Colorado's immigration history
Colorado's immigration history is marked by diverse waves of settlers and laborers influenced by the state's mining, agriculture, and tourism sectors. From its early days, immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Africa migrated in search of opportunities, particularly during the Pikes Peak gold rush and the subsequent silver boom in the late 19th century. While immigrant labor was crucial for the state's economic development, opposition emerged, particularly in the early 20th century, fueled by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which targeted various immigrant communities. Post-World War II saw limited but notable immigration, especially from Lithuania and other Central European nations.
By the late 20th century, Colorado's demographic landscape shifted significantly with a growing Hispanic population, which became essential to the labor force and increasingly influential in politics. Recent statistics indicate that immigrants make up about 10% of Colorado's population, with a significant contribution to key industries such as construction and healthcare. As of 2022, immigrants from Mexico, India, and China represent the largest groups within the state, illustrating Colorado's ongoing evolution as a multicultural hub. This dynamic history highlights the complex interplay of economic needs, social attitudes, and cultural contributions that have shaped Colorado's identity.
Colorado's immigration history
SIGNIFICANCE: Colorado has a unique immigration history affected by its mining, agriculture, and tourism industries. The history of immigrant groups within the state is not limited to those who reside in Denver; it also includes immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Africa who have settled throughout the state.
Colorado’s history regarding new immigrants is complicated by the fact that immigrant labor was eagerly welcomed in some areas and strongly opposed in others. The state took an anti-immigrant stance after establishing railroads and utilizing inexpensive labor in its mining industry during the nineteenth century. During the 1920s, it sought to reduce or eliminate foreign immigration into the state. However, by the late twentieth century, the state had become dependent on its substantial Hispanic population for labor, and its Hispanic leaders were making a dramatic impact both in Colorado and throughout the United States (US).
Late Nineteenth-Century Immigration
Even before Colorado became a state in 1876, waves of new settlers and immigrants peppered its plains, foothills, and mountains in search of fortune, employment, or simply arable farmland. Even as the state’s first railroads were nearing completion during the 1880s, new settlers and miners were already living in Colorado. Many of them had come during the 1859 Pikes Peakgold rush and the formal annexation of the Rocky Mountain region into the US. By 1880, Colorado had a population of nearly 200,000, including sizeable numbers of Scandinavians, Irish, and Scots working in the mining, railroad, or farming industries. The discovery of silver in 1879 in Leadville continued to draw speculators and miners into the region.
The expansion of coal mining throughout the Colorado basin encouraged new waves of immigrants to move to the state. The exhausting and dangerous work of extracting coal from open-pit mines was often the only employment available to immigrants with limited education and limited access to working capital. Many immigrants from Italy, Germany, and Russia were hired to replace striking workers through the numerous violent clashes that erupted during Colorado’s labor wars during the first decade of the twentieth century.
Twentieth-Century Arrivals
Immigration into the region was slowed during the early twentieth century as numerous groups protested and demonstrated against new arrivals into the state. During the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan possessed considerable political clout and targeted immigrants, Black Americans, and Roman Catholics through intimidation and violence. The Klan reached the peak of its influence in Colorado in 1924, with the election of Klansman Clarence Morley as the state’s governor. Throughout cities such as Denver, Pueblo, Canyon City, and Grand Junction, the organization sought to intimidate followers of the Roman Catholic Church, especially those of Italian descent.
In the years immediately following World War II, there was an influx of immigrants from Lithuania because of the Soviet occupation of that eastern European nation. However, that influx was limited and not sustained in subsequent years. In addition to the Lithuanian immigration, many Germans and Central Europeans moved into the area. Many of them were fleeing the after-effects of the war. Some of the German immigrants were families of former prisoners of war who had been interned in Colorado camps during the war.
The second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century saw a dramatic growth in Colorado’s total population, from 1.3 million persons in 1950 to more than 5 million by 2015. Although the state’s population continued to be predominantly White, Hispanic residents constituted about 20 percent of the total population by that time. The majority of early Hispanic immigrants worked in various agricultural roles—either as migrant workers during the sugar beet and melon harvests or in meat-processing factories throughout the state's northeastern region. Meanwhile, the increasing Hispanic population began to influence regional, state, and national politics with the election of numerous Hispanic leaders to offices. These included Denver mayor Federico Peña, who served from 1983 to 1991, and US senator Ken Salazar, who was elected in 2004 and was the US Secretary of the Interior from 2009 to 2013.
Colorado’s Hispanic population continued to grow rapidly throughout the state. However, other groups were also drawn to Colorado as the state’s agriculture and tourist industries expanded. These new immigrants have continued to follow the traditional patterns of Colorado settlement by expanding beyond the urban centers located along the Front Range—the north-south corridor stretching from Fort Collins to Pueblo. Western Colorado, the eastern plains, and the central mountain areas of the state have also become homes to new arrivals. For example, in 2009, meatpacking houses in northeastern Colorado employed 650 Somali immigrants, and another 500 Africans—mostly from Senegal, Nigeria, and Morocco—were working in the resort areas of Colorado’s mountains.
In 2018, Colorado continued to have a growing immigrant community. That year, 549,181 immigrants lived in Colorado, making up 10 percent of the state’s population. Forty percent of Colorado’s foreign-born population came from Mexico, with smaller groups from India, China, Vietnam, and Canada. Forty-five percent were naturalized US citizens, and 190,000 were undocumented workers. Colorado’s immigrant population makes up 12 percent of the state’s workforce, with construction, accommodation and food service, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail trade being the most popular industries. Into the mid-2020s, Colorado’s immigrant population continued to increase. In data collected in the American Community Survey and analyzed by the American Immigration Council, Colorado reported 557,200 immigrant residents in 2022. The top countries of origin for foreign-born Colorado residents in 2022 included Mexico, India, Korea, China, and Ethiopia. Also in 2022, Colorado reported 376,800 immigrants working in its labor force, representing 11.4 percent of the state’s total workers. The industries most likely to employ immigrant workers included construction, transportation, warehousing, and manufacturing. In Colorado, 267,600 immigrant residents were naturalized US citizens, and 139,200 were undocumented workers.
Bibliography
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"Immigrants in Colorado." American Immigration Council, map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/colorado. Accessed 31 Aug. 2024.
Mehls, Steven F. The New Empire of the Rockies: A History of Northeast Colorado. Bureau of Land Management, 1984.
"State Demographics Data - CO." Migration Policy Institute, www.migrationpolicy.org/data/state-profiles/state/demographics/CO/. Accessed 31 Aug. 2024.
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