Unfinished journey (49)

Liberty Statue New York

Unfinished journey (49)

(Part forty-nine, Depok, West Java, Indonesia, 8 September 2014, 7:47 pm)

I first state visit abroad are the United States, as early as 1982 I have school in Calfornia State University, Fresno, California, United States.

In between all the family, father, mother and my nine other siblings, brother and sister from Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport, Jakarta.

Plane Japan Airlines (JAL) Jumbo 747 (level two) via Singapore, continues to Tokyo. Then stay at Hotel Narita, Narita, Narita Airport hotel near three free nights, the streets of Tokyo three days, then went to San Francisco, from San Fancisco to Fresno Flight by Air California  about an hour. For JAL passengers via Tokyo to another country can be free stay three days at Hotel Nikko Narita. I did this again when returning to Indonesia late 1983.

Except when I to the United States to Amsterdam in 1995 I used to ride on Singapore Airlines, from New Amsterdam flight by Iberian Air to Madrid, and from Mandrid to New York also flight by Iberian Air, from New York recently climbed United Airlines to Los Angeles. In Los Angele I've picked up my younger brother who lives in San Diego has approximately 25 years (s has four children (married to a citizen of the United States attorney.

In 1982, Indonesia has not had the Soekarno-Hatta airport, yet have many toll roads as toll rate Cawang-Tanjung Priok. Not many malls (modern supermarket), so when I saw the first time Japan and the United States, once I was amazed with their progress, many skyscrapers, highways are smooth and wide.

The people are orderly and neat clean everywhere. Unlike the Indonesian people are less orderly. I once had a friend school English class, Indonesian citizen, his name Irawan, people living in South Jakarta in Indonesia may be due to his habit when driving a car on a yellow traffic light when she step on the gas continues, eventually at the same time there is a large car-trailer trucks passing and a collision can not be avoided, should eventually coma Irawan (sick) during the nine months in the hospital, I do not know anymore reportedly Irawan is when it is healthy again or how his fate, since I've returned to their homeland.

Golden Gate San Francisco

Also there is a student friend from Malaysia who hit a pedestrian until his parents had to sell oil palm plantations in the village, because they have to pay damages in civil lawsuit from the family of the accident victims.

In the United States riders are usually very disciplined and have great respect for pedestrians, and allow pedestrians first and motorists passing through. Pedestrians are usually waiting for the cue must first pass a new cross road (at traffic light).

In the summer (3 months of school holidays) during my two months traveling the United States with a Greyhound bus ride season ticket in force two months. I depart from Fresno, then via Los Angeles through the States in the south, also stopped to Mexico, through the city of El Paso (Texas) to New York, and back to Fresno via the North.

I traveled during the trip (stop) in the towns and villages that I passed and sleep and rest at bus terminals, in addition to net (ad bathroom and a clothes locker, safe also always under police surveillance. Cumin I be staying at hotels when located in New York. (Because Must stay three days and nights) and even then in a Youth Hostel which one habitable room at 10 people, then one room with the youth of France, Japan and other European countries. (one night pay U $ 3)

(Photographs will complete my fit in a book I published it later if I have the capital to finance the publication).

Indeed, studying in the United States is quite advanced education system, besides completed books in his library (there are millions of books) is also complete documentation system. If we want to find information on the advertising model that fit the 1800's was also there, via Micro films, we can see a dab of to copy. Even if we study the hadiths in Islamic studies from authentic hadith, there are also fake and so his books. My Arabic lecturer at California State University is a Jew who advanced a lecturer of Arabic as an ethnic Arab wife.

The cities in the United States are generally multi-ethnic architecture in San Francisco houses there are models of typical Dutch architecture, Italian and Chinese (particularly in China Town).

So if you want to see the land of multi cultural and diverse variety cultural see you in the United States. This is reflected in the United States immigrant who came from various parts of the earth. But unfortunately statistically the immigrant from Indonesia is still small, even farther than Malaysian. Because it is still a little bit does not make the United States a list of statistics.

My younger brother was, despite being about 25 years living in the United States remains an Indonesian citizen, just own Green Card (because she have a husband and four children of citizens of the United States. she does not want to be a citizen of the United States, because if all of the children were scholars still want to go home and settle in Indonesia.

San Francisco Crabs

United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation).

Page semi-protected

United States of America

         

Flag  Great Seal

Motto:

"In God we trust" (official)[1][2][3]

"E pluribus unum" (Latin) (traditional de facto)

"Out of many, one"

"Annuit cœptis" (Latin) (traditional)

"She/he/it approves (has approved) of the undertakings"

"Novus ordo seclorum" (Latin) (traditional)

"New order of the ages"

Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"

MENU0:00

Projection of North America with the United States in green

The contiguous United States plus Alaska and Hawaii in green

The United States and its territories

The United States and its territories

Capital       Washington, D.C.

38°53′N 77°01′W

Largest city         New York City

40°43′N 74°00′W

Official languages       None at federal level[a]

Recognised regional languages  

List[show]

National language       English[b]

Demonym American

Government       Federal presidential constitutional republic

 -       President   Barack Obama

 -       Vice President    Joe Biden

 -       Speaker of the House John Boehner

 -       Chief Justice      John Roberts

Legislature          Congress

 -       Upper house      Senate

 -       Lower house      House of Representatives

Independence from Great Britain

 -       Declared    July 4, 1776

 -       Recognized        September 3, 1783

 -       Constitution        June 21, 1788

 -       Current Statehood       August 21, 1959

Area

 -       Total 9,629,091 km2 (3rd/4th)

3,717,813 sq mi

 -       Water (%)  2.23

Population

 -       2014 estimate    318,696,000[4] (3rd)

 -       Density      34.2/km2 (180th)

88.6/sq mi

GDP (PPP)         2014 estimate

 -       Total $17.528 trillion[5] (1st)

 -       Per capita  $54,980[5] (6th)

GDP (nominal)   2014 estimate

 -       Total $17.528 trillion[5] (1st)

 -       Per capita  $54,980[5] (9th)

Gini (2012)          36.9[6]

medium · 39th (2009)

HDI (2013) Steady 0.914[7]

very high · 5th

Currency   United States dollar ($) (USD)

Time zone (UTC−5 to −10)

 -       Summer (DST)   (UTC−4 to −10[d])

Drives on the      right[e]

Calling code       +1

ISO 3166 code   US

Internet TLD       .us   .gov   .mil   .edu

a.      ^ English is the official language of at least 28 states; some sources give higher figures, based on differing definitions of "official".[8] English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii. French is a de facto language in the states of Maine and Louisiana, while New Mexico state law grants Spanish a special status.[9][10][11][12] Cherokee is an official language in the Cherokee Nation tribal jurisdiction area and in the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians based in east and northeast Oklahoma.[13][14][15]

b.      ^ English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80 percent of Americans aged five and older. 28 states and five territories have made English an official language. Other official languages include Hawaiian, Samoan, Chamorro, Carolinian, and Spanish.

c.       ^ Whether the United States or China is larger has been disputed. The figure given is from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's The World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the 50 states and the District of Columbia, not the territories.

d.      ^ See Time in the United States for details about laws governing time zones in the United States.

e.      ^ Except U.S. Virgin Islands.

The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly referred to as the United States (US or U.S.), America, and sometimes the States, is a federal republic[16][17] consisting of 50 states and a federal district. The 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also has five populated and nine unpopulated territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean. At 3.71 million square miles (9.62 million km2) and with around 318 million people, the United States is the world's 3rd or 4th-largest country by total area and third-largest by population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[18] The geography and climate of the United States is also extremely diverse, and it is home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Paleo-Indians migrated from Eurasia to what is now the U.S. mainland around 15,000 years ago,[19] with European colonization beginning in the 16th century. The United States emerged from 13 British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. Disputes between Great Britain and these colonies led to the American Revolution. On July 4, 1776, as the colonies were fighting Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously issued the Declaration of Independence. The war ended in 1783 with the recognition of independence of the United States from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial empire.[20][21] The current Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. The first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and guarantee many fundamental civil rights and freedoms.

Driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century.[22] This involved displacing native tribes, acquiring new territories, and gradually admitting new states.[22] The American Civil War ended legal slavery in the country.[23] By the end of the 19th century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean,[24] and its economy began to soar.[25] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country with nuclear weapons, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower.

The United States is a developed country and has the world's largest national economy, with an estimated GDP in 2013 of $16.8 trillion—23% of global nominal GDP and 19% at purchasing-power parity.[5][26] The economy is fueled by an abundance of natural resources and high worker productivity,[27] with per capita GDP being the world's sixth-highest in 2010.[5] While the U.S. economy is considered post-industrial, it continues to be one of the world's largest manufacturers.[28] The U.S. has the highest mean and 4th highest median household income in the OECD as well as the highest gross average wage,[29][30][31] though it has the 4th most unequal income distribution,[32][33] with roughly 15% of the population living in poverty as defined by the U.S. Census.[34] The country accounts for 37% of global military spending,[35] being the world's foremost economic and military power, a prominent political and cultural force, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovation.[36][37][38][39][40]

Etymology

See also: Names for United States citizens

In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci (Latin: Americus Vespucius).[41] The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq., George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army. Addressed to Lt. Col. Joseph Reed, Moylan expressed his wish to carry the "full and ample powers of the United States of America" to Spain to assist in the revolutionary war effort.[42]

The first publicly published evidence of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymously written essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776.[43][44] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson included the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence.[45][46] In the final Fourth of July version of the Declaration, the pertinent section of the title was changed to read, "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".[47] In 1777 the Articles of Confederation announced, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'".[48]

The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms include the "U.S.", the "U.S.A.", and "America". Colloquial names include the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a name popular in poetry and songs of the late 1700s,[49] derives its origin from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia". In non-English languages, the name is frequently the translation of either the "United States" or "United States of America", and colloquially as "America". In addition, an abbreviation (e.g. USA) is sometimes used.[50]

The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plural, a description of a collection of independent states—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular, a single unit—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".[51] The difference has been described as more significant than one of usage, but reflecting the difference between a collection of states and a unit.[52]

The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an "American". "United States", "American" and "U.S." are used to refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English to refer to subjects not connected with the United States.[53]

History

Main articles: History of the United States and Timeline of United States history

Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764

Native American and European contact

Further information: Pre-Columbian era and Colonial history of the United States

The first North American settlers migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge approximately 15,000 or more years ago.[19][54][55] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After European explorers and traders made the first contacts, the native population declined due to various reasons, including diseases such as smallpox and measles,[56][57] intermarriage,[58] and violence.[59][60][61]

In the early days of colonization many settlers were subject to shortages of food, disease and attacks from Native Americans. Native Americans were also often at war with neighboring tribes and allied with Europeans in their colonial wars.[62] At the same time however many natives and settlers came to depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts, natives for guns, ammunition and other European wares.[63] Natives taught many settlers where, when and how to cultivate corn, beans and squash in the frontier. European missionaries and others felt it was important to "civilize" the Indians and urged them to concentrate on farming and ranching without depending on hunting and gathering.[64][65]

Settlements

Further information: European colonization of the Americas and 13 colonies

Signing of the Mayflower Compact, 1620

After Columbus' first voyage to the New World in 1492 other explorers and settlement followed into the Floridas and the American Southwest.[66][67] There were also some French attempts to colonize the east coast, and later more successful settlements along the Mississippi River. Successful English settlement on the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Jamestown and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. Early experiments in communal living failed until the introduction of private farm holdings.[68] Many settlers were dissenting Christian groups who came seeking religious freedom. The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's House of Burgesses created in 1619, and the Mayflower Compact, signed by the Pilgrims before disembarking, established precedents for the pattern of representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.[69][70]

Most settlers in every colony were small farmers, but other industries developed. Cash crops included tobacco, rice and wheat. Extraction industries grew up in furs, fishing and lumber. Manufacturers produced rum and ships, and by the late colonial period Americans were producing one-seventh of the world's iron supply.[71] Cities eventually dotted the coast to support local economies and serve as trade hubs. English colonists were supplemented by waves of Scotch-Irish and other groups. As coastal land grew more expensive freed indentured servants pushed further west.[72] Slave cultivation of cash crops began with the Spanish in the 1500s, and was adopted by the English, but life expectancy was much higher in North America because of less disease and better food and treatment, so the numbers of slaves grew rapidly.[73][74][75] Colonial society was largely divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery and colonies passed acts for and against the practice.[76][77] But by the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were replacing indentured servants for cash crop labor, especially in southern regions.[78]

With the colonization of Georgia in 1732, the 13 colonies that would become the United States of America were established.[79] All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism.[80] With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly. Relatively small Native American populations were eclipsed.[81] The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty.

In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans, who were being conquered and displaced, those 13 colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.[82] The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their success motivated monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.

