Influence of immigrants on American music

SIGNIFICANCE: As successive waves of immigrants arrived in North America, their musical traditions provided a link with their homelands and served as an aspect of group identity. With time, these traditions changed in response to new contexts and merged with other traditions as new forms of music were created.

During the period of European colonization of North America, settlers, missionaries, and traders from Spain, the Netherlands, England, France, and other nations began to interact with some of the many Indigenous nations and communities that they encountered, initially in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coastal regions. Often an integral part of ceremonies, the Indigenous peoples' musical styles reflect the various belief systems, environments, and narratives of diverse Amerindian cultures. After the voice, which is used in group singing as well as in solo genres, the most common indigenous instruments are drums and other percussion instruments.

Despite dislocations, genocide, and assimilation, many Indigenous North Americans maintained their musical practices along with their languages and rituals, and some adopted instruments and forms from nonnative communities, especially in rural areas. By the latter half of the twentieth century, activists in the pan-Indian movement increasingly used music to raise political consciousness, occasionally blending native elements with familiar rock and country styles. The institution of the powwow often includes traditional music and dance performances in large cultural gatherings. American Indian music has also been associated with meditation and the environmental movement. Other forms of American music have often been influenced by indigenous concepts of individuality in music, in that certain songs come into existence through private experiences associated with personal growth.

Spanish Settlers and Hispanic Communities

Spanish settlements in Florida, Texas, and along the California coast during the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries brought Roman Catholic liturgical music to the area as part of the mission system. Eventually, settlers brought secular Spanish music as well, including stringed instruments such as the vihuela, guitar, and violin. Over time, cultural blending between the Spanish and the Indigenous peoples resulted in syncretic practices, especially with regard to religious festivals. During the nineteenth century, uniquely Mexican songs such as rancheras and corridos were sung and accompanied by traveling groups, who also incorporated musical elements from central European immigrant cultures.

After the northern parts of Mexico became part of the United States in 1848, Hispanic and mestizo (blended) musical culture continued to develop in those regions and was further augmented by continued immigration from Latin America to the United States. In addition to the older communities in the American Southwest, newer immigrants from Puerto Rico and other areas created vibrant enclaves in many American cities, particularly in New York, and contributed to the development of salsa, Latin rock, and other genres. Into the twenty-first century, the flow of Latin American immigrants to the United States continued to shape musical trends, with subgenres such as reggaeton having a deep influence on mainstream hip-hop and pop styles. Several major pop stars began their careers in Spanish-speaking markets before finding crossover success with US listeners.

Northern European Settlers and Communities

English and Dutch colonists brought their music with them as they established settlements in Virginia, Massachusetts, and along the Hudson River during the seventeenth century. Congregational hymn singing was very important, especially in the Plymouth Bay settlement, which was originally established as a religious community. Singing schools, taught by traveling musicians known as singing masters, became a way for communities to enjoy social gatherings as people learned part-singing, often with the aid of “shape notes” (solfeggio symbols combined with staff notation). Singing schools spread throughout the United States during the nineteenth century and led to the development of Sacred Harp singing in the South.

Secular music and instruments were also brought from England and other northern European countries. Often, secular music was associated with social dancing, usually country dancing, square dancing, and quadrilles. During the nineteenth century, band music was cultivated, and the piano became an important instrument for middle- and upper-class families, who often gathered around the piano for recreational singing. As in England, women were encouraged to learn piano for playing within the home but were discouraged from public performances. Concerts of classical music were sometimes given by European musicians for American audiences. Less sophisticated performances included minstrel shows, which portrayed derogatory stereotypes of Black Americans to the accompaniment of lively music.

The Acadians, French-speaking settlers who had been removed from eastern Canada during conflicts in the eighteenth century, eventually settled in western Louisiana, which was alternately a French and a Spanish colony. These settlers maintained their language and developed a unique culture and musical style known as Cajun, which often overlapped with that of the Creole peoples who had lived in the area since colonial times and often blended with Indigenous and Black communities. Indeed, Black Creole music resulted in the closely related style known as zydeco.

African American Communities

Beginning in the early seventeenth century, West African captives were forcibly brought to the American colonies as part of the Atlantic slave trade. In reaction to their physical and cultural oppression, they developed powerful forms of musical expression. The primary vocal tradition became known as spirituals: religious songs that also carried coded messages for escape and community support. Themes of redemption and justice in spirituals were both transcendent and concrete.

A secondary genre was functional vocal music to accompany manual labor. Both forms utilized West African concepts of “call and response,” in which musical phrases would alternate between a solo voice and group singing. Repetition was a common element, with emotional intensity increasing through embellishment and inflection. Although drums were forbidden (with the notable exception of Spanish- and French-controlled areas), the banjo was reconstructed from African prototypes and eventually entered into the rural American mainstream. The music of Black Americans would go on to have an enormous impact on virtually every aspect of broader folk and popular music throughout the country.

After the US Civil War ended and slavery was finally abolished in 1865, newer immigrants of African descent came voluntarily to the United States from the Caribbean region and, eventually, from Africa itself. Gospel music, an extension of spirituals and hymnody within African American churches, rose to prominence during the twentieth century. Blues, a secular style with melodic similarities to African American sacred music, became well-known around the same time. In the blues, a rhymed couplet, with the first line repeated, is often set to a three-phrase musical structure, often with the second phrase harmonized with the subdominant. The blues also featured in instrumental music, forming an essential element of jazz and becoming the foundation for rock and roll and other popular genres.

