One of my favorite things about studying history has been learning that everything has a history; and when it comes to the history of why people do the things they do, all we can do is theorize and make our best supposition based on what's known to us. When it comes to American history, there are few, if any, absolutes. This extends to the experiences of immigrants, even when we look at people from the same country, even from the same town or city, in the historical record.

There are, though, patterns we could look at to try to extrapolate immigrants' intentions regarding permanence. We could, for example, look to the history of banking and housing to explore the nature of leasing agreements or length of mortgages and loans and what immigrants agreed or committed to when they arrived. We could look to the nature of how they got here including the agreements they reached with employers who paid for their passage or sponsored their housing arrangements. There's a whole history tied up in ocean travel and entry back into their countries of origin. We could even make some inferences about plans to live in America permanently from the compelling history of Chinese immigrants opening restaurants to take advantage of legal loopholes that would allow them to bring their families over. I'll defer to those who study those topics to unpack those histories, but as one who who studies American education history, I find it revealing to look at decisions immigrant parents made regarding their children.

Making the decision to entrust your child with strangers is a relatively modern phenomenon. Making the choice while having no real idea what that stranger will do with your child, as was the case for foreign born parents on American soil, is even newer. Making the choice to send a child to school up until the 1930's or so pretty much a matter of free will. There were some compulsory education laws on the books and some social pressure, but generally speaking, there were no consequences for not sending a child. In effect, having a physically fit child who is capable of working and actually keeping them from working means you're removing their potential income. It also suggests you're thinking about the future - and taking active steps to acclimate your child to a new situation.

Before we get too far into the actions taken by immigrants, it's helpful to flip the lens and consider the words and actions of those who ran schools in America; virtually all of whom were white men, mostly Protestants, occasionally Quakers, Catholics, or non-denominational. During the 18th and early 19th century, vocal advocates pushed for a "common" school experience regardless of a child's (by which they meant white children, mostly boys) social class or ecnomic status. The collective understanding of why formal education existed was shifting away from an esoteric study of a classical curriculum towards a more modern, practical, liberal arts education that would contribute to an educated, informed citizenry. The consensus was that school could serve as a means for creating "good" Americans; future voters and their wives and mothers. There were schisms in the rise of public education - the most notable consequence of which was the rise of parochial schools that assured parents their child would get a religious-focused education, and not a secular/Protestant-lite education like they'd get in a public school. But generally speaking, the shift became about "all" children, not just the sons of the wealthy.

For most of this period, immigrants were primarily from England, France, Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia. (A statement which, of course, overlooks what was happening in Southern and Western states as various boundaries shifted.) In many cases, they were joining already established town, communities, and enclaves. This meant their cultural touchstones, first language, food, and customs were, in a sense, familiar to those born on American soil. This familiarity extended the mantle of whiteness to them which meant their children were generally welcomed into American schools to sit beside white, American-born children. This isn't to say assimilation was easy or there weren't communities who maintained an isolationist philosophy. Rather, enrollment numbers in rural schools generally matched immigration patterns, from which we can infer immigrants who brought children with them who did not need their children's labor and were not opposed to an American-style education would enroll their children. (When they were allowed to enroll. Schools could be run like fiefdoms and local leaders could bar children for any reason. The most common reason was a physical disability or perceived cognitive disability. But not all children with disabilities were excluded. It was highly contextual and informed by a particular school leader's opinion.) Likewise, there are multiple instances where towns built a schoolhouse a few years after an influx of immigrants or even, in some cases, to lure them to the town. This suggests immigrants expected their children would remain in the country and, one can assume, they would remain with them.

It's important to stress these courtesies were not extended to free Black Americans, recently freed enslaved children, Native or Indigenous, or African or Asian immigrants and this was made clear in laws and policies that were enacted during the era. An 1872 Nevada law stated that, "negroes, Mongolians [Asians], and Indians shall not be admitted into the public schools." The walls around public school designed to keep out children who were visibly different were opaque and unyielding.

This mantle of whiteness was also limited by the white immigrant's nation of origin. When immigrants from southern Italy, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire as well as those from smaller countries and principalities began to arrive in the late 1880's, there was an overwhelming sense their presence would weaken the country. This wave also included an influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants and for many Americans in positions of power (which was, of course, mostly men, virtually all white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, some of whom were the children of immigrants themselves), saw this as a problem to be solved. They dealt with this threat in various ways from housing segregation, naturalization laws, and citizenship tests but also used public education as a way to "Americanize" the children.

The 1870 US Census included about 260,000 foreign-born children. This is where we can start to see the different paths immigrant parents set out for their children, giving us some insight into their thinking about permanence. Many of those children ended up in public schools and schoolmen were more than willing to take on the challenge of educating the "new" immigrants. Curriculum began to include more American history, literature, fables, and songs focused on notable Americans and holidays. There were some explicit efforts by members of various immigrant communities to reshape their local schools (predominantly Catholic and Jewish parents) but generally speaking, parents lived with the paradox that was, and is, raising a foreign born child on American soil: trusting strangers (likely a white woman) to provide your child an American education at school and do what you can to keep the home language and culture thriving at home.

Foreign-born parents without the resources to pay for private tutors or schools were sending their children in numbers city school districts often couldn't keep up with. Granted, it wasn't all of their children - many children worked. Many died due to unsanitary living conditions or lack of vaccinations. One of the factors that contributed to the rise of summer vacation was the need to keep children away from schools so the city could built additions and make safety upgrades. One school in a predominately foreign-born, Jewish NYC neighborhood was located directly below an elevated train, within feet of a working factory, had no internal plumbing, and still had to turn away children for a lack of space. There were years in the early 1900's when NYC was opening a new school every week. Many of the children were American-born but entire neighborhoods and with them schools, rose around newly-arrived immigrant communities. And to be sure, public schools were not a welcoming experience for a foreign born child in the early 1900's. Teachers were told to assume children from different ethnicities has different degrees of intelligence and were often cruel to children who arrived looking unkempt or struggled to follow instruction. There was no English language instruction to speak of. There were few, if any, accommodations for children with disabilities. Resources, including books, slates, and bathrooms, were scarce. Lunch was rarely provided at full-day programs and only then, if the children were lucky enough to be at a public school sponsored by an aide society.

All of this is to say that it's incredibly likely that if someone immigrated with a child, or had a child upon arriving in the United States, and went through the effort of trusting strangers to educate their child, they were planning on staying as long as possible.