Independence and expansion

The Declaration of Independence: the Committee of Five presenting their draft to the Second Continental Congress in 1776

Further information: American Revolutionary War, United States Declaration of Independence and American Revolution

The American Revolutionary War was the first successful colonial war of independence against a European power. Americans had developed an ideology of "republicanism" that held government rested on the will of the people as expressed in their local legislatures. They demanded their rights as Englishmen, “no taxation without representation”. The British insisted on administering the empire through Parliament, and the conflict escalated into war.[83] Following the passage of the Lee Resolution, on July 2, 1776, which was the actual vote for independence, the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, which proclaimed, in a long preamble, that humanity is created equal in their unalienable rights and that those rights were not being protected by Great Britain, and finally declared, in the words of the resolution, that the 13 colonies were independent states and had no allegiance to the British crown in the United States. The latter date, July 4, 1776, is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak government that operated until 1789.[84]

Britain recognized the independence of the United States following their defeat at Yorktown.[85] In the peace treaty of 1783, American sovereignty was recognized from the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. Nationalists led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the United States Constitution, and it was ratified in state conventions in 1788. The federal government was reorganized into three branches, on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances, in 1789. George Washington, who had led the revolutionary army to victory, was the first president elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.[86]

Although the federal government criminalized the international slave trade in 1808, after 1820 cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the Deep South, and along with it the slave population.[87][88][89] The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, converted millions to evangelical Protestantism. In the North it energized multiple social reform movements, including abolitionism;[90] in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations.[91]

Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars.[92] The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size.[93] The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism.[94] A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819.[95] Expansion was aided by steam power, when steamboats began traveling along America's large water systems, which were connected by new canals, such as the Erie and the I&M; then, even faster railroads began their stretch across the nation's land.[96]

U.S. territorial acquisitions–portions of each territory were granted statehood since the 18th century.

From 1820 to 1850, Jacksonian democracy began a set of reforms which included wider male suffrage, and it led to the rise of the Second Party System of Democrats and Whigs as the dominant parties from 1828 to 1854. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that moved Indians into the west to their own reservations. The U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845 during a period of expansionist Manifest Destiny.[97] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.[98] Victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest.[99]

The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 spurred western migration and the creation of additional western states.[100] After the American Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade and increased conflicts with Native Americans.[101] Over a half-century, the loss of the buffalo was an existential blow to many Plains Indians cultures.[102] In 1869, a new Peace Policy sought to protect Native-Americans from abuses, avoid further warfare, and secure their eventual U.S. citizenship.[103]

Civil War and Reconstruction Era

Further information: American Civil War and Reconstruction Era

Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the Civil War

From the beginning of the United States, inherent divisions over slavery between the North and the South in American society ultimately led to the American Civil War.[104] Initially, states entering the Union alternated between slave and free states, keeping a sectional balance in the Senate, while free states outstripped slave states in population and in the House of Representatives. But with additional western territory and more free-soil states, tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over federalism and disposition of the territories, whether and how to expand or restrict slavery.[105]

Following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, the first president from the largely anti-slavery Republican Party, conventions in thirteen states ultimately declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America, while the U.S. federal government maintained secession was illegal.[105] The ensuing war was at first for Union, then after 1863 as casualties mounted and Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, a second war aim became abolition of slavery. The war remains the deadliest military conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of approximately 618,000 soldiers as well as many civilians.[106]

Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution prohibited slavery, made the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves[107] U.S. citizens, and promised them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power[108] aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves.[109] But following the Reconstruction Era, throughout the South Jim Crow laws soon effectively disenfranchised most blacks and some poor whites. Over the subsequent decades, in both the north and south blacks and some whites faced systemic discrimination, including racial segregation and occasional vigilante violence, sparking national movements against these abuses.[109]

Industrialization

Further information: Labor history of the United States

Ellis Island, in New York City, was a major gateway for the massive influx of immigration during the beginning of industrialization.

In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture.[110] National infrastructure including telegraph and transcontinental railroads spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. The later invention of electric lights and telephones would also impact communication and urban life.[111] The end of the Indian Wars further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets. Mainland expansion was completed by the Alaska Purchase from Russia in 1867. In 1898 the U.S. entered the world stage with important sugar production and strategic facilities acquired in Hawaii. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain in the same year, following the Spanish American War.

Rapid economic development at the end of the 19th century produced many prominent industrialists, and the U.S. economy became the world's largest. Dramatic changes were accompanied by social unrest and the rise of populist, socialist, and anarchist movements.[112] This period eventually ended with the beginning of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms in many societal areas, including women's suffrage, alcohol prohibition, regulation of consumer goods, greater antitrust measures to ensure competition and attention to worker conditions.

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

Further information: World War I, Great Depression and World War II

U.S. troops approaching Omaha Beach during World War II

The United States remained neutral at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, though by 1917, it joined the Allies, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. President Woodrow Wilson took a leading diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this, and did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles that established the League of Nations.[113]

In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage.[114] The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television.[115] The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, which included the establishment of the Social Security system.[116] The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.

The United States was at first effectively neutral during World War II's early stages but began supplying material to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers.[117] Though the nation lost more than 400,000 soldiers,[118] it emerged relatively undamaged from the war with even greater economic and military influence.[119] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As an Allied victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[120] The United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Japan; the Japanese surrendered on September 2, ending World War II.[121]

Cold War and civil rights era

Main articles: History of the United States (1945–64), History of the United States (1964–80) and History of the United States (1980–91)

US President Ronald Reagan (left) and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, meeting in Geneva in 1985

After World War II the United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for power during what is known as the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between capitalism and communism. They dominated the military affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on one side and the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies on the other. The U.S. developed a policy of "containment" toward Soviet bloc expansion. While they engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict. The U.S. often opposed Third World left-wing movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored. American troops fought Communist Chinese and North Korean forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite and its 1961 launch of the first manned spaceflight initiated a "Space Race" in which the United States became the first to land a man on the moon in 1969.[122] A proxy war was expanded in Southeast Asia with the Vietnam War.

At home, the U.S. experienced sustained economic expansion and a rapid growth of its population and middle class. Construction of an interstate highway system transformed the nation’s infrastructure over the following decades. Millions moved from farms and inner cities to large suburban housing developments.[123][124] A growing civil rights movement used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader and figurehead. A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sought to end racial discrimination.[125][126][127] Meanwhile, a counterculture movement grew which was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. The launch of a "War on Poverty" expanded entitlement and welfare spending.[128]

The 1970s and early 1980s saw the onset of stagflation. After his election in 1980, President Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with free-market oriented reforms. Following the collapse of détente, he abandoned "containment" and initiated the more aggressive "rollback" strategy towards the USSR.[129][130][131][132][133] After a surge in female labor participation over the previous decade, by 1985 a majority of women age 16 and over were employed.[134] The late 1980s brought a "thaw" in relations with the USSR, and its collapse in 1991 finally ended the Cold War.[135][136][137][138]

Contemporary history

The former World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on 9/11

One World Trade Center, built in its place

Main article: History of the United States (1991–present)

After the Cold War, the 1990s saw the longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history, ending in 2001.[139] Originating in U.S. defense networks, the Internet spread to international academic networks, and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly impacting the global economy, society, and culture.[140] On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 people.[141] In response the United States launched the War on Terror, which includes the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the 2003–11 Iraq War.[142][143] Barack Obama, the first African-American president, was elected in 2008 amid the Great Recession.[144]

Geography, climate, and environment

Main articles: Geography of the United States, Climate of the United States and Environment of the United States

A composite satellite image of the contiguous United States and surrounding areas

The land area of the contiguous United States is 2,959,064 square miles (7,663,941 km2). Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 663,268 square miles (1,717,856 km2). Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, is 10,931 square miles (28,311 km2) in area.[145]

The United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted and how the total size of the United States is measured: calculations range from 3,676,486 square miles (9,522,055 km2)[146] to 3,717,813 square miles (9,629,091 km2)[147] to 3,794,101 square miles (9,826,676 km2).[148] Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.[149]

The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.

The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua and Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast, both ranges reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m). The lowest and highest points in the continental United States are in the state of California, and only about 80 miles (130 km) apart. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the tallest peak in the country and in North America. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.[150]

The United States, with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.[151]

The bald eagle has been the national bird of the United States since 1782.

The U.S. ecology is considered "megadiverse": about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.[152] The United States is home to more than 400 mammal, 750 bird, and 500 reptile and amphibian species.[153] About 91,000 insect species have been described.[154] The bald eagle is both the national bird and national animal of the United States, and is an enduring symbol of the country itself.[155]

There are 58 national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.[156] Altogether, the government owns 28.8% of the country's land area.[157] Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; 2.4% is used for military purposes.[157][158][159]

Environmental issues have been on the national agenda since 1970. Environmental controversies include debates on oil and nuclear energy, dealing with air and water pollution, the economic costs of protecting wildlife, logging and deforestation,[160][161] and international responses to global warming.[162][163] Many federal and state agencies are involved. The most prominent is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by presidential order in 1970.[164] The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act.[165] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Demographics

Main articles: Demographics of the United States, Americans, List of U.S. states by population density and List of United States cities by population

Population

Largest ancestry groups by county, 2000

Race/Ethnicity (2013)

By race:[166]

White         77.7%

African American         13.2%

Asian         5.3%

American Indian and Alaska Native       1.2%

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander    0.2%

Multiracial (2 or more) 2.4%

By ethnicity:[166]

Hispanic/Latino (of any race)        17.1%

Non-Hispanic/Latino (of any race)         82.9%

The Statue of Liberty in New York City is a symbol of both the U.S. and the ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity.[167]

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the country's population now to be 318,696,000,[4] including an approximate 11.2 million illegal immigrants.[168] The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900.[169] The third most populous nation in the world, after China and India, the United States is the only major industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.[170]

New York City

The United States has a very diverse population—31 ancestry groups have more than one million members.[171] German Americans are the largest ethnic group (more than 50 million) - followed by Irish Americans (circa 35 million), Mexican Americans (circa 31 million) and English Americans (circa 27 million).[172]

White Americans are the largest racial group; Black Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group.[171] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the three largest Asian American ethnic groups are Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, and Indian Americans.[171]

With a birth rate of 13 per 1,000, 35% below the world average, its population growth rate is positive at 0.9%, significantly higher than those of many developed nations.[173] In fiscal year 2012, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence.[174] Mexico has been the leading source of new residents since the 1965 Immigration Act. China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.[175][176]

According to a survey conducted by the Williams Institute, nine million Americans, or roughly 3.5% of the adult population identify themselves as homosexual, bisexual, or transgender.[177] A 2012 Gallup poll also concluded that 3.5% of adult Americans identified as LGBT. The highest percentage came from the District of Columbia (10%), while the lowest state was North Dakota at 1.7%.[178]

In 2010, the U.S. population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).[179] The census counted more than 19 million people of "Some Other Race" who were "unable to identify with any" of its five official race categories in 2010.[179]

The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend. The 50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent[179] are identified as sharing a distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.[180] Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%.[181] Much of this growth is from immigration; in 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America.[182]

Fertility is also a factor; in 2010 the average Hispanic (of any race) woman gave birth to 2.35 children in her lifetime, compared to 1.97 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.79 for non-Hispanic white women (both below the replacement rate of 2.1).[183] Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau as all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constituted 36.3% of the population in 2010,[184] and over 50% of children under age one,[185] and are projected to constitute the majority by 2042.[186] This contradicts the report by the National Vital Statistics Reports, based on the U.S. census data, which concludes that 54% (2,162,406 out of 3,999,386 in 2010) of births were non-Hispanic white.[183]

About 82% of Americans live in urban areas (including suburbs);[148] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.[187] In 2008, 273 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four global cities had over two million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).[188] There are 52 metropolitan areas with populations greater than one million.[189] Of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas, 47 are in the West or South.[190] The metro areas of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008.[189]

Leading population centers (see complete list)       view talk edit

Rank Core city (cities) Metro area population Metropolitan Statistical Area          Region[191]       

New York City

New York City

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Chicago

Chicago

1       New York City     19,949,502         New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA MSA          Northeast

2       Los Angeles       13,131,431         Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana, CA MSA          West

3       Chicago     9,537,289  Chicago–Joliet–Naperville, IL–IN–WI MSA    Midwest

4       Dallas–Fort Worth       6,810,913  Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington, TX MSA  South

5       Houston     6,313,158  Houston–The Woodlands-Sugar Land MSA  South

6       Philadelphia        6,034,678  Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA–NJ–DE–MD MSA Mid-Atlantic

7       Washington, D.C.        5,949,859  Washington, DC–VA–MD–WV MSA      Mid-Atlantic

8       Miami         5,828,191  Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL MSA          South

9       Atlanta       5,522,942  Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Marietta, GA MSA    South

10     Boston       4,684,299  Boston–Cambridge–Quincy, MA–NH MSA    Northeast

11     San Francisco    4,516,276  San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont, CA MSA  West

12     Phoenix     4,398,762  Phoenix–Mesa–Glendale, AZ MSA       West

13     San Bernardino-Riverside    4,380,878  San Bernandino–Riverside–Ontario, CA MSA West

14     Detroit        4,294,983  Detroit–Warren–Livonia, MI MSA Midwest

15     Seattle       3,610,105  Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, WA MSA    West

16     Minneapolis–St. Paul  3,459,146  Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington, MN–WI MSA Midwest

17     San Diego 3,211,252  San Diego–Carlsbad–San Marcos, CA MSA West

18     Tampa–St. Petersburg         2,870,569  Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater, FL MSA South

19     St. Louis    2,810,056  St. Louis–St. Charles–Farmington, MO–IL MSA     Midwest

20     Baltimore   2,770,738  Baltimore–Towson, MD MSA        Mid-Atlantic

based upon 2013 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau[192]

Language

Languages spoken by more than 1,000,000 in the U.S.

as of 2010[193]

Language  Percent of

population Number of

speakers

English      80%  233,780,338

Combined total of all languages

other than English       20%  57,048,617

Spanish

(excluding Puerto Rico and Spanish Creole) 12%  35,437,985

Chinese

(including Cantonese and Mandarin)     0.9% 2,567,779

Tagalog     0.5% 1,542,118

Vietnamese        0.4% 1,292,448

French       0.4% 1,288,833

Korean       0.4% 1,108,408

German     0.4% 1,107,869

Main article: Languages of the United States

See also: Language Spoken at Home and List of endangered languages in the United States

English (American English) is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2010, about 230 million, or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught second language.[194][195] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least 28 states.[8]

Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii, by state law.[196] While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.[197] Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.[198] Many jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce government materials, especially voting information, in the most commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions.

Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively;[citation needed] Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands;[citation needed] Cherokee is officially recognized by the Cherokee Nation within the Cherokee tribal jurisdiction area in eastern Oklahoma; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico and is more widely spoken than English there.[199]

Religion

Main article: Religion in the United States

See also: History of religion in the United States, Freedom of religion in the United States, Separation of church and state in the United States and List of religious movements that began in the United States

Religious affiliation in the U.S. (2012)[200]

Affiliation   % of U.S. population

Christian    73    

Protestant  48    

Catholic     22    

Mormon     2      

Eastern Orthodox        1      

Other faith 6      

Unaffiliated         19.6 

Don't know/refused answer 2      

Total 100  

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment. Christianity is by far the most common religion practiced in the U.S., but other religions are followed, too. In a 2013 survey, 56% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.[201] In a 2009 Gallup poll 42% of Americans said that they attended church weekly or almost weekly; the figures ranged from a low of 23% in Vermont to a high of 63% in Mississippi.[202] As with other Western countries, the U.S. is becoming less religious. Irreligion is growing rapidly among Americans under 30.[203] Polls show that overall American confidence in organized religion is declining,[204] and that younger Americans in particular are becoming increasingly irreligious.[205]

According to a 2012 survey, 73% of adults identified themselves as Christian,[206] down from 86.4% in 1990.[207] Protestant denominations accounted for 48%, while Roman Catholicism, at 22%, was the largest individual denomination.[206] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2012 was 6%, up from 4% in 2007.[206] Other religions include Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).[206] The survey also reported that 19.6% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist or simply having no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990.[206][207][208] There are also Baha'i, Sikh, Jain, Shinto, Confucian, Taoist, Druid, Native American, Wiccan, humanist and deist communities.[209]

Protestantism is the largest group of religions in the United States, with Baptists being the largest Protestant sect, and the Southern Baptist Convention being the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. About 19 percent of Protestants are Evangelical, while 15 percent are mainline and 8 percent belong to a traditionally Black church. Roman Catholicism in the U.S. has its origin in the Spanish and French colonization of the Americas, and later grew due to Irish, Italian, Polish, German and Hispanic immigration. Rhode Island is the only state where the majority of the population is Catholic. Lutheranism in the U.S. has its origin in immigration from Northern Europe. North and South Dakota are the only states in which a plurality of the population is Lutheran. Utah is the only state where Mormonism is the religion of the majority of the population. Mormonism is also relatively common in parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming.

The Bible Belt is an informal term for a region in the Southern United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. By contrast, religion plays the least important role in New England and in the Western United States.[202]

Family structure

Main article: Family structure in the United States

In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.[210] Women now work mostly outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.[211]

The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is the highest among OECD nations.[212] Between 2007 and 2010, the highest teenage birth rate was in Mississippi, and the lowest in New Hampshire.[213] Abortion is legal throughout the U.S., owing to Roe v. Wade, a 1973 landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.[214] In 2011, the average age at first birth was 25.6 and 40.7% of births were to unmarried women.[215] The total fertility rate (TFR) was estimated for 2013 at 1.86 births per woman.[216] Adoption in the United States is common and relatively easy from a legal point of view (compared to other Western countries).[217] In 2001, with over 127,000 adoptions, the U.S. accounted for nearly half of the total number of adoptions worldwide.[218] The legal status of same-sex couples adopting varies by jurisdiction.

Same-sex marriage is legally permitted in 19 U.S. states, 10 Native American tribal jurisdictions, and the District of Columbia. Limited recognition has been granted to out-of-state same-sex marriages in Alaska, Colorado,[219] Missouri, Utah, and Ohio.[220] Polygamy is illegal throughout the U.S.[221] Although cousin marriages are illegal in most states, they are legal in many states, the District of Columbia and some territories. Some states have some restrictions or exceptions for cousin marriages and/or recognize such marriages performed out-of-state.

Government and politics

Main articles: Federal government of the United States, State governments of the United States, Local government in the United States and Elections in the United States

U.S. Capitol,

where Congress meets:

the Senate, left; the House, right

The White House, home of the U.S. President

Supreme Court Building, where the nation's highest court sits

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".[222] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document.[223] For 2012, the U.S. ranked 21st on the Democracy Index[224] and 19th on the Corruption Perceptions Index.[225]

In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government: federal, state, and local. The local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels.

Political system of the United States

The federal government is composed of three branches:

Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse,[226] and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.[227]

Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to Congressional override), and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.[228]

Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.

The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. At the 2010 census, seven states had the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, had 53.[229]

The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia.[230] The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.[231]

The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion; Nebraska uniquely has a unicameral legislature.[232] The governor (chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by popular vote.

The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus. The Constitution has been amended 27 times;[233] the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review and any law ruled by the courts to be in violation of the Constitution is voided. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was established by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803)[234] in a decision handed down by Chief Justice John Marshall.[235]

Political divisions

Main articles: Political divisions of the United States, U.S. state, Territories of the United States and List of states and territories of the United States

Further information: Territorial evolution of the United States and United States territorial acquisitions

The United States is a federal union of 50 states. The original 13 states were the successors of the 13 colonies that rebelled against British rule. Early in the country's history, three new states were organized on territory separated from the claims of the existing states: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. Most of the other states have been carved from territories obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions includes Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii: each was a well-established independent republic before joining the union. During the American Civil War, West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959.[236] The states do not have the right to unilaterally secede from the union.

WTC New York

The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass. The District of Columbia is a federal district which contains the capital of the United States, Washington D.C. The United States also possesses five major overseas territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.[237] Those born in the major territories are birthright U.S. citizens except Samoans. Samoans born in American Samoa are born U.S. nationals, and may become naturalized citizens.[238] American citizens residing in the territories have fundamental constitutional protections and elective self-government, with a territorial Member of Congress, but they do not vote for president as states. Territories have personal and business tax regimes different from that of states.[239]

The United States also observes tribal sovereignty of the Native Nations. Though reservations are within state borders, the reservation is a sovereign entity. While the United States recognizes this sovereignty, other countries may not.[240]

 Map of USA with state names 2.svg

About this image

[show]

Statehood

Parties and elections

Main articles: Politics of the United States and Political ideologies in the United States

(from left to right) House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker John Boehner, President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the White House in 2011

The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history.[241] For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote. The third-largest political party is the Libertarian Party.

Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered center-right or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered center-left or liberal.[242] The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and parts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.

The winner of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th U.S. president.

In the 113th United States Congress, the House of Representatives is controlled by the Republican Party, while the Democratic Party has control of the Senate. The Senate currently consists of 52 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 46 Republicans; the House consists of 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats.[243] There are 30 Republican and 20 Democratic state governors.[244]

Since the founding of the United States until the 2000s, the country's governance has been primarily dominated by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs). However, the situation has changed recently and of the top 17 positions (four national candidates of the two major party in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, four leaders in 112th United States Congress, and nine Supreme Court Justices) there is only one WASP.[245][246][247]

The United Nations Headquarters has been situated in Midtown Manhattan since 1952.

Foreign relations

Main articles: Foreign relations of the United States and Foreign policy of the United States

See also: Covert United States foreign regime change actions

The United States has an established structure of foreign relations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and New York City is home to the United Nations Headquarters. It is a member of the G8,[248] G20, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States (although the U.S. still supplies Taiwan with military equipment).

The United States has a "special relationship" with the United Kingdom[249] and strong ties with Canada,[250] Australia,[251] New Zealand,[252] the Philippines,[253] Japan,[254] South Korea,[255] Israel,[256] and several EU countries, including France, Italy, Germany, Spain and India. It works closely with fellow NATO members on military and security issues and with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2008, the United States spent a net $25.4 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. As a share of America's large gross national income (GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among 22 donor states. By contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous.[257]

The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for three sovereign nations through Compact of Free Association with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau, all of which are Pacific island nations which were part of the U.S.-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands beginning after World War II, and gained independence in subsequent years.

Government finance

See also: Taxation in the United States and United States federal budget

Taxes are levied in the United States at the federal, state and local government level. These include taxes on income, payroll, property, sales, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2010 taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24.8% of GDP.[258] During FY2012, the federal government collected approximately $2.45 trillion in tax revenue, up $147 billion or 6% versus FY2011 revenues of $2.30 trillion. Primary receipt categories included individual income taxes ($1,132B or 47%), Social Security/Social Insurance taxes ($845B or 35%), and corporate taxes ($242B or 10%).[259]

U.S. taxation is generally progressive, especially the federal income taxes, and is among the most progressive in the developed world,[260][261][262][263][264] but the incidence of corporate income tax has been a matter of considerable ongoing controversy for decades.[265][266][267][268] In 2009 the top 10% of earners, with 36% of the nation's income, paid 78.2% of the federal personal income tax burden, while the bottom 40% had a negative liability.[263] However, payroll taxes for Social Security are a flat regressive tax, with no tax charged on income above $113,700 and no tax at all paid on unearned income from things such as stocks and capital gains.[269][270] The historic reasoning for the regressive nature of the payroll tax is that entitlement programs have not been viewed as welfare transfers.[271][272] The top 10% paid 51.8% of total federal taxes in 2009, and the top 1%, with 13.4% of pre-tax national income, paid 22.3% of federal taxes.[263] In 2013 the Tax Policy Center projected total federal effective tax rates of 35.5% for the top 1%, 27.2% for the top quintile, 13.8% for the middle quintile, and −2.7% for the bottom quintile.[273][274] State and local taxes vary widely, but are generally less progressive than federal taxes as they rely heavily on broadly borne regressive sales and property taxes that yield less volatile revenue streams, though their consideration does not eliminate the progressive nature of overall taxation.[261][275]

During FY 2012, the federal government spent $3.54 trillion on a budget or cash basis, down $60 billion or 1.7% vs. FY 2011 spending of $3.60 trillion. Major categories of FY 2012 spending included: Medicare & Medicaid ($802B or 23% of spending), Social Security ($768B or 22%), Defense Department ($670B or 19%), non-defense discretionary ($615B or 17%), other mandatory ($461B or 13%) and interest ($223B or 6%).[259]

National debt

US federal debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP, from 1790 to 2013

Main article: National debt of the United States

The total national debt in the United States was $18.527 trillion (106% of the GDP), according to an estimate for 2014 by the International Monetary Fund.[276] In May 2014, U.S. federal government debt held by the public was approximately $12.495 trillion, or about 75% of U.S. GDP. Intra-governmental holdings stood at $5 trillion, giving a combined total debt of $17.494 trillion.[277][278] By 2012, total federal debt had surpassed 100% of U.S. GDP.[279] The U.S. has a credit rating of AA+ from Standard & Poor's, AAA from Fitch, and Aaa from Moody's.[280]

Historically, the U.S. public debt as a share of GDP increased during wars and recessions, and subsequently declined. For example, debt held by the public as a share of GDP peaked just after World War II (113% of GDP in 1945), but then fell over the following 30 years. In recent decades, large budget deficits and the resulting increases in debt have led to concern about the long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies.[281] However, these concerns are not universally shared.[282]

Military

Main article: United States Armed Forces

The carrier strike groups of the Kitty Hawk, Ronald Reagan, and Abraham Lincoln with aircraft from the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Ariz. (Feb.4, 2004)

The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and by the Department of the Navy during times of war. In 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.[283]

Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System.[284] American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's 10 active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad,[285] and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.[286] The extent of this global military presence has prompted some scholars to describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases".[287]

The military budget of the United States in 2011 was more than $700 billion, 41% of global military spending and equal to the next 14 largest national military expenditures combined. At 4.7% of GDP, the rate was the second-highest among the top 15 military spenders, after Saudi Arabia.[288] U.S. defense spending as a percentage of GDP ranked 23rd globally in 2012 according to the CIA.[289] Defense's share of U.S. spending has generally declined in recent decades, from Cold War peaks of 14.2% of GDP in 1953 and 69.5% of federal outlays in 1954 to 4.7% of GDP and 18.8% of federal outlays in 2011.[290]

The proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2012, $553 billion, was a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional $118 billion was proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.[291] The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011;[292] 4,484 servicemen were killed during the Iraq War.[293] Approximately 90,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan in April 2012;[294] by November 8, 2013 2,285 had been killed during the War in Afghanistan.[295]

Crime and law enforcement

Main articles: Law enforcement in the United States and Crime in the United States

See also: Law of the United States, Capital punishment in the United States, Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and Human rights in the United States § Justice system

Law enforcement in the U.S. is maintained primarily by local police departments. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is the largest in the country.[296]

Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties.[297] At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as certain appeals from the state criminal courts. Plea bargaining in the United States is very common; the vast majority of criminal cases in the country are settled by plea bargain rather than jury trial.[298][299]

In 2012 there were 4.7 murders per 100,000 persons in the United States, a 54% decline from the modern peak of 10.2 in 1980.[300][301][302] Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[303] A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2003 showed that United States "homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher."[304] Gun ownership rights continue to be the subject of contentious political debate.

