American Heritage History of the American People

Book excerpt: The American people have been and are a constantly changing mixture of cultures from other countries: China, England, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Russia, and Spain. The people that found new homes in America have not truly melted into each other, yet they have created a new culture of their own. Historian Bruce W. Weisberger shares the story of a woman sitting on her front stoop in New York City boasting about the ethnic variety of her neighborhood: "We're a regular United Nations here." That accommodating nature, Weisberger points out, has not always been the case. Each wave of immigrants met resistance from the reigning establishment. Still, America changed them, and they changed America. This book is the compelling story of how "the American, this new man," as French-American writer Crèvecoeur called the young country's citizens, has remained new for more than three centuries.