In some ways, nothing has changed. Throughout the long story of immigration to North America, people always did, and still do, come primarily for one reason: economic opportunity. Massachusetts Bay may have been founded as a theocracy, and there have always been refugees from religious and political persecution, but most come to work, to buy homes, start businesses, create wealth, and bring up their children in a place where they can prosper and do better than their parents.

Some of them, like the Irish, Italians, and others from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as Asia, went from being feared outsiders, openly despised and often legally restricted, to model citizens who entered the American mainstream in one generation.