bird of passage

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1. A migratory bird.
2. A person who moves from place to place frequently.

A transient, one who is here today and gone tomorrow. For example, Mary moves nearly every year; she's a true bird of passage. This phrase transfers the literal meaning of a migrating bird to human behavior. [Second half of 1700s]

Birds of Passage is a term used to describe temporary migrants who move so they can fill jobs that are often viewed as beneath native-born laborers. The term was used in the United States as early as the 1840s to refer to British immigrants and remained in use through the late twentieth century to refer to Asian, European, and Latin American immigrants. The phenomenon of temporary or return migration can be traced back to the early decades of industrialization. Improvements in technology had an impact on the number of birds of passage moving to the United States and other countries that welcomed immigrants. In particular, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the steamship made travel easier and moving back and forth all the more possible. Industrial expansion, economic opportunities, and the possibility of returning to their homelands motivated birds of passage. Statistics vary depending on national origin and era; return rates could be as low as 10 percent or as high as 80 percent. Birds of passage were a crucial part of the U.S. economy during the height of mass immigration (1880–1920), when more than 20 million immigrants arrived in the United States. Before the passage of the Johnson-Reed Act in 1924, which limited the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States, the phenomenon of birds of passage was used by both sides to argue for and against restricting immigration.

Bibliography

Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

Piore, Michael J. Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor in Industrial Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Wyman, Mark. Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993.

—Caroline Waldron Merithew