Mr. President, America is truly unique in that almost all of us are migrants or immigrants to the United States, originating in different regions -- whether from Asia, from islands in the Pacific Ocean, Mexico, or valleys and mesas of the Southwest, Europe or other regions of the world. The prehistory and the contemporary history of this nation are inextricably linked to the mosaic of migrations, immigrations and existing cultures in the U.S. that has resulted in the peopling of America. Americans are all travelers from diverse areas, regions, continents and islands.
Mr. President, we need a better understanding of this coherent and unifying theme in America. With this in mind, I am introducing legislation, along with my colleagues Senator Inouye and Senator Graham, authorizing the National Park Service to conduct a theme study on the peopling of America. An identical bill passed the Senate last Congress, and I am optimistic that the Senate will again pass this bill.
The purpose of the study is to provide a basis for identifying, interpreting and preserving sites related to the migration, immigration and settling of America. The peopling of America is the story of our nation's population and how we came to be the diverse set of people that we are today. The peopling of America will acknowledge the contributions and trials of the first peoples who settled the North American continent, the Pacific Islands, and the lands that later became the United States of America. The peopling of America has continued as Spanish, Portugese, French, Dutch and English laid claim to lands and opened the floodgates of European migration and the involuntary migration of Africans to the Americas.
This was just the beginning. America has been growing and changing ever since. Mr. President, it is critical that we document and include the growth and change in the United States as groups of people move across external and internal boundaries that make up our nation. By understanding all our contributions, the strength within all cultures, and the diffusion of cultural ways through the United States, we will be a better nation. The strength of American culture is in our diversity and rests on a comprehensive understanding of the peopling of America.
The theme study I am proposing will authorize the Secretary of the Interior to identify regions, areas, trails, districts and cultures that illustrate and commemorate key events in the migration, immigration and settlement of the population of the United States, and which can provide a basis for the preservation and interpretation of the peopling of America. It includes preservation and education strategies to capture elements of our national culture and history such as immigration, migration, ethnicity, family, gender, health, neighborhood, and community. In addition, the study will make recommendations regarding National Historic Landmark designations and National Register of Historic Places nominations, as appropriate. The study will also facilitate the development of cooperative programs with educational institutions, public history organizations, state and local governments, and groups knowledgeable about the peopling of America.
Mr. President, we are entering a new millennium with hope and opportunity. It is incumbent on us to reflect on the extent to which the energy and wealth of the United States depends on our population diversity. Looking back, we understand that our history, and our very national character, is defined by the grand, entangled movements of people to America and across the American landscape – through original residency, European colonization, forced migrations, economic migrations, or politically-motivated immigration – that has given rise to the rich interactions that make the American character and experience unique. I would venture to say that no other nation has the heterogenous patchwork of migration and movement around the country that is found and that makes us the American nation.
We embody the cultures and traditions that our forebears brought from other places and shores, as well as the new traditions and cultures that we adopted or created anew upon arrival. Whether we are the original inhabitants of the rich Pacific Northwest, settled in the rangelands and agrarian West, the industrialized Northeast, the small towns of the Midwest, or the genteel cities of the South, our forebears inevitably contributed their background and created new relationships with peoples of other backgrounds and cultures. Our rich heritage as Americans is comprehensible only through the stories of our various constituent cultures, carried with us from other lands and transformed by encounters with other cultures.
Mr. President, all Americans are travelers. All cultures have creation stories and histories that place us here from somewhere. Whether we came to this land as native peoples, English colonists, Africans who were brought in slavery, Filipinos who came to work in Hawaii's cane fields, Mexican ranchers, or Chinese merchants, the process by which our nation was peopled transformed us from strangers from different shores into neighbors unified in our inimitable diversity – Americans all. It is essential for us to understand this process, not only to understand who and where we are, but also to help us understand who we wish to be and where we should be headed as a nation. As the caretaker of some of our most important cultural and historical resources, from Ellis Island to San Juan Island, from Chaco Canyon to Kennesaw Mountain, the National Park Service is in a unique position to conduct a study that can offer guidance on this fundamental subject.
Currently we have only one focal point in the national park system that celebrates the peopling of America with significance. Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Ellis Island welcomed over 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1954, an overwhelming majority of whom crossed the Atlantic from Europe. Ellis Island celebrates these immigrant experiences through their museum, historic buildings, and memorial wall. Immensely popular as it is, Ellis Island is focused on Atlantic immigration and thus reflects the experience only of those groups (primarily Eastern and Southern Europeans) who were processed at the island during its active period, 1892-1954. Not all immigrants and their descendants can identify with Ellis Island. Tens of millions of other immigrants traveled to our great country through other ports of entry and in different periods of our nation's history and prehistory. Ellis Island tells only part of the American story. There are other chapters, just as compelling, that must be told.
On the West Coast, Angel Island Immigration Station, tucked in San Francisco Bay, was open from 1910 to 1940 and processed hundreds of thousands of Pacific Rim immigrants through its portals. An estimated 175,000 Chinese immigrants and more than 20,000 Japanese made the long Pacific passage to the United States. Their experiences are a West Coast mirror of the Ellis Island experience. But the migration story on the West Coast is much longer and broader than Angel Island. Many earlier migrants to the West Coast contributed to the rich history of California, including the original resident Native Americans, Spanish explorers, Mexican ranchers, Russian colonists, American migrants from the Eastern states who came overland or around the Horn, German and Irish military recruits, Chinese railroad laborers, Portuguese and Italian farmers, and many other groups. The diversity and experience of these groups reflects the diversity and experience of all immigrants who entered the United States via the Western states, including Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California.
The study we propose is consistent with the agency's latest official thematic framework which establishes the subject of human population movement and change–or "peopling places"–as a primary thematic category for study and interpretation. The framework, which serves as a general guideline for interpretation, was revised in 1996 in response to a Congressional mandate (Civil War Sites Study Act of 1990, Public Law 101-628, Sec. 1209) that the full diversity of American history and prehistory be expressed in the National Park Service's identification and interpretation of historic and prehistoric properties.
In conclusion, we believe that this bill will shed light on the unique blend of pluralism and unity that characterizes our national polity. With its responsibility for cultural and historical parks, the Park Service plays a unique role in enhancing our understanding of the peopling of America and thus of a fuller comprehension of our relationships with each other–past, present, and future.
Thank you, Mr. President. I urge my colleagues to support this initiative. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the RECORD following my remarks.
I yield the balance of my time.