Capital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and used in 32 states.[305] No executions took place from 1967 to 1977, owing in part to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down arbitrary imposition of the death penalty. In 1976, that Court ruled that, under appropriate circumstances, capital punishment may constitutionally be imposed. Since the decision there have been more than 1,300 executions, a majority of these taking place in three states: Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma.[306] Meanwhile, several states have either abolished or struck down death penalty laws. In 2010, the country had the fifth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen.[307]

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate and total prison population in the world.[308][309][310][311] At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.[312] The prison population has quadrupled since 1980.[313] African-American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.[314] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to changes in sentencing guidelines and drug policies.[315] In 2008, Louisiana had the highest incarceration rate, and Maine the lowest.[316] In 2012, Louisiana had the highest rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the U.S., and New Hampshire the lowest.[317]

Economy

Main article: Economy of the United States

Economic Indicators

Nominal GDP     $17.311 trillion (Q2 2014)     [318]

Real GDP growth        4.2% (Q2 2014, annualized)

2.2% (2013)        [318]

CPI inflation        2.1% (May 2014)         [319]

Employment-to-population ratio    58.9% (May 2014)       [320]

Unemployment   6.2% (July 2014)         [321]

Labor force participation rate        62.8% (April 2014)       [322]

Total public debt $17.5 trillion (Q2 2014)         [323]

Household net worth   $81.8 trillion (Q1 2014)         [324]

United States export treemap (2011): The U.S. is the world's second-largest exporter.

The United States has a capitalist mixed economy which is fueled by abundant natural resources and high productivity.[325] According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $16.8 trillion constitutes 24% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and over 19% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).[5] Its national GDP was about 5% larger at PPP in 2014 than the European Union's, whose population is around 62% higher.[326] However, the US's nominal GDP is estimated to be $17.528 trillion as of 2014, which is about 5% smaller than that of the European Union.[327] From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7.[328] The country ranks ninth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and sixth in GDP per capita at PPP.[5] The U.S. dollar is the world's primary reserve currency.[329]

The United States is the largest importer of goods and second largest exporter, though exports per capita are relatively low. In 2010, the total U.S. trade deficit was $635 billion.[330] Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.[331] In 2010, oil was the largest import commodity, while transportation equipment was the country's largest export.[330] China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt.[332] The largest holder of the U.S. debt are American entities, including federal government accounts and the Federal Reserve, who hold the majority of the debt.[333][334][335][336]

In 2009, the private sector was estimated to constitute 86.4% of the economy, with federal government activity accounting for 4.3% and state and local government activity (including federal transfers) the remaining 9.3%.[337] While its economy has reached a postindustrial level of development and its service sector constitutes 67.8% of GDP, the United States remains an industrial power.[338] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing.[339]

Chemical products are the leading manufacturing field.[340] The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer.[341] It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP,[338] the United States is the world's top producer of corn[342] and soybeans.[343] The National Agricultural Statistics Service maintains agricultural statistics[dead link] for products that include peanuts, oats, rye, wheat, rice, cotton, corn, barley, hay, sunflowers, and oilseeds. In addition, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides livestock statistics regarding beef, poultry, pork, and dairy products. The National Mining Association provides data pertaining to coal and minerals that include beryllium, copper, lead, magnesium, zinc, titanium and others.[344][345] In the franchising business model, McDonald's and Subway are the two most recognized brands in the world. Coca-Cola is the most recognized soft drink company in the world.[346]

Consumer spending comprises 71% of the U.S. economy in 2013.[347] In August 2010, the American labor force consisted of 154.1 million people. With 21.2 million people, government is the leading field of employment. The largest private employment sector is health care and social assistance, with 16.4 million people. About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.[348] The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.[349] The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation[350] and is one of just a few countries in the world without paid family leave as a legal right, with the others being Papua New Guinea, Suriname and Liberia.[351] In 2009, the United States had the third highest labor productivity per person in the world, behind Luxembourg and Norway. It was fourth in productivity per hour, behind those two countries and the Netherlands.[352]

The 2008-2012 global recession had a significant impact on the United States, with output still below potential according to the Congressional Budget Office.[353] It brought high unemployment (which has been decreasing but remains above pre-recession levels), along with low consumer confidence, the continuing decline in home values and increase in foreclosures and personal bankruptcies, an escalating federal debt crisis, inflation, and rising petroleum and food prices. There remains a record proportion of long-term unemployed, continued decreasing household income, and tax and federal budget increases.[354][355][356] A 2011 poll found that more than half of all Americans think the U.S. is still in recession or even depression, despite official data that shows a historically modest recovery.[357] In 2011 the Census Bureau defined poverty rate increased to roughly 16% of the population.[358]

Income, poverty and wealth

Productivity and real median family income growth 1947–2009

A tract housing development in San Jose, California

Further information: Income in the United States, Poverty in the United States and Affluence in the United States

Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD nations, and in 2007 had the second highest median household income.[30][359] According to the Census Bureau real median household income was $50,502 in 2011, down from $51,144 in 2010.[360] The Global Food Security Index ranked the U.S. number one for food affordability and overall food security in March 2013.[361] Americans on average have over twice as much living space per dwelling and per person as European Union residents, and more than every EU nation.[362] For 2013 the United Nations Development Programme ranked the United States 5th among 187 countries in its Human Development Index and 28th in its inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI).[363]

There has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s.[364] While inflation-adjusted ("real") household income had been increasing almost every year from 1947 to 1999, it has since been flat and even decreased recently.[365] The rise in the share of total annual income received by the top 1 percent, which has more than doubled from 9 percent in 1976 to 20 percent in 2011, has had a significant impact on income inequality,[366] leaving the United States with one of the widest income distributions among OECD nations.[367][368][369] The post-recession income gains have been very uneven, with the top 1 percent capturing 95 percent of the income gains from 2009 to 2012.[370]

Wealth, like income and taxes, is highly concentrated; the richest 10% of the adult population possess 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom half claim only 2%.[371] This is the second-highest share among developed nations.[372] Between June 2007 and November 2008 the global recession led to falling asset prices around the world. Assets owned by Americans lost about a quarter of their value.[373] Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth is down $14 trillion.[374] At the end of 2008, household debt amounted to $13.8 trillion.[375]

There were about 643,000 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U.S. in January 2009, with almost two-thirds staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. In 2011 16.7 million children lived in food-insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels, though only 1.1% of U.S. children, or 845,000, saw reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns at some point during the year, and most cases were not chronic.[376]

Infrastructure

Transportation

Main article: Transportation in the United States

The Interstate Highway System, which extends 46,876 miles (75,440 km)[377]

Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 13 million roads, including one of the world's longest highway systems.[378] The world's second largest automobile market,[379] the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans.[380] About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks.[381] The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).[382]

Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips.[383][384] While transport of goods by rail is extensive, relatively few people use rail to travel,[385] though ridership on Amtrak, the national intercity passenger rail system, grew by almost 37% between 2000 and 2010.[386] Also, light rail development has increased in recent years.[387] Bicycle usage for work commutes is minimal.[388]

The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition of US Airways.[389] Of the world's 30 busiest passenger airports, 12 are in the United States, including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.[390]

Energy

The Hoover Dam when completed in 1936 was both the world's largest electric-power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure.

See also: Energy policy of the United States

The United States energy market is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, the 10th highest rate in the world. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources.[391] The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.[392]

For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part because of public perception in the wake of a 1979 accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed.[393] The United States has 27% of global coal reserves.[394] It is the world's largest producer of natural gas and crude oil.[395]

Science and technology

Main article: Science and technology in the United States

See also: Technological and industrial history of the United States

Astronaut James Irwin walking on the Moon next to Apollo 15's landing module and lunar rover in 1971. The effort to reach the Moon was triggered by the Space Race.

The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera.[396] In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford popularized the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.[397]

The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and John von Neumann, to immigrate to the United States.[398] During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and computers.[citation needed] Advancements by American microprocessor companies such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Intel along with both computer software and hardware companies that include Sun Microsystems, IBM, GNU-Linux, Apple Computer, and Microsoft refined and popularized the personal computer.[citation needed]

The ARPANET was developed in the 1960s to meet Defense Department requirements, and became the first of a series of networks which evolved into the Internet. Today, 64% of research and development funding comes from the private sector.[399] The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor.[400] As of April 2010, 77% of American households owned at least one computer, and 68% had broadband Internet service.[401] 85% of Americans also own a mobile phone as of 2011.[402] The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food, representing half of the world's biotech crops.[403]

Education

Main article: Education in the United States

See also: Educational attainment in the United States and Higher education in the United States

The University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, is one of the many public universities in the United States.

American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. In most states, children are required to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn 18 (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at 16 or 17.[404] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.[405] The U.S. spends more on education per student than any nation in the world, spending more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student.[406] Some 80% of U.S. college students attend public universities.[407]

The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education. According to prominent international rankings, 13 or 15 American colleges and universities are ranked among the top 20 in the world.[408][409] There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition. Of Americans 25 and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.[410] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.[148][411] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.[412]

As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. trails some other OECD nations but spends more per student than the OECD average, and more than all nations in combined public and private spending.[406][413] As of 2012, student loan debt exceeded one trillion dollars, more than Americans owe on credit cards.[414]

Health

See also: Health care in the United States, Health care reform in the United States and Health insurance in the United States

The United States has a life expectancy of 78.4 years at birth, up from 75.2 years in 1990, ranking it 50th among 221 nations, and 27th out of the 34 industrialized OECD countries, down from 20th in 1990.[415][416] Increasing obesity in the United States and health improvements elsewhere have contributed to lowering the country's rank in life expectancy from 1987, when it was 11th in the world.[417] Obesity rates in the United States are among the highest in the world.[418] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;[419] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.[420] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[421] The infant mortality rate of 6.17 per thousand places the United States 169th highest out of 224 countries.[422]

In 2010, coronary artery disease, lung cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and traffic accidents caused the most years of life lost in the U.S. Low back pain, depression, musculoskeletal disorders, neck pain, and anxiety caused the most years lost to disability. The most deleterious risk factors were poor diet, tobacco smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, physical inactivity, and alcohol use. Alzheimer's disease, drug abuse, kidney disease and cancer, and falls caused the most additional years of life lost over their age-adjusted 1990 per-capita rates.[416] U.S. teenage pregnancy and abortion rates are substantially higher than in other Western nations.

The U.S. is a global leader in medical innovation. America solely developed or contributed significantly to 9 of the top 10 most important medical innovations since 1975 as ranked by a 2001 poll of physicians, while the EU and Switzerland together contributed to five. Since 1966, Americans have received more Nobel Prizes in Medicine than the rest of the world. From 1989 to 2002, four times more money was invested in private biotechnology companies in America than in Europe.[423][424] The U.S. health-care system far outspends any other nation, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.[425] Health-care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts and is not universal. In 2010, 49.9 million residents or 16.3% of the population did not carry health insurance. The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.[426][427] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.[428] Federal legislation passed in early 2010 would ostensibly create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014, though the bill and its ultimate impact are issues of controversy.[429][430]

Culture

Main article: Culture of the United States

See also: Social class in the United States, Public holidays in the United States and Tourism in the United States

The United States is home to many cultures and a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.[18][431] Aside from the relatively small Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors settled or immigrated within the past five centuries.[432] Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa.[18][433] More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as both a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.[18]

Philadelphia, the first US capital City

Core American culture was established by Protestant British colonists and shaped by the frontier settlement process, with the traits derived passed down to descendants and transmitted to immigrants through assimilation. Americans have traditionally been characterized by a strong work ethic, competitiveness, and individualism, as well as a unifying belief in an "American creed" emphasizing liberty, equality, private property, democracy, rule of law, and a preference for limited government.[434] Americans are extremely charitable by global standards. According to a 2006 British study, Americans gave 1.67% of GDP to charity, more than any other nation studied, more than twice the second place British figure of 0.73%, and around twelve times the French figure of 0.14%.[435][436]

The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants.[437] Whether this perception is realistic has been a topic of debate.[438][439][440][441][328][442] While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society,[443] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.[444] Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.[445] While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.[446]

Mass media

Main articles: Media of the United States and Television in the United States

The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Fox. Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world,[447] and the average viewing time continues to rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006.[448] The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercial, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day.[449]

In 1998, the number of U.S. commercial radio stations had grown to 4,793 AM stations and 5,662 FM stations. In addition, there are 1,460 public radio stations. Most of these stations are run by universities and public authorities for educational purposes and are financed by public and/or private funds, subscriptions and corporate underwriting. Much public-radio broadcasting is supplied by NPR (formerly National Public Radio). NPR was incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967; its television counterpart, PBS, was also created by the same legislation. (NPR and PBS are operated separately from each other.)

Aside from web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, eBay, and Craigslist.[450]

Well-known newspapers are The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Although the cost of publishing has increased over the years, the price of newspapers has generally remained low, forcing newspapers to rely more on advertising revenue and on articles provided by a major wire service, such as the Associated Press or Reuters, for their national and world coverage. With very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or in a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals or families. Major cities often have "alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily paper(s), for example, New York City's Village Voice or Los Angeles' L.A. Weekly, to name two of the best-known. Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries, and papers for local ethnic and social groups.

In Spanish, the second most widely spoken mother tongue behind English, more than 800 publications are published.[451][452]

Cinema

Main article: Cinema of the United States

The Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, California

The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, California.

Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time.[453][454] American screen actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. Hollywood is also one of the leaders in motion picture production.[455]

Comics

Early versions of the American newspaper comic strip and the American comic book began appearing in the 19th century. In 1938, Superman, the quintessential comic book superhero of DC Comics, developed into an American icon.[456] Additional comic book publishers include; Marvel Comics, created in 1939, Image Comics, created in 1992, Dark Horse Comics, created in 1986, and numerous small press comic book companies. In celebration of the industry's success, annual comic conventions take place at The San Diego Comic-Con International, which has an attendance of over 130,000 visitors.

