Albert Einstein's 1939 Speech on Immigrants' Contributions to America

There have been many times in American history when celebrations of the country’s multi-ethnic, ever-changing demography served as powerful counterweights to narrow, exclusionary, nationalisms.

The publication of Brooklyn native Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself offered a 'passionate embrace of equality,' writes Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 'the soul of democracy.'

We can contrast the vibrancy and dynamism of Whitman’s vision with the violent nativism of the anti-immigrant Know-Nothings, who reached their peak in the 1850s.