Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity

Description

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 simultaneously setting the goals for future investigation.
Early immigration historians focused on the European migration model, and the ethnic appeal of politicians such as Fiorello La Guardia and James Michael Curley in cities with strong ethno-political histories like New York and Boston. But the story of American ethnicity goes far beyond Ellis Island. Only after the 1965 Immigration Act and the increasing influx of non-Caucasian immigrants, scholars turned more fully to the study of African, Asian
and Latino migrants to America.
This Handbook brings together thirty eminent scholars to describe the themes, methodologies, and trends that characterize the history and current debates on American immigration. The Handbook's trenchant chapters provide compelling analyses of cutting-edge issues including identity, whiteness, borders and undocumented migration, immigration legislation, intermarriage, assimilation, bilingualism, new American religions, ethnicity-related crime, and pan-ethnic trends. They also explore the myth of "model minorities" and the contemporary resurgence of anti-immigrant feelings. A unique contribution to the field of immigration studies, this volume considers the full racial and ethnic unfolding of the United States in its historical context.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Contributors

Introduction: The Making of America
Ronald H. Bayor

Chapter 1. The Impact of Immigration Legislation: 1875 to the Present
David M. Reimers

Chapter 2. European Migrations
Dirk Hoerder

Chapter 3. Asian Immigration
Madeline Y. Hsu

Chapter 4. Latino Immigration
María Cristina García

Chapter 5. African American Migration from the Colonial Era to the Present
Joe W. Trotter

Chapter 6. Emancipation and Exploitation in Immigrant Women's Lives
Donna R. Gabaccia

Chapter 7. Protecting America's Borders and the Undocumented Immigrant Dilemma
David G. Gutierrez

Chapter 8. Acceptance, Rejection,and America's Split Personality
Gary Gerstle

Chapter 9. Race and Citizenship
Gregory T. Carter

Chapter 10. Concepts of Ethnic/Racial Identity and Assimilation in the United States
Richard Alba

Chapter 11. Whiteness and Race
David R. Roediger

Chapter 12. Race and U.S. Panethnic Formation
Yen Le Espiritu

Chapter 13. Intermarriage and the Creation of a New American
Allison Varzally

Chapter 14. Immigration, Medical Regulation, and Eugenics
Wendy Kline

Chapter 15. The World of the Immigrant Worker
James R. Barrett

Chapter 16. Neighborhoods, Immigrants, and Ethnic Americans
Amanda I. Seligman

Chapter 17. Machine Bosses, Reformers, and the Politics of Ethnic Minority Incorporation
Steven P. Erie and Vladimir Kogan

Chapter 18. Immigration, Ethnicity, Race and Organized Crime
Will Cooley

Chapter 19. The Myth of Ethnic Success: Old Wine in New Bottles
Stephen Steinberg

Chapter 20. Immigration and Ethnic Diversity in the South, 1980-2010
Mary E. Odem

Chapter 21. Allegiance, Dual Citizenship, and the Ethnic Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy
David Brundage

Chapter 22. Historians and Sociologists Debate Transnationalism
Peter Kivisto

Chapter 23. Written Forms of Communication from Immigrant Letters to Instant Messaging
Suzanne M. Sinke

Chapter 24. Ethnicity, Race, and Religion beyond Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Whites
R. Stephen Warner

Chapter 25. Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in American Film
Steven Alan Carr

Chapter 26. Language Retention/Language Shift, "English Only," and Multilingualism in teh Unites States
Joshua A. Fishman

Chapter 27. Melting Pots, Salad Bowls, Ethnic Museums, and American Identity
Steven Conn

Chapter 28. New Approaches in the Teaching of Immigration and Ethnic History in the United States
John J. Bukowczyk

Index