American Immigration and Ethnicity A Reader [Paperback]

This work aims to enrich studies of American immigration history by combining and comparing the experiences of both European immigration, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Asian, Hispanic, Caribbean, and African immigrations in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries.Comparative Perspectives: Similarities and Differences in American Immigration History Resettlement: Making a New Life Homeland Ties and Transnational Activities Nativism: Fear of the Foreigner Work Family, Domestic Economy, and the Lives of Women Race: Becoming White Race: Becoming Black Identities and Ethnicities: The Formation of Groups Traditions and Invented Traditions Language Conflicts Melting Pots and Popular Culture

David Gerber and Alan Kraut have produced a very useful and informative study using primary and secondary sources that draws numerous connections between contemporary immigration and that of the last two centuries. It is unique in presenting the 'then and now' of American immigration and ethnicity through selected readings of European voices from the past and Asian American, Hispanic, and Caribbean voices from the present in addition to previous and current analyses of these migrating groups. Readers are encouraged to think about the similarities and differences between immigrants who became Americans in the mid 19th to mid 20th centuries and those becoming Americans today. - Ronald H. Bayor, Founding Editor, Journal of American Ethnic History

David Gerber and Alan Kraut have performed a great service. American Imimgration and Ethnicity is a terrific survey of the state of the art in immigration studies, but more than this, it promises to inject healthy doses of historical sensitivity and realism into today's immigration debates. From a civic standpoint, one can only hope that it finds the wide audience it deserves. - Matthew Frye Jacobson, author of Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America

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