Music

The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s.[457]

Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities.[457]

Literature, philosophy, and the arts

Main articles: American literature, American philosophy, Visual art of the United States and American classical music

Mark Twain, American author and humorist

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the 19th century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is now recognized as an essential American poet.[458] A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "Great American Novel".[459]

Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century.[460] Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo.

The transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major American philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Sanders Peirce and then William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty, and later Noam Chomsky, brought analytic philosophy to the fore of American philosophical academia. John Rawls and Robert Nozick led a revival of political philosophy. Cornel West and Judith Butler have led a continental tradition in American philosophical academia. Globally influential Chicago school economists like Milton Friedman, James M. Buchanan, and Thomas Sowell have transcended discipline to impact various fields in social and political philosophy.[461][462]

In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of European naturalism. The realist paintings of Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.[463] Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new, individualistic styles. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.

Times Square in New York City, the hub of the Broadway theater district

One of the first major promoters of American theater was impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular musical comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the 20th century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson.

Though little known at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition, while experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created a distinctive American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a new synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped create modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th-century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of photography, with major photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams.

Food

Main article: Cuisine of the United States

Apple pie is a food synonymous with American culture.

Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, which were consumed by Native Americans and early European settlers.[citation needed]

Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American foods. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana Creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important. The confectionery industry in the United States includes The Hershey Company, the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America. In addition, Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, is the largest globally distributed snack food company in the world. The United States has a vast breakfast cereal industry that includes brands such as Kellogg's and General Mills.

Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.[464] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages.[465][466]

The American fast food industry, the world's largest, pioneered the drive-through format in the 1930s. Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[464] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "obesity epidemic".[467] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for nine percent of American caloric intake.[468]

Sports

Main article: Sports in the United States

Swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time.

While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact.[469] The Iroquois field their own separate national team, the Iroquois Nationals, in recognition of the confederacy's creation of lacrosse. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,400 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country, and 281 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most behind Norway.[470]

The market for professional sports in the United States is roughly $69 billion, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined.[471] Baseball has been regarded as the national sport since the late 19th century, while American football is now by several measures the most popular spectator sport.[472] Basketball and ice hockey are the country's next two leading professional team sports. These four major sports, when played professionally, each occupy a season at different, but overlapping, times of the year. College football and basketball attract large audiences.[473] Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports,[474] but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR.[475] In the 21st century, televised mixed martial arts has also gained a strong following of regular viewers.[476][477] While soccer is less popular in the United States than in many other nations, the country hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the men's national soccer team has been to the past six World Cups and the women are first in the women's world rankings.

Immigration to the United States

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2000 Census population ancestry map

Immigration to the United States is a complex demographic phenomenon that has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime, and voting behavior. On a per capita basis, the United States lets in fewer immigrants than half the countries in the OECD.[1] Prior to 1965, policies such as the national origins formula limited immigration and naturalization opportunities for people from areas outside Western Europe.

The civil rights movement of the 1960s led to the replacement[2] of these ethnic quotas with per-country limits.[3] Since then, the number of first-generation immigrants living in the United States has quadrupled,[4] from 9.6 million in 1970 to about 38 million in 2007.[5] Nearly 14 million immigrants entered the United States from 2000 to 2010.,[6] and over one million persons were naturalized as U.S. citizens in 2008. Since the per-country limit[3] applies the same maximum on the number of visas to all countries regardless of their population, it has had the effect of severely restricting the legal immigration of persons born in Mexico, India, China, and the Philippines – currently the leading[7] countries of origin of immigrants to the United States.[8]

Family reunification accounts for approximately two-thirds of legal immigration to the US every year.[9] As of 2009, 66% of legal immigrants were admitted on this basis, along with 13% admitted for their employment skills and 17% for humanitarian reasons.[10]

Migration is difficult, expensive, and dangerous for those who enter the US illegally across the Mexico–United States border.[11] Virtually all undocumented immigrants have no avenues for legal entry to the United States due the restrictive legal limits on green cards, and lack of immigrant visas for low skilled workers.[8] Participants in debates on immigration in the early twenty-first century called for increasing enforcement of existing laws governing illegal immigration to the United States, building a barrier along some or all of the 2,000-mile (3,200 km) U.S.-Mexico border, or creating a new guest worker program. Through much of 2006 the country and Congress was immersed in a debate about these proposals. As of April 2010 few of these proposals had become law, though a partial border fence had been approved and subsequently canceled.[12]

History

Main article: History of immigration to the United States

American immigration history can be viewed in four epochs: the colonial period, the mid-19th century, the start of the 20th century, and post-1965. Each period brought distinct national groups, races and ethnicities to the United States. During the 17th century, approximately 400,000 English people migrated to Colonial America.[13] Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants.[14] The mid-19th century saw mainly an influx from northern Europe; the early 20th-century mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe; post-1965 mostly from Latin America and Asia.

Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, 1902

Historians estimate that fewer than 1 million immigrants came to the United States from Europe between 1600 and 1799.[15] The 1790 Act limited naturalization to "free white persons"; it was expanded to include blacks in the 1860s and Asians in the 1950s.[16] In the early years of the United States, immigration was fewer than 8,000 people a year,[17] including French refugees from the slave revolt in Haiti. After 1820, immigration gradually increased. From 1836 to 1914, over 30 million Europeans migrated to the United States.[18] The death rate on these transatlantic voyages was high, during which one in seven travelers died.[19] In 1875, the nation passed its first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875.[20]

The peak year of European immigration was in 1907, when 1,285,349 persons entered the country.[21] By 1910, 13.5 million immigrants were living in the United States.[22] In 1921, the Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924. The 1924 Act was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans, especially Jews, Italians, and Slavs, who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.[23] Most of the European refugees fleeing the Nazis and World War II were barred from coming to the United States.[24]

Polish immigrants working on the farm, 1909. The welfare system was practically non-existent before the 1930s and the economic pressures on the poor were giving rise to child labor.

Immigration patterns of the 1930s were dominated by the Great Depression, which hit the U.S. hard and lasted over ten years there. In the final prosperous year, 1929, there were 279,678 immigrants recorded,[25] but in 1933, only 23,068 came to the U.S.[15] In the early 1930s, more people emigrated from the United States than to it.[26] The U.S. government sponsored a Mexican Repatriation program which was intended to encourage people to voluntarily move to Mexico, but thousands were deported against their will.[27] Altogether about 400,000 Mexicans were repatriated.[28] In the post-war era, the Justice Department launched Operation Wetback, under which 1,075,168 Mexicans were deported in 1954.[29]

First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate ×America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of ×Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.

— Ted Kennedy, chief Senate sponsor of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.[30]

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, abolished the system of national-origin quotas. By equalizing immigration policies, the act resulted in new immigration from non-European nations, which changed the ethnic make-up of the United States.[31] In 1970, 60% of immigrants were from Europe; this decreased to 15% by 2000.[32] In 1990, George H. W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990,[33] which increased legal immigration to the United States by 40%.[34] Appointed by Bill Clinton,[35] the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people per year to approximately 550,000.[36] While an influx of new residents from different cultures presents some challenges, "the United States has always been energized by its immigrant populations," said President Bill Clinton in 1998. "America has constantly drawn strength and spirit from wave after wave of immigrants [...] They have proved to be the most restless, the most adventurous, the most innovative, the most industrious of people."[37]

Nearly 8 million people immigrated to the United States from 2000 to 2005; 3.7 million of them entered without papers.[38][39] Since 1986 Congress has passed seven amnesties for undocumented immigrants.[40] In 1986 president Ronald Reagan signed immigration reform that gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants in the country.[41] Hispanic immigrants suffered job losses during the late-2000s recession,[42] but since the recession's end in June 2009, immigrants posted a net gain of 656,000 jobs.[43] Over 1 million immigrants were granted legal residence in 2011.[44]

Boston Chinatown, Massachusetts, 2008.

Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status Fiscal Years

Year           Year           Year           Year

1950 249,187     1987 601,516     2008 1,107,126  2011 1,062,040

1967 361,972     1997 797,847     2009 1,130,818  2012 1,031,631

1977 462,315     2007 1,052,415  2010 1,042,625  2013 990,553

Source: US Department of Homeland Security, Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status: Fiscal Years 1950 to 2013[45][46]

Contemporary immigration

Until the 1930s most legal immigrants were male. By the 1990s women accounted for just over half of all legal immigrants.[47] Contemporary immigrants tend to be younger than the native population of the United States, with people between the ages of 15 and 34 substantially overrepresented.[48] Immigrants are also more likely to be married and less likely to be divorced than native-born Americans of the same age.[49]

Naturalization ceremony, Salem, Massachusetts, 2007

Paterson, New Jersey, within the New York City Metropolitan Area, is becoming an increasingly popular destination for Muslim immigrants.

Immigrants are likely to move to and live in areas populated by people with similar backgrounds. This phenomenon has held true throughout the history of immigration to the United States.[50] Seven out of ten immigrants surveyed by Public Agenda in 2009 said they intended to make the U.S. their permanent home, and 71% said if they could do it over again they would still come to the US. In the same study, 76% of immigrants say the government has become stricter on enforcing immigration laws since the September 11, 2001 attacks ("9/11"), and 24% report that they personally have experienced some or a great deal of discrimination.[51]

Public attitudes about immigration in the U.S. were heavily influenced in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. After the attacks, 52% of Americans believed that immigration was a good thing overall for the U.S., down from 62% the year before, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.[52] A 2008 Public Agenda survey found that half of Americans said tighter controls on immigration would do "a great deal" to enhance U.S. national security.[53] Harvard political scientist and historian Samuel P. Huntington argued in Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity that a potential future consequence of continuing massive immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, might lead to the bifurcation of the United States.

The population of illegal Mexican immigrants in the US fell from approximately 7 million in 2007 to 6.1 million in 2011[54] Commentators link the reversal of the immigration trend to the economic downturn that started in 2008 and which meant fewer available jobs, and to the introduction of tough immigration laws in many states.[55][56][57][58] According to the Pew Hispanic Center the total number of Mexican born persons had stagnated in 2010, and tended toward going into negative figures.[59]

More than 80 cities in the United States,[60] including Washington D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Detroit, Jersey City, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine, have sanctuary policies, which vary locally.[61]

Inflow of New Legal Permanent Residents, Top Five Sending Countries, 2013

Country      2013 Region       2013

Mexico       135,028     Asia  400,548

China         71,798       Americas   396,605

India 68,458       Africa         98,304

Philippines 54,446       Europe       86,556

Dominican Republic    41,311       All Immigrants     990,553

Source: US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics[46]

New reasons for immigrating to the US

Froma Harrop, of the Providence Journal, has written about "environmental immigration," specifically wealthier Chinese nationals moving to or buying real estate in the US to escape China's heavy industrial pollution.[62]

Demography

Little Italy in New York, ca.1900

The United States admitted more legal immigrants from 1991 to 2000, between ten to eleven million, than in any previous decade. In the most recent decade, the ten million legal immigrants that settled in the U.S. represent an annual growth of only about 0.3% as the U.S. population grew from 249 million to 281 million. By comparison, the highest previous decade was the 1900s, when 8.8 million people arrived, increasing the total U.S. population by one percent every year. Specifically, "nearly 15% of Americans were foreign-born in 1910, while in 1999, only about 10% were foreign-born."[63]

By 1970, immigrants accounted for 4.7 percent of the US population and rising to 6.2 percent in 1980, with an estimated 12.5 percent in 2009.[64] As of 2010, 25% of US residents under age 18 were first- or second-generation immigrants.[65] Eight percent of all babies born in the U.S. in 2008 belonged to illegal immigrant parents, according to a recent analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center.[66]

Legal immigration to the U.S. increased from 250,000 in the 1930s, to 2.5 million in the 1950s, to 4.5 million in the 1970s, and to 7.3 million in the 1980s, before resting at about 10 million in the 1990s.[67] Since 2000, legal immigrants to the United States number approximately 1,000,000 per year, of whom about 600,000 are Change of Status who already are in the U.S. Legal immigrants to the United States now are at their highest level ever, at just over 37,000,000 legal immigrants. Illegal immigration may be as high as 1,500,000 per year with a net of at least 700,000 illegal immigrants arriving every year.[68][69] Immigration led to a 57.4% increase in foreign born population from 1990 to 2000.[70]

Crowd at the Philippine Independence Day Parade in New York City

While immigration has increased drastically over the last century, the foreign born share of the population was still higher in 1900 (about 20%) than it is today (about 10%). A number of factors may be attributed to the decrease in the representation of foreign born residents in the United States. Most significant has been the change in the composition of immigrants; prior to 1890, 82% of immigrants came from ×North and Western Europe. From 1891 to 1920, that number dropped to 25%, with a rise in immigrants from East, Central, and ×South Europe, summing up to 64%. Animosity towards these different and foreign immigrants rose in the ×United States, resulting in much legislation to limit immigration.

