Turkish immigration to the United States

Immigration

Turkish Immigration to the United States: Explanations and Analysis

The factors influencing the long-term immigration of any cultural group to another nation can be complex. For many groups, however, the major push/pull factors and the aftermath of mass emigration are well documented. The Irish or Italian immigrations to the United States serve as good examples of this. However, other immigrations are less well understood. Historians, for instance, have not dealt with the Turkish immigration to the United States as thoroughly. In order to better fathom the nature of the Turkish immigration to the United States, we will examine a series of five pertinent issues on the matter. One: was the immigration voluntary or involuntary? Two: was the immigration economic, political, or motivated by other factors? Three: what did the immigrants face upon their arrival to the United States? Four: where did the immigrants largely settle in the United States? And five: what skills did they possess and how did those skills influence the kind of jobs the immigrants were able to procure? While answering these questions cannot account for every aspect of the Turkish immigration to the United States, it will provide a base of knowledge for future inquiry into the subject.

According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, more than 450,000 immigrants from Turkey have come to the United States since 1820. The rate of immigration has increased since World War II. Between 1930 and 1950 only about 100 immigrants entered the U.S. per year. Today, the rate is closer to 4,000 per year (Kaya 425). Immigrants from Turkey have settled in all fifty states, but the largest concentration of this immigrant group is in New York State, with the greatest concentrations in the New York City metropolitan area. Within this area, Turkish immigrants gravitate towards distinct ethnic neighborhoods such as Brighton Beach in Brooklyn and Clifton, New Jersey (Kaya 425).While Turkish immigrants to the United States have not comprised one of the largest immigrants groups over the past two hundred years, they have still constituted a significant portion of immigrants to the United States. The factors influencing their decisions to come to the United States -- whether as unskilled or skilled migrants -- can help us develop a more educated understanding of global migration patterns during this period.

There have been three major flows of Turkish immigrants to the United States over the decades, each motivated by different factors. The first included Turkish members of the Ottoman Empire and was motivated largely by economic and political reasons up until 1950. Many were draft evaders, but nearly all were young illiterate men who would have come to the United States in search of more political freedom and better economic opportunities (Akcapar 32). The second wave occurred between 1950 and 1980 and consisted of more skilled individuals from Turkey such as working professionals and graduate students. Many of these immigrants were women (unlike the earlier migration) and many included entire families. The third period of immigration has occurred since 1980 and combines individuals of both skilled and unskilled laborers (Akcapar 33).

In a large sense the early migration to the United States was involuntary, whereas later migrations could be considered more voluntary. Early migration to the United States in the late 19th century and 20th centuries occurred as the U.S.'s economy was improving. Simultaneously, the Ottoman Empire witnessed the deterioration of its own economic base (Acehan 2). This would have heavily influenced the decisions of early migrants from Turkey to the United States who might have felt that they had no choice in their decision to leave Turkey for the United States. Both political pressure and economic deprivation have long been significant factors in any decision to migrate. The decision of many immigrants to leave Turkey, then, could be considered technically a voluntary decision; however, the increasingly adverse conditions these individual would have faced during that time would have contributed to the sense that they had no choice in their decision to leave Turkey and relocate to a nation that was faring better economically and had fewer political restrictions -- like the United States.

Later immigrants to the United States, particularly after 1980, were comprised of more skilled individuals with greater education and professional skills (Akcapar 33). These individuals would have had greater choice in their decision on which country to migrate to. While pressure from Turkey, such as adverse political or economic conditions, would have influenced any decision to leave the country, the decision to migrate to the United States -- as opposed to Western Europe or Asia -- would have been more of a voluntary choice. A wider range of skills and education, such as language skills, vastly improve the marketability of any immigrant. The decision to emigrate to the United States would have constituted a personal choice based on a number of considerations such as the local political and cultural climate, the job market outlook, and the ease of migration.

Considering the flow of immigrants to the United States from Turkey, we find that there was a significant upturn in the number of immigrants after World War II. Immigration to the United States increased significantly after 1960. This largely occurred because the United States loosened immigration regulations that had been in effect in the first half of the 20th century. In the 1960s and 1970s, mass unskilled migration out of Turkey began, which was heightened by an economic and political downturn in the 1980s. But these factors often obscured the incidence of a so-called brain drain of skilled educated individuals from Turkey to other parts of the world and in particular the United States (Akcapar 18-19). In other words, unskilled migration from Turkey to the United States has been a consistent feature of the migration patterns since the late 19th century. It has only been since the end of World War II that individuals with greater education and more professional skills have chosen to leave Turkey for greener shores in the United States.

One of the key challenges that Turkish immigrants have faced in coming to the United States is a strong culture of ethnicity that immediately classifies immigrants as "others" and different from Americans in very specific ways (Kaya 425). Identification along ethnic lines is strong in the United States, especially in metropolitan areas like New York City where many Turkish immigrants end up settling. This strong classification of other-ness, made more apparent by physical differences between Turkish immigrants and white Christian America, has complicated the integration of Turkish immigrants into American culture.

Additionally, Turkish immigrants to the United States face increasing animosity toward Muslims that directly affects the construction of a Turkish American identity (Kaya 425). Negative portrayals of Muslims in the American media and the public mind impacts how Turkish immigrants are treated upon their arrival and how they are continually treated by American culture. As a result, Turkish immigrants have attempted to distance themselves from traditional conceptions of Muslim identity and attempt to craft their own unique sense of cultural identity.

The Turkish immigrants who have more recently come to the United States are generally better educated than similar Turkish immigrants who migrated to Europe. Over 48% of the immigrants to the United States possess at least a college degree, with 25% reporting they have a graduate degree (Kaya 425). The higher level of education has opened up better employment opportunities for many in this immigrant group in the professional and managerial sectors. However, a significant portion of the Turkish immigrants to the U.S. has only limited linguistic and educational experience. This lack resulted in many Turkish immigrants being relegated to lower class employment opportunities in low wage jobs such as in restaurants, grocery stores, and gas stations (Kaya 425).