The name of the book is a reference to the fact that the United States is a country whose population is predominantly made up of immigrants and their recent descendants, who settled the country following the European colonization of the Americas and the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies.

It was written as part of the Anti-Defamation League's series entitled the One Nation Library.

[1] In the 1950s, former ADL National Director Ben Epstein was concerned by rising xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric, so he reached out to then-Senator Kennedy to write a manuscript on immigration reform.

[2][3] Subsequently, after gaining the presidency, Kennedy called on Congress to undertake a full reevaluation of immigration law; and he began to revise the book for further publication.

[4] Kennedy's assassination took place before he could complete the revision, but the book was posthumously published in 1964 with an introduction by his brother, then Attorney General Robert F.