Contemporary immigrants settle predominantly in seven states, California, New York, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois, comprising about 44% of the U.S. population as a whole. The combined total immigrant population of these seven states was 70% of the total foreign-born population in 2000. If current birth rate and immigration rates were to remain unchanged for another 70 to 80 years, the U.S. population would double to nearly 600 million.[71]

The top twelve emigrant countries in 2006 were Mexico (173,753), People's Republic of China (87,345), Philippines (74,607), India (61,369), Cuba (45,614), Colombia (43,151), Dominican Republic (38,069), El Salvador (31,783), Vietnam (30,695), Jamaica (24,976), South Korea (24,386), and Guatemala (24,146). Other countries comprise an additional 606,370.[72]

In 1900, when the U.S. population was 76 million, there were an estimated 500,000 Hispanics.[73] The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, one-quarter of the population will be of Hispanic descent.[74] This demographic shift is largely fueled by immigration from Latin America.[75][76]

Origin

  500,000 +

  200,000-499,999

  100,000-199,999

  50,000-99,999

Rate of immigration to the United States relative to sending countries' population size, 2006–2010.

Foreign born population of the United States by country of birth in 2011[77] and number of immigrants since 1986 by country of birth[78]

These data are complementary; the former includes the Census 2010 population of immigrants from that country, and is slanted toward historic immigration (e.g., Italy) whereas the latter counts immigrants between 1986 and 2012 and is slanted toward recent immigration (e.g., Burma). A country is included in the table if it exceeded 50,000 in either category.

Country of birth  Population (2000)        Immigrants (1986-2012)

United States      271,210,345       3,132

Total foreign born        40,381,574         26,147,963

Mexico       11,691,632         5,551,757

India 1,855,705  1,323,011

Philippines 1,814,875  1,480,946

China         1,651,511  1,399,667

Vietnam     1,253,910  955,967

El Salvador         1,245,458  676,776

Korea         1,095,084  609,321

Cuba          1,090,563  666,657

Dominican Republic    878,858     904,721

Guatemala          844,332     353,122

Canada     787,542     394,790

Jamaica     694,600     507,741

Colombia   655,096     498,551

Germany   618,227     192,676

Haiti  602,733     536,657

Honduras  499,987     178,321

Poland       452,224     360,669

Ecuador     429,316     243,217

Peru 406,008     320,611

Russia       398,086     476,306

Italy   368,789     69,111

Taiwan       368,024     269,873

Iran   357,189     358,586

United Kingdom 356,558     383,037

Ukraine      342,153     306,203

Brazil          334,121     214,266

Japan        314,042     172,893

Pakistan    307,855     347,237

Guyana     255463      214,995

Nicaragua 249,037     191,701

Thailand    243,250     174,168

Nigeria       228,953     227,497

Trinidad and Tobago  226,074     157,689

Hong Kong         219,872     156,676

Venezuela 198,468     143,411

Bangladesh        185,275     215,164

Laos 178,824     110,235

Romania    171,269     140,887

Argentina   165,029     98,999

Iraq   164,869     153,897

Ethiopia     163,407     202,518

France       163,000     87,601

Portugal     158,911     53,831

Cambodia 157,490     106,183

Egypt         156,149     153,755

Ghana       135,822     130,542

Israel          134,680     106,568

Greece      133,917     37,406

Republic of Ireland      130,351     104,586

Bosnia and Herzegovina      120,077     129,481

Lebanon    114,720     113,727

Serbia and Montenegro       103,170     88,688

Kenya        102,235     92,891

Panama     101,889     57,628

Chile 99,430       54,573

Indonesia  98,600       61,493

Turkey       96,970       85,415

Spain         93,578       41,328

South Africa        92,571       69,992

Somalia     89,474       94,978

Burma        89,289       94,792

Armenia     84,138       62,201

Bolivia        81,143       52,177

Nepal         79,996       58,841

Netherlands        77,522       35,117

Albania      76,870       84,031

Costa Rica          76,193       47,648

Hungary    74,985       31,365

Liberia        71,943       74,632

Syria 69,400       68,864

Jordan       69,283       104,168

Bulgaria     65,699       68,768

Australia    64,775       12,926

Afghanistan        63,291       59,480

Czech Republic  83,080       27,354

Morocco    62,761       76,622

Belarus      59,522       58,254

Malaysia    58,663       n/a

Saudi Arabia       58,022       n/a

Uzbekistan          56,503       68,654

Barbados  50,285       25,444

Austria       49,565       56,283

Sweden     48,704       51,840

Sri Lanka   48,411       51,675

Note: Counts of immigrants since 1986 for ×Russia includes "Soviet Union (former)", for ×Czech Republic includes "Czechoslovakia (former)", and for "Serbia and Montenegro" includes Serbia, Montenegro, and ×Kosovo for the most recent years. Serbia and ×Montenegro defined as "Yugoslavia" in Census 2000 foreign-born statistics. Sudan includes South Sudan.

Immigration by state

Percentage change in Foreign Born Population 1990 to 2000

North Carolina    273.7%      South Carolina   132.1%      Mississippi 95.8%          Wisconsin 59.4%        Vermont     32.5%

Georgia     233.4%      Minnesota 130.4%      Washington        90.7%        New Jersey          52.7%        Connecticut        32.4%

Nevada      202.0%      Idaho         121.7%      Texas        90.2%        Alaska        49.8%          New Hampshire 31.5%

Arkansas   196.3%      Kansas      114.4%      New Mexico        85.8%        Michigan          47.3%        Ohio 30.7%

Utah 170.8%      Iowa 110.3%      Virginia      82.9%        Wyoming   46.5%        Hawaii          30.4%

Tennessee         169.0%      Oregon      108.0%      Missouri     80.8%        Pennsylvania          37.6%        North Dakota      29.0%

Nebraska   164.7%      Alabama    101.6%      South Dakota     74.6%        California          37.2%        Rhode Island      25.4%

Colorado   159.7%      Delaware   101.6%      Maryland   65.3%        New York   35.6%          West Virginia      23.4%

Arizona      135.9%      Oklahoma  101.2%      Florida       60.6%        Massachusetts          34.7%        Montana    19.0%

Kentucky   135.3%      Indiana      97.9%        Illinois         60.6%        Louisiana  32.6%          Maine         1.1%

Source: U.S. Census 1990 and 2000

Effects of immigration

Demographics

A U.S. naturalization ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center, 2010.

The Census Bureau estimates the US population will grow from 281 million in 2000 to 397 million in 2050 with immigration, but only to 328 million with no immigration.[79] A new report from the Pew Research Center projects that by 2050, non-Hispanic whites will account for 47% of the population, down from the 2005 figure of 67%.[80] Non-Hispanic whites made up 85% of the population in 1960.[81] It also foresees the Hispanic population rising from 14% in 2005 to 29% by 2050.[82] The Asian population is expected to more than triple by 2050. Overall, the Pew Report predicts the population of the United States will rise from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million in 2050, with 82% of the increase from immigrants.[83]

In 35 of the country's 50 largest cities, non-Hispanic whites were at the last census or are predicted to be in the minority.[84] In California, non-Hispanic whites slipped from 80% of the state's population in 1970 to 42.3% in 2001[85] and 39% in 2013.[86]

Immigrant segregation declined in the first half of the 20th century, but has been rising over the past few decades. This has caused questioning of the correctness of describing the United States as a melting pot. One explanation is that groups with lower socioeconomic status concentrate in more densely populated area that have access to public transit while groups with higher socioeconomic status move to suburban areas. Another is that some recent immigrant groups are more culturally and linguistically different from earlier groups and prefer to live together due to factors such as communication costs.[87] Another explanation for increased segregation is white flight.[88]

Place of birth for the foreign-born population in the United States

Top ten countries        2010 2000 1990

Mexico       11,711,103         9,177,487  4,298,014

China         2,166,526  1,518,652  921,070

India 1,780,322  1,022,552  450,406

Philippines 1,777,588  1,369,070  912,674

Vietnam     1,240,542  988,174     543,262

El Salvador         1,214,049  817,336     465,433

Cuba          1,104,679  872,716     736,971

South Korea       1,100,422  864,125     568,397

Dominican Republic    879,187     687,677     347,858

Guatemala          830,824     480,665     225,739

All of Latin America     21,224,087         16,086,974         8,407,837

All Immigrants     39,955,854         31,107,889         19,767,316

Source: 1990 and 2000 decennial ×Census and 2010 American Community Survey

Economic

Mexican immigrants march for more rights in Northern California's largest city, San Jose (2006).

Ads by OffersWizard×In a late 1980s study, economists overwhelmingly viewed immigration, including illegal immigration, as a positive for the economy.[89] According to James Smith, a senior economist at Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation and lead author of the United States National Research Council's study "The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration", immigrants contribute as much as $10 billion to the U.S. economy each year.[90] The NRC report found that although immigrants, especially those from Latin America, caused a net loss in terms of taxes paid versus social services received, immigration can provide an overall gain to the domestic economy due to an increase in pay for higher-skilled workers, lower prices for goods and services produced by immigrant labor, and more efficiency and lower wages for some owners of capital. The report also notes that although immigrant workers compete with domestic workers for low-skilled jobs, some immigrants specialize in activities that otherwise would not exist in an area, and thus can be beneficial for all domestic residents.[91] A non-partisan report in 2007 from the Congressional Budget Office concluded that most estimates show that illegal immigrants impose a net cost to state and local governments, but “that no agreement exists as to the size of, or even the best way of measuring, the cost on a national level.”[92] Estimates of the net national cost that illegal immigrants impose on the United States vary greatly, with the Urban Institute saying it was $1.9 billion in 1992, and a Rice University professor putting it at $19.3 billion in 1993.[93] About twenty-one million immigrants, or about fifteen percent of the labor force, hold jobs in the United States; however, the number of unemployed is only seven million, meaning that immigrant workers are not taking jobs from domestic workers, but rather are doing jobs that would not have existed had the immigrant workers not been in the United States.[94] U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Business Owners: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2002 indicated that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States grew to nearly 1.6 million in 2002. Those businesses generated about $222 billion in gross revenue.[95] The report notes that the burden of poor immigrants is not borne equally among states, and is most heavy in California.[96] Another claim supporting expanding immigration levels is that immigrants mostly do jobs Americans do not want. A 2006 Pew Hispanic Center report added evidence to support this claim, when they found that increasing immigration levels have not hurt employment prospects for American workers.[97] Research shows an economic consensus that, taken as a whole, immigrants raise living standards for American workers by boosting demand and increasing productivity, contributing to innovation, and lowering prices.[98]

Garment factories in Manhattan's Chinatown. Most garments are now made in China, not locally.[99]

In 2009, a study by the Cato Institute, a free market think tank, found that legalization of low-skilled illegal resident workers in the US would result in a net increase in US GDP of $180 billion over ten years.[100] The Cato Institute study did not examine the impact on per capita income for most Americans. Jason Riley notes that because of progressive income taxation, in which the top 1% of earners pay 37% of federal income taxes (even though they actually pay a lower tax percentage based on their income), 60% of Americans collect more in government services than they pay in, which also reflects on immigrants.[101] In any event, the typical immigrant and his children will pay a net $80,000 more in their lifetime than they collect in government services according to the NAS.[102] Legal immigration policy is set to maximize net taxation. Illegal immigrants even after an amnesty tend to be recipients of more services than they pay in taxes. In 2010, an econometrics study by a Rutgers economist found that immigration helped increase bilateral trade when the incoming people were connected via networks to their country of origin, particularly boosting trade of final goods as opposed to intermediate goods, but that the trade benefit weakened when the immigrants became assimilated into American culture.[103]

The Kauffman Foundation’s index of entrepreneurial activity is nearly 40% higher for immigrants than for natives.[104] Immigrants were involved in the founding of many prominent American high-tech companies, such as Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Sun Microsystems, and eBay.[105] On the poor end of the spectrum, the "New Americans" report found that low-wage immigration does not, on aggregate, lower the wages of most domestic workers. The report also addresses the question of if immigration affects black Americans differently from the population in general: "While some have suspected that blacks suffer disproportionately from the inflow of low-skilled immigrants, none of the available evidence suggests that they have been particularly hard-hit on a national level. Some have lost their jobs, especially in places where immigrants are concentrated. But the majority of blacks live elsewhere, and their economic fortunes are tied to other factors."[106]

Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century.

