Daily Life of the New Americans by
In the last decades, a growing number of immigrants from around the world have arrived in the United States. Daily Life of the New Americans: Immigration since 1965 provides a thematic overview of their everyday lives and underscores the diversity and complexity of the newcomer experience. Organized into six thematic chapters, the book examines how immigrants from Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe are changing the face of the American nation, and, at the same time, are themselves being changed by living in America. The stories told here are enhanced through the use of oral histories that bring immigrant experiences vividly to life.
How Race Is Made in America by
How Race Is Made in America examines Mexican Americans--from 1924, when American law drastically reduced immigration into the United States, to 1965, when many quotas were abolished--to understand how broad themes of race and citizenship are constructed. These years shaped the emergence of what Natalia Molina describes as an immigration regime, which defined the racial categories that continue to influence perceptions in the United States about Mexican Americans, race, and ethnicity. Molina demonstrates that despite the multiplicity of influences that help shape our concept of race, common themes prevail. Examining legal, political, social, and cultural sources related to immigration, she advances the theory that our understanding of race is socially constructed in relational ways--that is, in correspondence to other groups. Molina introduces and explains her central theory, racial scripts, which highlights the ways in which the lives of racialized groups are linked across time and space and thereby affect one another. How Race Is Made in America also shows that these racial scripts are easily adopted and adapted to apply to different racial groups.
The Immigration Crucible by
In the debate over U.S. immigration, all sides now support policy and practice that expand the parameters of enforcement. While immigration control forces lobby for intensifying enforcement for reasons that are transparently connected to their policy agenda, and pro-immigration forces favor the liberalization of migrant flows and more fluid labor market regulation, these transformations, meant to grow global trade and commerce networks, also enlarge the extralegal (or marginally legal) discretionary powers of the state and encourage a more enforcement-heavy governing agenda. Philip Kretsedemas examines these developments from several different perspectives; exploring recent trends in U.S. immigration policy, the rise in extralegal state power over the course of the twentieth century, and discourses on race, nation and cultural difference that have influenced the policy and academic discourse on immigration. He also analyzes the recent expansion of local immigration laws--including the controversial Arizona immigration law enacted in the summer of 2010--and explains how forms of extralegal discretionary authority have become more prevalent in federal immigration policy, making the dispersion of these local immigration laws possible. While connecting these extralegal state powers to a free flow position on immigration, he also observes how these same discretionary powers have historically been used to control racial minority populations (particularly African American populations under Jim Crow). This kind of discretionary authority often appeals to "states rights" arguments, recently revived by immigration control advocates to support the expansion of local immigration laws. Using these and other examples, Kretsedemas explains how both sides of the immigration debate have converged on the issue of enforcement and how, despite different interests, each faction has shaped the commonsense assumptions currently defining the scope and limits of the debate.
A Great Conspiracy Against Our Race by
Racial history has always been the thorn in America's side, with a swath of injustices--slavery, lynching, segregation, and many other ills--perpetrated against black people. This very history is complicated by, and also dependent on, what constitutes a white person in this country. Many of the European immigrant groups now considered white also had to struggle with their own racial identities. In A Great Conspiracy against Our Race, Peter Vellon explores how Italian immigrants, a once undesirable and "swarthy" race, assimilated into dominant white culture through the influential national and radical Italian language press in New York City. Examining the press as a cultural production of the Italian immigrant community, this book investigates how this immigrant press constructed race, class, and identity from 1886 through 1920. Their frequent coverage of racially charged events of the time, as well as other topics such as capitalism and religion, reveals how these papers constructed a racial identity as Italian, American, and white. A Great Conspiracy against Our Race vividly illustrates how the immigrant press was a site where socially constructed categories of race, color, civilization, and identity were reworked, created, contested, and negotiated. Vellon also uncovers how Italian immigrants filtered societal pressures and redefined the parameters of whiteness, constructing their own identity. This work is an important contribution to not only Italian American history, but America's history of immigration and race.
