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The historical and current trends in multicultural education reflect the disparate histories and status of racial, ethnic, and cultural groups in this country. People have entered the continent now called "North America" under a variety of circumstances. The most common theory (although alternative ones are currently emerging) is that the earliest human inhabitants migrated from Asia over an ice mass (where the Bering Strait now exists) that connected Asia and the North American continent during an ice age or another time when the sea receded. When people first migrated to the Americas is a topic of much debate (Banks, 1991). As groups came, however, they settled in different locations all over North America, and many continued to move into Central and South America.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, a series of European invasions decimated and dominated the native populations. Driven by a quest for gold and a desire to bring Christianity to the "New World," the Spanish and Portuguese conquered much of what we now call South and Central America, Mexico, Texas, and California. Beginning in the 17th century, waves of settlers from Northern and Western Europe came to the eastern seacoast of North America. Often escaping persecution and poverty, they came to settle and build better lives for themselves. However, their obsession for "conquering the wilderness" and their assumptions of racial superiority wreaked havoc on the lives of the native people. Despite strong resistance from many groups, the Europeans, armed with guns, took over the ancestral lands of virtually all of the "Indian" (a misnomer that reflected the geographical confusion of the earliest European explorers) Nations, destroying their communities and livelihoods. Thus, from the 16th century onward, the inhabitants of all the countries in the Americas have been divided between conquerors and conquered.

Some groups came to live within the boundaries of the United States by force, rather than by choice. The Europeans brought enslaved people from Africa who entered the United States in bondage, endured more than 200 years of slavery, and are still the targets of racially driven discrimination. As the United States expanded, the Mexicans who lived north of the Rio Grande and in California became a conquered people. For some indigenous people, it was the second time that they were so subjugated.

Immigrants from southeastern Europe who came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often encountered discrimination. However, they were able to fit into the rapidly expanding industrial base of the economy and to some extent fulfill the dreams of a better life that had led them to leave their home countries. Laborers from Asian countries, particularly China, were encouraged to immigrate in order to provide cheap labor. However, unlike their European counterparts, Asian workers were not allowed to bring in their wives and families and were expected to return to their homelands when their labor was no longer needed.

The history of each group is complex and fraught with hardships and losses (Takaki, 1993), but some groups have been able to attain a higher level of acceptance and success in the dominant society than others. Through intermarriage and educational and occupational achievement, White ethnics, who may retain some symbolic ethnic identity, have become indistinguishable from the older northern European immigrants (Alba, 1990). The lines of assimilation and advantage follow a clear pattern; people who look most similar to the settlers from Northwestern Europe enjoy the benefits of a system of racial privilege, whereas those who look the most different are excluded and disadvantaged (Tatum, 1992). One compelling example is that during World War II, when the United States was at war with both Japan and Germany, large numbers of Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps, but very few German Americans were. According to Ogbu (1978), it is not only a person's race, but also the circumstances in which people came to be in this country that account for the patterns of disadvantage. He makes the distinction between voluntary immigrants and involuntary minorities.

Despite many hardships, voluntary immigrants willingly came to the United States for positive reasons and were free to create their own communities and to develop resources to survive in their new country. Most voluntary immigrants (especially those from Europe) were able to gain the skills and education needed to become productive participants in the economic system. The first generation often created communities of people from the same country (in some cases, even the same village) that provided support systems, a sense of continuity, and a buffer against the dislocation and discrimination that newcomers often experienced. Parents or other family members in these groups encouraged their children to pursue their education and to get good jobs; after one or two generations, many of these groups were assimilated into the dominant society. . .

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