Newsweek: America’s immigration waves: 250 years of arrivals

As the nation celebrates its 250th birthday, Billah Rahman for Newsweek briefly reviews the nation's immigration history:

"The American story is, in many ways, an immigration story, not a single, linear journey but a succession of arrivals that have repeatedly reshaped the country and how it understands itself.

From the first European settlers and enslaved Africans who arrived in the 17th century to today’s highly globalized flows of workers, students and asylum seekers, immigration has been less an episode in American history than one of its defining structures. Each wave has carried its own geography, its own politics and its own idea of what America should become next."