Oscar Handlin, a prominent historian, once wrote, "I thought to write a
history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants
were American history." The United States has always been a nation of
nations where people from every region of the world have come to begin a
new life. Other countries such as Canada, Argentina, and Australia also have
had substantial immigration, but the United States is still unique in the
diversity of nationalities and the great numbers of migrating people who have
come to its shores.

Who are these immigrants? Why did they decide to come? How well have
they adjusted to this new land? What has been the reaction to them? These
are some of the questions the books in this "New Americans" series seek to
answer. There have been many studies about earlier waves of immigrants --
e.g., the English, Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, and Poles -- but relatively
little has been written about the newer groups -- those arriving in the last
thirty years, since the passage of a new immigration law in 1965. This series
is designed to correct that situation and to introduce these groups to the rest
of America.

Each book in the series discusses one of these groups, and each is written
by an expert on those immigrants. The volumes cover the new migration
from primarily Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, including: the Ko-
reans, Cambodians, Filipinos, Vietnamese, South Asians such as Indians and
Pakistanis, Chinese from both China and Taiwan, Haitians, Jamaicans, Cu-
bans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans (even though they are already
U.S. citizens), and Jews from the former Soviet Union. Although some of

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