Three Worlds of Relief by
Three Worlds of Relief examines the role of race and immigration in the development of the American social welfare system by comparing how blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants were treated by welfare policies during the Progressive Era and the New Deal. Taking readers from the turn of the twentieth century to the dark days of the Depression, Cybelle Fox finds that, despite rampant nativism, European immigrants received generous access to social welfare programs. The communities in which they lived invested heavily in relief. Social workers protected them from snooping immigration agents, and ensured that noncitizenship and illegal status did not prevent them from receiving the assistance they needed. But that same helping hand was not extended to Mexicans and blacks. Fox reveals, for example, how blacks were relegated to racist and degrading public assistance programs, while Mexicans who asked for assistance were deported with the help of the very social workers they turned to for aid. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Fox paints a riveting portrait of how race, labor, and politics combined to create three starkly different worlds of relief. She debunks the myth that white America's immigrant ancestors pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, unlike immigrants and minorities today. Three Worlds of Relief challenges us to reconsider not only the historical record but also the implications of our past on contemporary debates about race, immigration, and the American welfare state.
Inventing Modern Adolescence by
The 1960s are commonly considered to be the beginning of a distinct "teenage culture" in America. But did this highly visible era of free love and rock 'n' roll really mark the start of adolescent defiance? In "Inventing Modern Adolescence" Sarah E. Chinn follows the roots of American teenage identity further back, to the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. She argues that the concept of the "generation gap"-a stereotypical complaint against American teens-actually originated with the division between immigrant parents and their American-born or -raised children. "Inventing Modern Adolescence" is an authoritative and engaging look at a pivotal point in American history and the intriguing, complicated, and still very pertinent teenage identity that emerged from it.
The New Americans by
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, shaped by successive waves of new arrivals. This comprehensive guide addresses such topics as immigration law and policy, refugees, unauthorised migrants, racial and ethnic identity, assimilation, economy, politics, religion, and family relations.
Illegal Immigration by
This volume in the Opposing Viewpoints series debates the issue of illegal immigration with such topics as how does illegal immigration impact the United States, how effective are policies to stop illegal immigration, are immigrants treated justly, and ho;Each title in the highly acclaimed Opposing Viewpoints series explores a specific issue by placing expert opinions in a unique pro/con format; the viewpoints are selected from a wide range of highly respected and often hard-to-find publications.
When Race and Policy Collide by
Examining actual policy to identify the facts, this book exposes how racially charged political and legal debates over immigration reform in the United States continue to inform our immigration policy. * Covers policies pertaining to immigrants and immigration reform and relates these policies to associated topics such as language, bilingual education, housing, borders, and voting rights * Provides immigration policy analyses that are engaging and accessible to a wide range of readers * Examines past policy actions as well as findings from recent case studies, allowing readers to grasp the specific racial dimensions intertwined in these controversial policies and debates
Beholden State by
California is at a tipping point. Severe budget deficits, unsustainable pension costs, heavy taxes, cumbersome regulation, struggling cities, and distressed public schools are but a few of the challenges that policymakers must address for the state to remain a beacon of business innovation and economic opportunity. City Journal has for years been cataloging the political and economic issues of our nation's largest metropolitan areas, and in this collection compiled and introduced by City Journal editor Brian C. Anderson, the cracks in California's flawed policy plans are displayed in detail, and analyzed by a diverse set of experts in the state's design. The list of contributors includes: Steven Malanga, William Voegeli, Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox, Arthur B. Laffer, Steven Greenhut, Victor Davis Hanson, Heather Mac Donald, John Buntin, Ben Boychuk, Tom Gray, Andrew Klavan, Troy Senik, Larry Sand, Michael Anton, and Guy Sorman. While there is plenty of literature on California s history, topography, and attractions, The Beholden State: California's Lost Promise and How to Recapture It is the first book examining in rigorous detail how a place seen just a generation ago as the dynamic engine of the American future could, through bad policy ideas, find itself with among the highest unemployment rates and poorest educational outcomes in the country. The book is as thoroughly analytical as it is pragmatically proscriptive, complete with policy solutions mapping the way forward for a struggling state."
