American Immigrant Society
| Founded | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Focus | "To protect, celebrate, empower, promote, and inform over 81 million immigrant citizens of the United States. |
| Location |
|
| Origins | New York City |
Area served | United States |
| Website | americanimmigrantsociety.org |
The American Immigrant Society (AIS) was established this year to humanize, protect, celebrate, empower, promote, and inform over 81 million immigrant citizens of the United States, comprising one-quarter of the population of the United States.The American Immigrant Society seeks to eliminate prejudice or discrimination against American immigrants, provides financial and other assistance to distressed American immigrants, and provides resources to American immigrants to help them adjust to life in the United States as well as to defend their civil rights.
The 501C3 nonprofit organization believes that America has benefited greatly throughout its history by welcoming tens of millions of immigrants from over 95 countries. AIS will unite this nation’s major ethnic societies, and facilitate collaboration among leading non-profits committed to improving our culture’s acceptance of immigrants.
Background
The American Immigrant Society was established as a nonprofit organization by concerned American immigrants who believe that one of America's greatest strengths throughout its 400-year history has been welcoming the tens of millions of immigrants from over 95 countries to the United States. There have been five distinct periods in American history of major immigration into the country. The first one was obviously the Colonial Period of the early United States, starting with the settlement of Jamestown by English immigrants in 1607. The second wave of immigrants started with the Great Famine (Ireland) of 1847. The third one began with the period prior to World War I, from many embattled and impoverished countries in Europe. The fourth one began with the lead-up to Hitler's authoritarianism and genocide in the 1930s, again in Europe. The fifth wave began with the unraveling of East Asia during the aftermath of the Vietnam War, in the late 1960s. "The Statute Of Liberty" at the entrance of New York Harbor in New York City is often mentioned as an enduring symbol of the most powerful characteristics of the nation – Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and the importance of its immigrant population. Ellis Island and the 55 million immigrants who passed through there from the start of the Irish Potato Famine in 1847 to the start of World War II in 1940, were instrumental in creating and strengthening the United States during its early formation as a global industrialized country.
One of the primary missions of The American Immigrant Society is to re-energize the celebration of National Immigrants Day on October 28 every year. In 1987, during the second term of the Ronald Reagan Presidency, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law No 100-62 (S.J. Res. 867) dated June 29, 1987, designating every October 28 as "National Immigrants Day" in the United States. The American Immigrant Society will also inaugurate a National Immigrants Day Parade in New York City, on the final Sunday of every October, to memorialize and celebrate the achievements of more than 100 million immigrants who have migrated to the United States since the Irish Potato Famine of 1847.
Activities
The activities of the American Immigrant Society are intended to foster a safeguarded and connected immigrant community in the USA, and to encourage a positive message of how American immigrants provide growth, jobs, and prosperity for the USA.
The activities include:
- Providing a digital platform with critical information for all immigrants in the USA;
- Creating symposia and town halls to discuss the positive economic impact of immigration in the USA;
- Becoming non-profit sector advocates for "big city" Offices of Immigrant Affairs;
- Aggregating the individual ethnic immigrant non-profit organizations in the USA under one unified organizational and thematic message.
AIS's offices are located on the Avenue of The Immigrants, on the Lower East Side of New York City. The Lower East Side is where many Immigrants to the United States of all ethnic backgrounds and religious faiths settled and worked once they had cleared all immigration processes on Ellis Island in New York City.