Much has been said and published about the contribution of immigrants to the sciences, technical innovation and entrepreneurship in the United States. A variety of studies have demonstrated that contributions of foreign-born scientists and engineers to our country greatly exceed their numerical representation in society. Other studies, including some underwritten by the Kaufman Foundation, have shown the important role played by immigrants in starting new businesses and in creating jobs.

Much less has been said and written about the contribution of immigrants to the arts.  This is perhaps because the arts are viewed by some as a luxury, something that is nice to have, but not absolutely essential for a nation's success and survival. Yet, history teaches us that  -- since antiquity -- there has never existed a great nation without great art. The United States is no exception; we are considered a world leader not only in technical innovation and industrial production, but also in the quality of our artistic achievements, be it in painting, sculpture, literature, music, theater, dance or film. There should be more studies documenting the representation of foreign-born artists among leaders in the various arts fields in the United States. My bias: such studies would likely show that the contribution of foreign-born artists to the leading position of American art in the world is nearly as substantial as the contribution of foreign-born scientists to the excellence of American science.

Let's take a look at snippets of information about the role of immigrant artists in America. The Wikipedia chapter "Visual Art of the United States" provides a brief history of painting and sculpture in this country.  The section on abstract expressionism - the first American fine art movement to exert a major influence internationally - lists twenty-nine artists by name. Of these, seven (de Kooning, Rothko, Gorky, Guston, Tworkow, Hoffmann and Bourgeois), or 24 percent, are foreign-born. 

Literature is another important artistic endeavor that, even more than the visual arts, epitomizes the spirit of the country in which it is created. It may come as a surprise that a large percentage of successful young writers active in America today are born abroad. The New Yorker magazine devoted one of its 2010 issues to writers under the age of 40 who "capture the inventiveness and the vitality of contemporary American fiction". Remarkably, nine of the twenty authors who made the list were born outside the United States-a testament to the role of immigrants in American literature today. Even more surprising is the fact that for the majority of these foreign-born writers, English was not their first language.

To raise awareness of the achievements of immigrants to the arts and to science in America, the Vilcek Foundation initiated a program of annual prizes that recognize important contributions made by foreign-born scientists and artists to the United States. Awarding prizes in both science and the arts makes the Vilcek Foundation prize program quite unique, even though the relationship between the arts and sciences can be traced back to antiquity. The list of past prizewinners (available at www.vilcek.org) reads like "Who Is Who in the Arts and Sciences in America".

In the context of this newsletter it is also appropriate to mention efforts to help integrate immigrant artists. One example of such an effort is the Immigrant Artist Program of the New York Foundation for the Arts, building and serving a community of artists with diverse backgrounds, who share the experience of immigration. The goal of the Immigrant Artist Program is to foster the creative careers of immigrant artists by connecting them with services and resources that help them integrate into the cultural world in this country.  It would not be surprising if another Yo-Yo Ma, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Christo or Vladimir Nabokov were to emerge as a result of these efforts.