Ireland has a rich tradition of emigrant songs. They tell of the ambivalence of the emigrant as they try for a better life in (primarily) the US, Canada and Britain. Specifically with regard to emigrants groups in the US, do other ethnic or national groups have emigrant songs in such abundance? Is there Czech, Hungarian etc. folk balladry that deals with the same subject matter.
Well, there’s Botany Bay, about unwilling English migrants to New South Wales. I’d always assumed it was an Irish folk song, but it was written in England in the 1880s.
I haven’t thought about this song in ages, although it’s indelibly burned into my memory because my mother used to play her Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits cassette in the car all the time:
“America”, sometimes referred to as “Coming to America”.
Not a folk song, but since others have listed pop songs, I will too:
"The Immigrant" – Neil Sedaka. This is really an excellent song, with affecting lyrics and a great melody. Anyone who dismisses Sedaka as a simple-minded teen pop guy from the early 60s should really hear this song, which charted mildly on the Billboard Top 40 in 1975 and was played on AM radio.
Kate & Anna McGarrigle came from an Anglo/French Canadian background. “Jacques et Gilles” are French Canadians who bring their family down to the New England mills when money is short. Then go back home. Little Helene wonders why they warn her against the “Irish agitator”
From our neighbor to the South, there’s Cancion Mixteca. Which sounds homesick, even if you can’t understand the words.