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New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles have long been shaped by immigration. These gateway cities have traditionally been assumed to be the major flashpoints in American debates over immigration policy—but the reality on the ground is proving different. Since the 1980s, new immigrants have increasingly settled in rural and suburban areas, particularly within the South. Couple this demographic change with an increase in unauthorized immigrants, and the rural South, once perhaps the most culturally and racially "settled" part of the country, now offers a window into the changing dynamics of immigration and, more generally, the changing face of America. New Destination Dreaming explores how the r...
Listen to a short interview with Mary WatersHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane Salsa has replaced ketchup as the most popular condiment. A mosque has been erected around the corner. The local hospital is staffed by Indian doctors and Philippine nurses, and the local grocery store is owned by a Korean family. A single elementary school may include students who speak dozens of different languages at home. This is a snapshot of America at the turn of the twenty-first century. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, shaped by successive waves of new arrivals. The most recent transformation began when immigration laws and policies changed significantly in 1965, admitti...
For refugees and immigrants in the United States, expressions of citizenship and belonging emerge not only during the naturalization process but also during more informal, everyday activities in the community. Based on research in the Dallas–Arlington–Fort Worth area of Texas, this book examines the sociocultural spaces in which Vietnamese and Indian immigrants are engaging with the wider civic sphere. As Civic Engagements reveals, religious and ethnic organizations provide arenas in which immigrants develop their own ways of being and becoming "American." Skills honed at a meeting, festival, or banquet have resounding implications for the future political potential of these immigrant populations, both locally and nationally. Employing Lave and Wenger's concept of "communities of practice" as a framework, this book emphasizes the variety of processes by which new citizens acquire the civic and leadership skills that help them to move from peripheral positions to more central roles in American society.
Exposes the tension between the legal status of immigrants and the government emphasis on integration.
The world of Argentine tango presents a glamorous façade of music and movement. Yet the immigrant artists whose livelihoods depend on the US tango industry receive little attention beyond their enigmatic public personas. More Than Two to Tango offers a detailed portrait of Argentine immigrants for whom tango is both an art form and a means of survival. Based on a highly visible group of performers within the almost hidden population of Argentines in the United States, More than Two to Tango addresses broader questions on the understudied role of informal webs in the entertainment field. Through the voices of both early generations of immigrants and the latest wave of newcomers, Anahí Vilad...
A scholar of race and a leader in the Afro-Asian solidarity movement, Cedric Dover embodied the 20th-century cosmopolitan redefinition of racial identity. Tracing Dover's evolution through his relationships with W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson, this book tracks racial identity in the twentieth century.
Immigration has been deeply woven into the fabric of American nation building since the founding of the Republic. Indeed, immigrants have played an integral role in American history, but they are also intricately tied to America's present and will feature prominently in America's future. Immigration can shape a nation. Consequently, immigration policy can maintain, replenish, and even reshape it. Immigration policy debates are thus seldom just about who to let in and how many, as a nation's immigration policies can define its identity. This is what helps breathe fire into the politics of immigration. Against this backdrop, political parties promote their own narratives about what the immigra...
"Over two million of the nation's eleven million undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States since childhood. Due to a broken immigration system, they grow up to uncertain futures. In Lives in Limbo, Roberto G. Gonzales introduces us to two groups: the college-goers, like Ricardo, whose good grades and strong network of community support propelled him into higher education, only to land in a factory job a few years after graduation, and the early-exiters, like Gabriel, who failed to make meaningful connections in high school and started navigating dead-end jobs, immigration checkpoints, and a world narrowly circumscribed by legal limitations. This ethnography asks why highly educated undocumented youth ultimately share similar work and life outcomes with their less-educated peers, even as higher education is touted as the path to integration and success in America. Gonzales bookends his study with discussions of how the prospect of immigration reform, especially the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, could impact the lives of these young Americans"--Provided by publisher.
Scholarship on immigration to America is a coin with two sides: it asks both how America changed immigrants, and how they changed America. Were the immigrants uprooted from their ancestral homes, leaving everything behind, or were they transplanted, bringing many aspects of their culture with them? Although historians agree with the transplantation concept, the notion of the melting pot, which suggests a complete loss of the immigrant culture, persists in the public mind. The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity bridges this gap and offers a comprehensive and nuanced survey of American racial and ethnic development, assessing the current status of historical research and sim...
Latinos are the fastest growing population group in the U.S. and have exerted widespread influence in numerous aspects of American culture from entertainment to economics. Unlike Asian, black, white, and Native Americans who are defined by race, Latinos can be of any race and are beginning to shed new light on the meanings and political implications of race. As the Latino population grows, how will Latinos come to define themselves racially given the long standing social order of black and white? What are the political implications of their chosen racial identities? How does Latinos’ racial identity influence their political behavior and motivation for participation? The Politics of Race i...