991 Ethnic hostilities in the former Yugoslavia displace 700,000 Bosnians. By 2003, more than 2,000 relocate in Minnesota, many in the Red River Valley.
2002 Immigration to Minnesota reaches an historical high. More than 13,000 people from some 150 countries arrive in Minnesota.
2005 An estimated 5,000 Hmong from the Wat Tham Krabok refugee camp in Thailand are scheduled to be resettled in Minnesota by the end of the year.


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