A study done in 2005 showed that a third of adult immigrants had not finished high school, and a third had no health insurance.[38] Robert Samuelson points out that poor immigrants strain public services such as local schools and health care. He points out that "from 2000 to 2006, 41 percent of the increase in people without health insurance occurred among Hispanics."[107] According to the immigration reduction advocacy group Center for Immigration Studies, 25.8% of Mexican immigrants live in poverty, which is more than double the rate for natives in 1999.[108] In another report, The Heritage Foundation notes that from 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased by 3.2 million, from 6 million to 9.2 million.[109]

Bangladeshi immigrant Fazlur Rahman Khan was responsible for the engineering design of Sears Tower (now Willis Tower),[110][111] the tallest building in the world until 1998.[112]

U.S. citizens will not take certain jobs usually done by foreign workers, like manual labor involving agriculture.[113] Fruit picking labor costs are estimated at $0.36 per pound, so a production rate of 1 pound per minute is required to earn minimum wage after fees are deducted.[114] Hard physical labor and dangerous jobs with a small paycheck create labor shortages in certain job markets that can only be satisfied using foreign labor.[115] Foreign laborers often work for no pay for several months each year to earn enough to pay their employer for the cost of their H series visa.[116] Hispanic immigrants in the United States were hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis. There was a disproportionate level of foreclosures in some immigrant neighborhoods.[117] The banking industry provided home loans to undocumented immigrants, viewing it as an untapped resource for growing their own revenue stream.[118] In October 2008, KFYI reported that according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, five million illegal immigrants held fraudulent home mortgages.[119] The story was later pulled from their website and replaced with a correction.[120] The Phoenix Business Journal cited a HUD spokesman saying that there was no basis to news reports that more than five million bad mortgages were held by illegal immigrants, and that the agency had no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages.[121]

Immigration and foreign labor documentation fees increased over 80% in 2007, with over 90% of funding for USCIS derived from immigration application fees, creating many USCIS jobs involving immigration to US, such as immigration interview officials, finger print processor, Department of Homeland Security, etc.[122] An article by American Enterprise Institute researcher Jason Richwine states that while earlier European immigrants were often poor when they arrived, by the third generation they had economically assimilated to be indistinguishable from the general population. However, for the Hispanic immigrants the process stalls at the second generation and the third generation continues to be substantially poorer than whites.[123] Despite apparent disparities between different communities,[124] Asians, a significant number of whom arrived in the United States after 1965,[125] had the highest median income per household among all race groups as of 2008.[126]

According to NPR in 2005, about 3% of illegal immigrants were working in agriculture.[127] The H-2A visa allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs.[128] The passing of tough immigration laws in several states from around 2009 provides a number of practical case studies. The state of Georgia passed immigration law HB 87 in 2011;[129] this led, according to the coalition of top Kansas businesses, to 50% of its agricultural produce being left to rot in the fields, at a cost to the state of more than $400m. Overall losses caused by the act were $1bn; it was estimated that the figure would become over $20bn if all the estimated 325,000 undocumented workers left Georgia. The cost to Alabama of its crackdown in June 2011 has been estimated at almost $11bn, with up to 80,000 unauthorised immigrant workers leaving the state.[130]

While immigration from Latin America has kept the United States from falling off a Japanese or European style demographic cliff, this is a limited resource as fertility rates continue to decline throughout the Americas and the world.[131]

Social

Irish immigration was opposed in the 1850s by the nativist Know Nothing movement, originating in ×New York in 1843. It was engendered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants. In 1891, a lynch mob stormed a local jail and hanged several Italians following the acquittal of several ×Sicilian immigrants alleged to be involved in the murder of New Orleans police chief David Hennessy. The Congress passed the ×Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the ×Immigration Act of 1924. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at limiting immigration overall, and making sure that the nationalities of new arrivals matched the overall national profile.

After the September 11 attacks, many Americans entertained doubts and suspicions about people apparently of Middle-Eastern origins.[citation needed] NPR in 2010 fired a prominent black commentator, Juan Williams, when he talked publicly about his fears on seeing people dressed like Muslims on airplanes.[132]

Racist thinking among and between minority groups does occur;[133][134] examples of this are conflicts between blacks and Korean immigrants,[135] notably in the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, and between African Americans and non-white Latino immigrants.[136][137] There has been a long running racial tension between African American and Mexican prison gangs, as well as significant riots in California prisons where they have targeted each other, for ethnic reasons.[138][139] There have been reports of racially motivated attacks against African Americans who have moved into neighborhoods occupied mostly by people of Mexican origin, and vice versa.[140][141] There has also been an increase in violence between non-Hispanic Anglo Americans and Latino immigrants, and between African immigrants and African Americans.[142]

A 2007 study on assimilation found that Mexican immigrants are less fluent in English than both non-Mexican Hispanic immigrants and other immigrants. While English fluency increases with time stayed in the United States, although further improvements after the first decade are limited, Mexicans never catch up with non-Mexican Hispanics, who never catch up with non-Hispanics. The study also writes that "Even among immigrants who came to the United States before they were five years old and whose entire schooling was in the United States, those Mexican born have average education levels of 11.7 years, whereas those from other countries have average levels of education of 14.1 years." Unlike other immigrants, Mexicans have a tendency to live in communities with many other Mexicans which decreases incentives for assimilation. Correcting for this removes about half the fluency difference between Mexicans and other immigrants.[143]

Religious diversity

Immigration from South Asia and elsewhere has contributed to enlarging the religious composition of the United States. Islam in the United States is growing mainly due to immigration. Hinduism in the United States, Buddhism in the United States, and Sikhism in the United States are other examples.[144]

Since 1992, an estimated 1.7 million Muslims, approximately 1 million Hindus, and approximately 1 million Buddhists have immigrated legally to the United States.[145]

Political

See also: Immigration reform and Nativism (politics)

Immigrant rights march in downtown Los Angeles, California on May Day, 2006.

A Boston Globe article attributed Barack Obama’s win in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election to a marked reduction over the preceding decades in the percentage of whites in the American electorate, attributing this demographic change to the Immigration Act of 1965.[31] The article quoted Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the New Democrat Network, as having said that the Act is "the most important piece of legislation that no one’s ever heard of," and that it "set America on a very different demographic course than the previous 300 years."[31]

Immigrants differ on their political views; however, the Democratic Party is considered to be in a far stronger position among immigrants overall.[146][147] Research shows that religious affiliation can also significantly impact both their social values and voting patterns of immigrants, as well as the broader American population. Hispanic evangelicals, for example, are more strongly conservative than non-Hispanic evangelicals.[148] This trend is often similar for Hispanics or others strongly identifying with the Catholic Church, a religion that strongly opposes abortion and gay marriage.

A rally in Chicago, part of the Great American Boycott and 2006 U.S. immigration reform protests, on May 1, 2006.

The key interests groups that lobby on immigration are religious, ethnic and business groups, together with some liberals and some conservative public policy organizations. Both the pro- and anti- groups affect policy.[149][dead link]

Studies have suggested that some special interest group lobby for less immigration for their own group and more immigration for other groups since they see effects of immigration, such as increased labor competition, as detrimental when affecting their own group but beneficial when affecting other groups.[citation needed]

A 2007 paper found that both pro- and anti-immigration special interest groups play a role in migration policy. "Barriers to migration are lower in sectors in which business lobbies incur larger lobbying expenditures and higher in sectors where labor unions are more important."[150] A 2011 study examining the voting of US representatives on migration policy suggests that "that representatives from more skilled labor abundant districts are more likely to support an open immigration policy towards the unskilled, whereas the opposite is true for representatives from more unskilled labor abundant districts."[151]

After the 2010 election, Gary Segura of Latino Decisions stated that Hispanic voters influenced the outcome and "may have saved the Senate for Democrats".[152] Several ethnic lobbies support immigration reforms that would allow illegal immigrants that have succeeded in entering to gain citizenship. They may also lobby for special arrangements for their own group. The Chairman for the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform has stated that "the Irish Lobby will push for any special arrangement it can get — 'as will every other ethnic group in the country.'"[153][154] The irrendentist and ethnic separatist movements for Reconquista and Aztlán see immigration from Mexico as strengthening their cause.[155][156]

The book Ethnic Lobbies and US Foreign Policy (2009) states that several ethnic special interest groups are involved in pro-immigration lobbying. Ethnic lobbies also influence foreign policy. The authors write that "Increasingly, ethnic tensions surface in electoral races, with House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests serving as proxy battlegrounds for antagonistic ethnoracial groups and communities. In addition, ethnic politics affect party politics as well, as groups compete for relative political power within a party". However, the authors argue that currently ethnic interest groups, in general, do not have too much power in foreign policy and can balance other special interest groups.[157]

In a 2012 news story, Reuters reported, "Strong support from Hispanics, the fastest-growing demographic in the United States, helped tip President Barack Obama's fortunes as he secured a second term in the White House, according to Election Day polling."[158]

Lately, there is talk among several Republican leaders, such as governors Bobby Jindal and Susana Martinez, of taking a new, friendlier approach to immigration. Former US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez is promoting the creation of Republicans for Immigration Reform.[159][160]

Health

The issue of the health of immigrants and the associated cost to the public has been largely discussed. The non-emergency use of emergency rooms ostensibly indicates an incapacity to pay, yet some studies allege disproportionately lower access to unpaid health care by immigrants.[161] For this and other reasons, there have been various disputes about how much immigration is costing the United States public health system.[162] University of Maryland economist and Cato Institute scholar Julian Lincoln Simon concluded in 1995 that while immigrants probably pay more into the health system than they take out, this is not the case for elderly immigrants and refugees, who are more dependent on public services for survival.[163]

Immigration from areas of high incidences of disease is thought to have fueled the resurgence of tuberculosis (TB), chagas, and hepatitis in areas of low incidence.[164] According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), TB cases among foreign-born individuals remain disproportionately high, at nearly nine times the rate of U.S.-born persons.[165][166] To reduce the risk of diseases in low-incidence areas, the main countermeasure has been the screening of immigrants on arrival.[167] HIV/AIDS entered the United States in around 1969, likely through a single infected immigrant from Haiti.[168][169] Conversely, many new HIV infections in Mexico can be traced back to the United States.[170] People infected with HIV were banned from entering the United States in 1987 by executive order, but the 1993 statute supporting the ban was lifted in 2009. The executive branch is expected to administratively remove HIV from the list of infectious diseases barring immigration, but immigrants generally would need to show that they would not be a burden on public welfare.[171] Researchers have also found what is known as the "healthy immigrant effect", in which immigrants in general tend to be healthier than individuals born in the U.S.[172][173]

Crime

Empirical studies on links between immigration and crime are mixed.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2001, 4% of Hispanic males in their twenties and thirties were in prison or jail, compared to 1.8% of non-Hispanic white males. Hispanic men are almost four times as likely to go to prison at some point in their lives than non-Hispanic white males, although less likely than non-Hispanic African American males.[174]

Other writers have suggested that immigrants are under-represented in criminal statistics.[clarification needed] In his 1999 book Crime and Immigrant Youth, sociologist Tony Waters argued that immigrants themselves are less likely to be arrested and incarcerated; he also argued, however, that the children of some immigrant groups are more likely to be arrested and incarcerated. This is a by-product of the strains that emerge between immigrant parents living in poor, inner city neighborhoods. This occurs particularly in immigrant groups with many children as they begin to form particularly strong peer sub-cultures.[12] A 1999 paper by John Hagan and Alberto Palloni estimated that the involvement in crime by Hispanic immigrants is less than that of other citizens.[175] A 2006 Op-Ed in The New York Times by Harvard University Professor in Sociology Robert J. Sampson says that immigration of Hispanics may in fact be associated with decreased crime.[176]

A 2006 article by Migration Policy Institute cited data from the 2000 US Census as evidence for that foreign-born men had lower incarceration rates than native-born men.[177]

According to a 2007 report by the Immigration Policy Center, the American Immigration Law Foundation, citing data from the 2000 US Census, native-born American men between 18–39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants in the same demographic.[178]

A 2008 study by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that, "...on average, between 2000 and 2005, cities that had a higher share of recent immigrants (those arriving between 2000 and 2005) saw their crime rates fall further than cities with a lower share" but adds, "As with most studies, we do not have ideal data. This lack of data restricts the questions we will be able to answer. In particular, we cannot focus on the undocumented population explicitly".[179] In a study released by the same Institute, immigrants were ten times less likely to be incarcerated than native born Americans.[180]

Locator map of countries and states with substantial presence of the criminal gang Mara Salvatrucha – darkness indicates strength.

Explanations for the lower incarceration rates of immigrants include:

Legal immigrants are screened for criminality prior to entry.

Legal and illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes are being deported and therefore are unable to commit more crimes (unlike their US couterparts who remain in the US). They are unlikely to become "career criminals" moving in and out of the prison system. In the last 10 years, 816,000 criminal aliens have been removed from the United States. This does not include immigrants whose only offense was living or working illegally in the United States.[181]

Immigrants understand the severe consequences of being arrested given their legal status (i.e. threat of deportation).

Heather MacDonald at the Manhattan Institute in a 2004 article argued that sanctuary policies has caused large problems with crime by illegal aliens since the police cannot report them for deportation before a felony or a series of misdemeanors takes place. In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide are for illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens. 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern California were illegal aliens in a 1995 report.[182]

The Center for Immigration Studies in a 2009 report argued that "New government data indicate that immigrants have high rates of criminality, while older academic research found low rates. The overall picture of immigrants and crime remains confused due to a lack of good data and contrary information." It also criticized the reports by the Public Policy Institute of California and Immigration Policy Center for using data from the 2000 Census according to which 4% of prisoners were immigrants. Non-citizens often have a strong incentive to deny this in order to prevent deportation and there are also other problems. Better methods have found 20–22% immigrants. It also criticized studies looking at percentages of immigrants in a city and crime for only looking at overall crime and not immigrant crime. A 2009 analysis by the Department of Homeland Security found that crime rates were higher in metropolitan areas that received large numbers of legal immigrants, contradicting several older cross-city comparisons.[181]

Environment

Some commentators have suggested that increased immigration has a negative effect on the environment, especially as the level of economic development of the United States (and by extension, its energy, water[183] and other needs that underpin its prosperity) means that the impact of a larger population is greater than what would be experienced in other countries.[184]

Perceived heavy immigration, especially in the southwest, has led to some fears about population pressures on the water supply in some areas. California continues to grow by more than a half-million a year and is expected to reach 48 million in 2030.[185] According to the California Department of Water Resources, if more supplies are not found by 2020, residents will face a water shortfall nearly as great as the amount consumed today.[186] Los Angeles is a coastal desert able to support at most one million people on its own water.[187] California is considering using desalination to solve this problem.[188]

Education

Scientific laboratories and startup internet opportunities have been a powerful American magnet. By 2000, 23% of scientists with a PhD in the U.S. were immigrants, including 40% of those in engineering and computers.[189] Roughly a third of the United State's college and universities graduate students in STEM fields are foreign nationals – in some states it is well over half of their graduate students. On Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2014, the presidents of 28 Catholic and Jesuit colleges and universities, joined the "Fast for Families" movement. [190] The "Fast for Families" movement reignited the immigration debate in the fall of 2013 when the movement's leaders, supported by many members of Congress and the President, fasted for twenty-two days on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. [191]

