New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans was one of the most important ports of entry for immigration to the United States during the 19th century, mainly because of its location at the mouth of the Mississippi River, which provided ready access to the interior of country.

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New York, New York

From its earliest days, New Amsterdam, the precursor to New York City, was one of the most heterogeneous places on earth.

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New York colony

New Amsterdam, conquered by England in 1664, was the heart of the Dutch commercial empire in North America (New Netherland).

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Nicaraguan immigration

As a result of an ongoing and integral U.S. involvement with the politics of Nicaragua from the 1850s, a unique set of circumstances has brought a variety of Nicaraguan immigrants to the United States.

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Nigerian immigration

Nigeria is the number one source country for West African immigrants coming to the United States and is second to Ghana for immigration to Canada.

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North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994 created a unified market of more than 370 million people with goods and services totaling $6.5 trillion annually.

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North West Company

The North West Company was, according to journalist and historian Peter Newman, “the first North American business to operate on a continental scale.”

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Norwegian immigration

Norway was the number one source country for Scandinavian immigration to North America, and second only to famine-ravaged Ireland in percentage of its population to immigrate.

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Nova Scotia

The peninsula of Nova Scotia was a continual source of conflict between France and Britain from the establishment of its first settlement by France at Port Royal (1605) until France was driven completely from North America in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763).

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Oregon Treaty

The Oregon Country was a huge expanse of lightly inhabited territory north of Mexican California, south of Russian Alaska, and southwest of the British trapping lands of the Athabasca Country.

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Oriental Exclusion Act (United States) (1924)

The Oriental Exclusion Act, actually a special provision of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, excluded immigrants who were ineligible for U.S. citizenship from entrance to the United States, even at the new ethnic-based, lower levels.

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Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis

Josiah Strong’s influential 1885 polemic, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, represented both America’s sense of manifest destiny and nativist fears as the new immigration began to bring hundreds of thousands of eastern and southern Europeans into the country.

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Ozawa v. United States (1922)

In this dramatic court case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Japanese were not white and therefore could not be naturalized as U.S. citizens.

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Pacific Islander immigration

The islands of the vast Pacific Ocean stretch over thousands of miles but have a small total population.

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Padrone system

A padrone (from the Italian padroni for “patrons” or “bosses”) was a middleman in the labor trade, helping poor immigrants obtain transportation to North America, jobs upon arrival, and basic needs in an alien society.

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