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Profile of Rhode Island

Profile of Rhode Island

Region New England Entered union 1790 Largest cities Providence (capital), Warwick, Cranston, Pawtucket Modern immigrant communities Portuguese, Hispanics, Asian Indians, Africans Population Total Percent of state Percent of U.S. U.S. Rank All state residents 1,051,511 100.0 0.33 43 All foreign-residents 135,972 12.9 0.33 36

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract for 2013.

Notes: The U.S. Population in 2013 was 316,128,839 of whom 41,348,066 (13.1%) were foreign born. Rankings in last column reflect total numbers, not percentages.


Issues in U.S. Immigration

Rhode Island

by Robert P. Ellis

Significance Though an exceptionally small state, Rhode Island has had a history of diverse immigration, and immigration and politics have long been closely intertwined in the state. The state's first major immigrant group was the Irish, who crowded into growing industrialized and urbanized areas during the nineteenth century. Because the state's charter gave much greater representation to the declining rural areas, a political struggle began during the 1840's that has continued to affect immigrant life in the state into the twenty-first century.

In 1790, the sameyear in which Rhode Island became a state, a mill at Pawtucket Falls on the Blackstone River mounted a cotton-spinning frame. This ostensibly minor event actually portended the rise of the state's textile industry that would draw immigrant workers through the century to come. The first major immigrant wave was made up predominantly of Irish. Many of them happened to arrive during the 1840's, when Rhode Island was experiencing a constitutional crisis. This crisis reached a head in the 1843 Dorr Rebellion, which forced a change in the state's electoral laws. The rebellion forced a major liberalization of the state's voting laws. This change did not immediately benefit working-class immigrants, but it pointed the way toward further liberalization that would eventually allow immigrants—particularly the Irish—to play major roles in state politics.

Meanwhile, French Canadian immigrants became an important and stable part of the workforce in Blackstone Valley textile mills at Woonsocket, Central Falls, and Pawtucket. Around 1890, Italians began entering Rhode Island. By 1910, they were almost as numerous as French Canadians. Those who did not work in the mills on the Blackstone River settled in Providence. By this time the Irish had a firm grip on local political power. In 1907, Rhode Island elected its first governor with an Irish background. FrancoAmericans and those of Italian and Jewish heritage gravitated to the Republican Party until those affiliations were weakened by the economic unrest of the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Increasing Diversity in Immigration Patterns

During World War II, Rhode Island prospered from the development of defense-related industries. These, in turn, attracted new immigration to the state. After the war, the mix of immigrants became very diverse. Among the newcomers were Portuguesespeakers from Europe, Cape Verde, and Brazil; Latinos from Puerto Rico, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic; Asians from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; and Africans from Liberia, Nigeria, and Ghana. Generally more prosperous than the others, the Portuguese speakers lived mostly in suburban areas near Providence. Other recent immigrants tended to settle in cities, particularly in Providence.

With growing populations of linguistically isolated families in which no members over the age of fourteenyears could speak English well, the need for English as a second language and bilingual instruction grew in the schools. At the same time, a growing public conviction that many new immigrants had entered the country illegally led to strong efforts to root out undocumented immigrants and opposition to increased spending on English-language instruction and social ser vices for immigrants.

As of 2012, 13.3 percent of the population of Rhode Island was foreign born (140,125 people), up from 11.4 percent (119,277 people) in 2000 and 9.5 percent (95,088 people) in 1990. Compared to the U.S. born population of the state, the foreign born population was less likely to be White (45.2 percent vs. 87.3 percent), and more likely to be Black or African American (15.7 percent vs. 5.0 percent), Latino (40.4 percent vs. 9.0 percent), or Asian (15.7 percent vs. 1.3 percent). The most common countries of origin were Portugal (11.4 percent) and China (3.6 percent).

Further Reading

1 

Bluford, Adams, ed. Old and new New Englanders: Immigration & Regional Identity in the Gilded Age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.

2 

Brault, Gerard J. The French-Canadian Heritage in New England. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1986.

3 

Hardman Moore, Susan. Abandoning America: Life-Stories from Early New England. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013.

4 

McLoughlin, William G. Rhode Island: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.

5 

Perlmann, Joel. Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure Among the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Blacks in an American City, 1880–1935. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

6 

Smith, Judith E. Family Connections: A History of Italian and Jewish Immigrant Lives in Providence, Rhode Island, 1900–1940. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Ellis, Robert P. "Rhode Island." Issues in U.S. Immigration, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=IUSI_0259.
APA 7th
Ellis, R. P. (2015). Rhode Island. In C. Bankston III (Ed.), Issues in U.S. Immigration. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Ellis, Robert P. "Rhode Island." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Issues in U.S. Immigration. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.