Immigration Wars by
The First Practical, Nonpartisan Approach to Immigration Law-Solutions for Today and Tomorrow Immigration is vital to America's prosperity, but any enduring resolution must adhere to the rule of law. A chronic failure of leadership by both parties and the current, chaotic state of immigration law are just two reasons why our system is taxed to the breaking point as millions take up residence in the United States illegally. The time is now, say Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick, to adapt their "sensible" (The Wall Street Journal) and compelling new strategy for advancing the goals that immigration policy is supposed to achieve: build a demand-driven system, increase states' autonomy based on needs, reduce the physical risks and financial strain of illegal entry, unite Mexico and America in the war against drug cartels, educate aspiring citizens in our founding fathers' principles, revitalize the American Dream with opportunities for entrepreneurs, protect children of illegals with a viable variation of the DREAM Act, solidify a national identity based on our core values of family, faith, hard work, education, and patriotism Book jacket.
Right to DREAM by
The DREAM Act, bipartisan legislation first introduced in Congress in 2001, would provide conditional residency for undocumented youth brought to the United States as children. It recognizes that undocumented youth have done nothing wrong and that they should be allowed to work, to go to school, and to travel. The bill makes college more affordable through in-state tuition and gives the undocumented a path to citizenship if they graduate from college or serve in the military. Congress has failed to pass the DREAM Act, and fourteen states have filled the gap by implementing their own laws and policies that provide educational benefits to undocumented students. Right to DREAM makes a compelling argument for the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform. William A. Schwab explores the key issues surrounding this legislation: What are the issues that divide? What do the proponents and opponents of the DREAM Act argue? Is there a middle ground? Is compromise possible? Answering these questions, Schwab explains the legal issues surrounding the education of immigrant children, who immigrates and why, how four waves of immigration have shaped the nation, the effects of immigrants on the U.S. economy and culture, and the process of becoming an American. Schwab analyzes the DREAM Act, deferred action, and immigration policy. He weaves personal stories of undocumented youth throughout the book and advocates for the economic, political, and social benefits of the DREAM Act that would bring undocumented youth out of the shadows and into the mainstream of society.
Don't Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses (eVideo via Films on Demand)
America has long been a nation of immigrants, built by the labor of millions who came from other lands. As the words on the Statue of Liberty proclaim, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." But today, the United States is home to millions of undocumented immigrants, and the federal government has been unable to reach a consensus to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. Are immigrants taking American jobs, or are they helping our economy? How should the United States deal with border issues and the millions of immigrants living here illegally?
El Norte = The North (DVD)
El norte: Enrique and Rosa are brother and sister Mayan Indian peasants, living in the mountains of Guatemala. When the village attempts to organize for better treatment, Enrique and Rosa are forced to flee as the Guatemalan army is sent in to punish the townspeople. Receiving clandestine help from friends and humorous advice from a veteran immigrant, they make their way to Los Angeles, hoping to make a new life as young, uneducated, and illegal immigrants.
Ellis Island (DVD)
Immigrants of every ethnic background recall their extraordinary adventures, historians explore the sometimes insensitive national policies, and the Ellis Island Oral History Project reveals what the immigration experience was actually like. Features rare photographs and film.
Golden Door (DVD)
A Sicilian farmer falls in love with a worldly British woman while both are attempting to immigrate to America.
The Citizen (DVD)
Yearning to leave behind his life of misfortune in the Middle East, Ibrahim Jarrah wins the U.S Green Card Lottery for a chance to become an American citizen. Ibrahim lands in New York City the day before the September terrorist attacks. The events forever shape the struggles he faces on his journey to capture the American dream.