A study on public schools in California found that white enrollment declined in response to increases in the number of Spanish-speaking Limited English Proficient and Hispanic students. This white flight was greater for schools with relatively larger proportions of Spanish-speaking Limited English Proficient.[88]

Among 25 to 44-year-olds, 55% of Hispanic immigrants that arrived after age 13 had not completed high school.[192]

Effects on African Americans

An econometic study by George J. Borjas suggested that immigration had detrimental effects on African-American employment in terms of lower wages and numbers employed. It reported that a 10% increase in the supply of workers reduced the black wage of that group by 2.5%[why?], lowered the employment rate by 5.9% and increased the Black incarceration rate by 1.3%[how?].[193]

Harvard University economist George J. Borjas explains that the controversy centers around the "huge redistribution [of wealth] away from [unskilled U.S. Citizen] workers to [American employers] who use illegal immigrants."[38]

Public opinion

The ambivalent feeling of Americans toward immigrants is shown by a positive attitude toward groups that have been visible for a century or more, and much more negative attitude toward recent arrivals. For example a 1982 national poll by the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut showed respondents a card listing a number of groups and asked, "Thinking both of what they have contributed to this country and have gotten from this country, for each one tell me whether you think, on balance, they've been a good or a bad thing for this country," which produced the results shown in the table. "By high margins, Americans are telling pollsters it was a very good thing that Poles, Italians, and Jews emigrated to America. Once again, it's the newcomers who are viewed with suspicion. This time, it's the Mexicans, the Filipinos, and the people from the Caribbean who make Americans nervous."[194][195]

In a 2002 study, which took place soon after the September 11 attacks, 55% of Americans favored decreasing legal immigration, 27% favored keeping it at the same level, and 15% favored increasing it.[196]

In 2006, the immigration-reduction advocacy think tank the Center for Immigration Studies released a poll that found that 68% of Americans think U.S. immigration levels are too high, and just 2% said they are too low. They also found that 70% said they are less likely to vote for candidates that favor increasing legal immigration.[197] In 2004, 55% of Americans believed legal immigration should remain at the current level or increased and 41% said it should be decreased.[198] The less contact a native-born American has with immigrants, the more likely one would have a negative view of immigrants.[198]

One of the most important factors regarding public opinion about immigration is the level of unemployment; anti-immigrant sentiment is where unemployment is highest, and vice-versa.[199]

Surveys indicate that the U.S. public consistently makes a sharp distinction between legal and illegal immigrants, and generally views those perceived as “playing by the rules” with more sympathy than immigrants that have entered the country illegally.[200]

Legal issues

Laws concerning immigration and naturalization

See also: Illegal immigration to the United States

See also: Guest Worker Program

A U.S. green card, a document confirming permanent resident status for eligible immigrants, including refugees, political asylum seekers, family-sponsored migrants, employment-based workers and diversity immigrants (DV).

Laws concerning immigration and naturalization include:

the 1990 Immigration Act (IMMACT), which limits the annual number of immigrants to 700,000. It emphasizes that family reunification is the main immigration criterion, in addition to employment-related immigration.

the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA)

the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)

AEDPA and IIRARA exemplify many categories of criminal activity for which immigrants, including green card holders, can be deported and have imposed mandatory detention for certain types of cases.

Asylum for refugees

Main article: Asylum in the United States

The U.S. offered to resettle 60,000 Bhutanese refugees of ethnic Nepalese descent.[201]

In contrast to economic migrants, who generally do not gain legal admission, refugees, as defined by international law, can gain legal status through a process of seeking and receiving asylum, either by being designated a refugee while abroad, or by physically entering the United States and requesting asylum status thereafter. A specified number of legally defined refugees, who either apply for asylum overseas or after arriving in the U.S., are admitted annually.[quantify] Refugees compose about one-tenth of the total annual immigration to the United States, though some large refugee populations are very prominent.[citation needed] In the years 2005 through 2007, the number of asylum seekers accepted into the U.S. was about 40,000 per year. This compared with about 30,000 per year in the UK and 25,000 in Canada.[citation needed] Japan accepted just 41 refugees for resettlement in 2007.[202]

Since 1975, more than 1.3 million refugees from Asia have been resettled in the United States.[203] Since 2000 the main refugee-sending regions have been Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, and Ethiopia.[204] The ceiling for refugee resettlement for fiscal year 2008 was 80,000 refugees.[205] The United States expected to admit a minimum of 17,000 Iraqi refugees during fiscal year 2009.[206] The U.S. has resettled more than 42,000 Bhutanese refugees from Nepal since 2008.[207]

In fiscal year 2008, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) appropriated over $655 million for long-term services provided to refugees after their arrival in the US.[208] The Obama administration has kept to about the same level.[209]

Miscellaneous documented immigration

In removal proceedings in front of an immigration judge, cancellation of removal is a form of relief that is available for certain long-time residents of the United States.[210] It allows a person being faced with the threat of removal to obtain permanent residence if that person has been physically present in the U.S. for at least ten years, has had good moral character during that period, has not been convicted of certain crimes, and can show that removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to his or her U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, children, or parent. This form of relief is only available when a person is served with a Notice to Appear to appear in the proceedings in the court.[211][212]

Members of Congress may submit private bills granting residency to specific named individuals. A special committee[which?] vets the requests, which require extensive documentation. The Central Intelligence Agency has the statutory authority to admit up to one hundred people a year outside of normal immigration procedures, and to provide for their settlement and support. The program is called "PL110", named after the legislation that created the agency, Public Law 110, the Central Intelligence Agency Act.

Illegal immigration

Main article: Illegal immigration to the United States

See also: 2006 U.S. immigration reform protests and H.R. 4437

The Illegal immigrant population of the United States is estimated to be between 7 and 20 million.[213] The majority of the illegal immigrants are from Mexico.[214]

In a 2011 news story, Los Angeles Times reported, "The annual report, relied upon by both sides in the contentious immigration debate, found 11.2 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., statistically identical to the 11.1 million estimated in 2009. ... The report also found that illegal immigrants in 2010 were parents of 5.5 million children, 4.5 million of whom were born in the U.S. and are citizens. Because illegal immigrants are younger and more likely to be married, they represented a disproportionate share of births — 8% of the babies born in the U.S. between March 2009 and March 2010 were to at least one illegal immigrant parent."[215]

In June 2012, President Obama issued a memorandum instructing officers of the federal government to defer deporting young illegal immigrants who had been brought to the U.S. as children. Obama's new non-deportation policy allows 1.7 million illegal immigrants to apply for the temporary right to live and work in the United States.[216] The memorandum is the move by the Obama administration to use its executive powers to revise immigration procedures without changing the law.[217] Beginning March 4, 2013, illegal immigrants who can show that time apart from a U.S. spouse, child or parent would create “extreme hardship” can apply for legal visas without leaving the U.S.[218]

On 25 November 2013, Ju Hong, a 24-year-old South Korean immigrant without legal documentation, shouted at Obama to use his executive power to stop deportation of illegal immigrants.[219] Obama said "If, in fact, I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so." "But we're also a nation of laws, that's part of our tradition," he continued. "And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I'm proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal."[220][221][222][223][224]

Immigration in popular culture

1888 cartoon in Puck attacks businessmen for welcoming large numbers of low paid immigrants, leaving the American workingman unemployed.[225]

The history of immigration to the United States is the history of the country itself, and the journey from beyond the sea is an element found in American folklore, appearing over and over again in everything from The Godfather to Gangs of New York to "The Song of Myself" to Neil Diamond's "America" to the animated feature An American Tail.[226]

From the 1880s to the 1910s, vaudeville dominated the popular image of immigrants, with very popular caricature portrayals of ethnic groups. The specific features of these caricatures became widely accepted as accurate portrayals.[227]

In The Melting Pot (1908), playwright Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) explored issues that dominated Progressive Era debates about immigration policies. Zangwill's theme of the positive benefits of the American melting pot resonated widely in popular culture and literary and academic circles in the 20th century; his cultural symbolism – in which he situated immigration issues – likewise informed American cultural imagining of immigrants for decades, as exemplified by Hollywood films.[228][229] The popular culture's image of ethnic celebrities often includes stereotypes about immigrant groups. For example, Frank Sinatra's public image as a superstar contained important elements of the American Dream while simultaneously incorporating stereotypes about Italian Americans that were based in nativist and Progressive responses to immigration.[230]

The process of assimilation was often a theme of popular culture. For example, "lace-curtain Irish" referred to middle-class Irish Americans desiring assimilation into mainstream society in counterpoint to an older, more raffish "shanty Irish". The occasional malapropisms and left-footed social blunders of these upward mobiles were gleefully lampooned in vaudeville, popular song, and the comic strips of the day such as "Bringing Up Father", starring Maggie and Jiggs, which ran in daily newspapers for 87 years (1913 to 2000).[231][232] In recent years the popular culture has paid special attention to Mexican immigration[233] and the 2004 motion picture Spanglish tells of a friendship of a Mexican housemaid (Paz Vega) and her boss played by Adam Sandler.

Immigration in literature

Maggie and Jiggs from Bringing Up Father (January 7, 1940).

Novelists and writers have captured much of the color and challenge in their immigrant lives through their writings.[234]

Regarding Irish women in the 19th century, there were numerous novels and short stories by Harvey O'Higgins, Peter McCorry, Bernard O'Reilly and Sarah Orne Jewett that emphasize emancipation from Old World controls, new opportunities and expansiveness of the immigrant experience.[235]

On the other hand Hladnik studies three popular novels of the late 19th century that warned Slovenes not to immigrate to the dangerous new world of the United States.[236]

Jewish American writer Anzia Yezierska wrote her novel Bread Givers (1925) to explore such themes as Russian-Jewish immigration in the early 20th century, the tension between Old and New World Yiddish culture, and women's experience of immigration. A well established author Yezierska focused on the Jewish struggle to escape the ghetto and enter middle- and upper-class America. In the novel, the heroine, Sara Smolinsky, escape from New York City's "down-town ghetto" by breaking tradition. She quits her job at the family store and soon becomes engaged to a rich real-estate magnate. She graduates college and takes a high-prestige job teaching public school. Finally Sara restores her broken links to family and religion.[237]

The Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg in the mid-20th century wrote a series of four novels describing one Swedish family's migration from Småland to Minnesota in the late 19th century, a destiny shared by almost one million people. The author emphasizes the authenticity of the experiences as depicted (although he did change names).[238] These novels have been translated into English (The Emigrants, 1951, Unto a Good Land, 1954, The Settlers, 1961, The Last Letter Home, 1961). The musical Kristina från Duvemåla by ex-ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson is based on this story.[239][240]

The Immigrant is a musical by Steven Alper, Sarah Knapp, and Mark Harelik. The show is based on the story of Harelik's grandparents, Matleh and Haskell Harelik, who traveled to Galveston, Texas in 1909.[241]

Documentary films

File:Immigrant to America.ogv

Film about historical immigration to America from ca. 1970

In their documentary How Democracy Works Now: Twelve Stories, filmmakers Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini examine the American political system through the lens of immigration reform from 2001 to 2007. Since the debut of the first five films, the series has become an important resource for advocates, policy-makers and educators.[242]

That film series premiered nearly a decade after the filmmakers' landmark documentary film Well-Founded Fear which provided a behind-the-scenes look at the process for seeking asylum in the United States. That film still marks the only time that a film-crew was privy to the private proceedings at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), where individual asylum officers ponder the often life-or-death fate of immigrants seeking asylum.

Legal perspectives

University of North Carolina law professor Hiroshi Motomura has identified three approaches the United States has taken to the legal status of immigrants in his book Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States. The first, dominant in the 19th century, treated immigrants as in transition; in other words, as prospective citizens. As soon as people declared their intention to become citizens, they received multiple low-cost benefits, including the eligibility for free homesteads in the Homestead Act of 1869, and in many states, the right to vote. The goal was to make the country more attractive, so large numbers of farmers and skilled craftsmen would settle new lands. By the 1880s, a second approach took over, treating newcomers as "immigrants by contract". An implicit deal existed where immigrants who were literate and could earn their own living were permitted in restricted numbers. Once in the United States, they would have limited legal rights, but were not allowed to vote until they became citizens, and would not be eligible for the New Deal government benefits available in the 1930s. The third and more recent policy[when?] is "immigration by affiliation", which Motomura argues is the treatment which depends on how deeply rooted people have become in the country. An immigrant who applies for citizenship as soon as permitted, has a long history of working in the United States, and has significant family ties, is more deeply affiliated and can expect better treatment.[243]

It has been suggested that the US should adopt policies similar to those in Canada and Australia and select for desired qualities such as education and work experience. Another suggestion is to reduce legal immigration because of being a relative, except for nuclear family members, since such immigrations of extended relatives, who in turn bring in their own extended relatives, may cause a perpetual cycle of "chain immigration".[123]

Interpretive perspectives

The Statue of Liberty was a common sight to many immigrants who entered the United States through Ellis Island

The American Dream is the belief that through hard work and determination, any United States immigrant can achieve a better life, usually in terms of financial prosperity and enhanced personal freedom of choice.[244] According to historians, the rapid economic and industrial expansion of the U.S. is not simply a function of being a resource rich, hard working, and inventive country, but the belief that anybody could get a share of the country's wealth if he or she was willing to work hard.[245] This dream has been a major factor in attracting immigrants to the United States.[246] (Continoe)