Near the beginning of the twentieth century, African American musicians in New Orleans and other cities spearheaded the creation of ragtime, followed by what is often regarded as the quintessential American musical style: jazz, which incorporates many elements from European as well as West African musical practices. Over time, Black Americans rose to fame as popular music stars—first in jazz, later in rock, and especially in rhythm and blues (R&B), among other styles. Spirituals continued to be an important African American tradition during the twentieth century, inspiring classical settings and arrangements by Harlem Renaissance composers and being referenced in writing by W. E. B. Du Bois and speeches by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Spirituals inspired solidarity and courage during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, new urban styles developed, including rap, which built on African and African American traditions of incorporating rhythmic designs into speech, and hip-hop, which was begun by disc jockeys manipulating recorded music and superimposing their own sounds in live performances.

Celtic Musical Traditions

During the eighteenth century, immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and other regions settled in the Appalachian mountains. Fiercely independent and living in relative isolation, they cultivated narrative song and instrumental dance music traditions that they had brought from their homelands. In some cases, Appalachian ballads remained almost unchanged from their counterparts in Europe.

Over time, the instrumental dance music acquired some African American inflectional and rhythmic influences, eventually leading to the development of bluegrass. During the nineteenth century, newer waves of immigrants from Ireland arrived but settled primarily in large communities within major cities such as New York and Boston. Because of these communities, Irish music was well documented and preserved in the United States, and some of the repertoire was eventually brought back to Ireland.

Other European Immigrants

During British North America’s colonial period, German settlers, often escaping religious persecution and war, settled in many areas, especially in Pennsylvania, where they became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. Most of their music was religious, but Germans also added musical dance forms such as the waltz to North American and Latin American music. In smaller ensembles, the accordion became a mainstay, and an inexpensive and highly portable German instrument, the harmonica, was introduced in the United States in 1868 and was received with great enthusiasm. The harmonica was adaptable to many musical styles, including blues and country, and its plaintive, lonesome sound became identified with travelers such as cowboys and fortune seekers who rode the railroads in search of opportunities.

German and other central European communities contributed to the development and popularity of brass band music, and another lively dance form, the polka, echoed in the large German and Polish communities of American cities. These styles also had considerable influence on the development of jazz. European American descendants of earlier generations of immigrants often looked to Europe for guidance in matters of culture, and until the twentieth century, they frequently preferred exotic new European immigrants with classical training over their homespun American counterparts for teaching posts, compositions, and concerts. During the early twentieth century, immigration from Ashkenazi Jewish communities in eastern Europe increased, bringing klezmer music and Yiddish theater to the United States. Many first- and second-generation immigrant musicians from Yiddish-speaking communities in Europe participated in the development of musical theater, music publishing, and the emergence of the popular music industry.

In American urban centers, Italian, Greek, and other immigrant communities created ethnic enclaves during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Music, along with language, cuisine, religious worship, and other shared experiences, contributed to community identity. Eventually, through assimilation and relocation to the suburbs, some of these enclaves became less distinct, but music and dance forms were cultivated, especially the Italian tarantella and Greek rebetiko music.

Asian Immigrants

Most of the first Asian immigrants to the United States were from southern China. During the mid-nineteenth century, they were primarily male gold prospectors and manual laborers coming through San Francisco and other western ports. Cantonese opera and other southern Chinese music genres were occasionally supported as Chinatown enclaves grew in the cities, and Chinese Christian churches shared hymn repertoire with missionary churches in China. During the twentieth century, immigrants from other Asian nations arrived, especially in Hawaii, where Asian musicians contributed to the island’s multicultural heritage.

During the late twentieth century, newer immigrants from Asia were often highly educated and supported elite forms of music, often inviting visiting musicians from their home countries. Asian Americans also helped drive broader attention to subgenres that arose in their countries of origin, such as J-pop from Japan and K-pop from South Korea, which at times influenced American pop trends.

Communities in Exile

The twentieth century brought unprecedented upheavals and relocations to the world, from the Armenians fleeing genocide in Turkey from 1915 through World War I, global depression during the 1930s, the Holocaust, World War II, the Cold War, wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, the Iranian revolution, and more. Many of those who were displaced or threatened by these events sought refuge in the United States. In some cases, music traditions that would have otherwise been destroyed were preserved.

The early twenty-first century, too, was marked by heightened attention to immigration. While many people welcomed increased diversity in various areas of American music, there was also a significant backlash and rise of xenophobia in general. Although tolerance has not always been a factor in the United States’ musical history, the increasing recognition of music as a marker of personal and community identity suggests that immigrants will continue to shape American music as they always have. Further, as much as immigrants brought their musical traditions unique to their cultures and countries of origin, the amalgamation of these musical traditions has shaped popular American music in the twentieth-first century.

Arab and Muslim Influences

Arab and Muslim musical influences on American music have always been present, but perhaps submerged or unacknowledged within other genres. For example, an important locale in the development of American Blues music was in its Southern states. Many slaves in the American South were first captured from West Africa. Large percentages were both Muslim and fluent in Arabic. Even with conversions to Christianity, many slaves held on to customs and traditions. Thus, African influences permeated music in the South.

The 2020s have seen Arabic musical influences enter mainstream American productions. Many examples permeated through the musical openings of streaming shows on online services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+. Others include major concert venues where the performance of entire musical sets are in Arabic. The decade of the 2020s has been identified as the start of Arabic music achieving the kind of mainstream breakthrough with American audiences experienced decades earlier by Latin music.

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