Immigration, settlement, and integration are vital issues in the twenty-first century—they propel economic development, transform cities and towns, shape political debate, and challenge established national identities. This original collection provides the first comprehensive introduction to the contemporary immigrant experience in both the United States and Canada by exploring national, regional, and metropolitan contexts. With essays by an interdisciplinary team of American and Canadian scholars, this volume explores major themes such as immigration policy; labour markets and the economy; gender; demographic and settlement patterns; health, well-being, and food security; education; and media. Each chapter includes instructive case examples, recommended further readings, links to web-based resources, and questions for critical thought. Engaging and accessible, Immigrant Experiences in North America will appeal to students and instructors across the social sciences, including geography, political science, sociology, policy studies, and urban and regional planning.
Since the 1960s, new and more diverse waves of immigrants have changed the demographic composition and the landscapes of North American cities and their suburbs. The Housing and Economic Experiences of Immigrants in U.S. and Canadian Cities is a collection of essays examining how recent immigrants have fared in getting access to jobs and housing in urban centres across the continent. Using a variety of methodologies, contributors from both countries present original research on a range of issues connected to housing and economic experiences. They offer both a broad overview and a series of detailed case studies that highlight the experiences of particular communities. This volume demonstrates that, while the United States and Canada have much in common when it comes to urban development, there are important structural and historical differences between the immigrant experiences in these two countries.
The intersection of food and immigration in North America, from the macroscale of national policy to the microscale of immigrants' lived, daily foodways. This volume considers the intersection of food and immigration at both the macroscale of national policy and the microscale of immigrant foodways—the intimate, daily performances of identity, culture, and community through food.
This book presents the experiences of immigrant children and their families in the US. We use the lens of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT), a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural references in all aspects of learning (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Teachers become culturally relevant when they intentionally acknowledge and incorporate the experiences of all their students. They ensure that all students feel welcomed in their classrooms, regardless of their cultural, racial or ethnic backgrounds. The ongoing negative debates surrounding immigrant populations, center on minority immigrants. We believe that all immigrant students can succeed in the US education system if given the most appropriate experiences to support their learning. We advocate for employing a culturally responsive stance to achieve this. To that end, this book shares diverse experiences from different minoritized immigrant groups, in the hope that these stories illuminate the importance of acknowledging and celebrating all students and their experiences in the school, home and community.
A landmark work that weaves captivating stories about the past, present, and personal into an inspiring vision for how America can educate immigrant students Setting out from her classroom, Jessica Lander takes the reader on a powerful and urgent journey to understand what it takes for immigrant students to become Americans. A compelling read for everyone who cares about America’s future, Making Americans brims with innovative ideas for educators and policy makers across the country. Lander brings to life the history of America’s efforts to educate immigrants through rich stories, including these: -The Nebraska teacher arrested for teaching an eleven-year-old boy in German who took his case to the Supreme Court -The California families who overturned school segregation for Mexican American children -The Texas families who risked deportation to establish the right for undocumented children to attend public schools She visits innovative classrooms across the country that work with immigrant-origin students, such as these: -A school in Georgia for refugee girls who have been kept from school by violence, poverty, and natural disaster -Five schools in Aurora, Colorado, that came together to collaborate with community groups, businesses, a hospital, and families to support newcomer children. -A North Carolina school district of more than 100 schools who rethought how they teach their immigrant-origin students She shares inspiring stories of how seven of her own immigrant students created new homes in America, including the following: -The boy who escaped Baghdad and found a home in his school’s ROTC program -The daughter of Cambodian genocide survivors who dreamed of becoming a computer scientist -The orphaned boy who escaped violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and created a new community here Making Americans is an exploration of immigrant education across the country told through key historical moments, current experiments to improve immigrant education, and profiles of immigrant students. Making Americans is a remarkable book that will reshape how we all think about nurturing one of America’s greatest assets: the newcomers who enrich this country with their energy, talents, and drive.
"This brilliant book, by two of the most eminent scholars of immigration, compares the integration of immigrants on both sides of the Atlantic. Alba and Foner provide a cogent account of the history, sociology, economics, and politics of immigrant integration, and challenge many things we thought we knew about the subject. This is a tour de force."--Mary C. Waters, Harvard University "Integration is not just about the desires of immigrants or availability of jobs--it is fundamentally about institutions and policies that shape incorporation. In this deft tour de force exploring six countries and multiple areas of life, Strangers No More reveals that simple narratives of integration break down in the face of complex institutional arrangements. A must-read for students and scholars alike."--Irene Bloemraad, University of California, Berkeley "Although all developed nations have become countries of immigration, prior studies have only analyzed immigrant assimilation on a country-by-country basis. Strangers No More undertakes the first comprehensive look at immigrant integration in six diverse nations. Revealing broad similarities and stark differences in the forces that shape immigrant outcomes, this book is essential reading for all students of international migration in the world today."--Douglas S. Massey, coauthor of Climbing Mount Laurel "In many societies throughout the world, immigrants and their descendants are growing to become the lion's share of the population. How have diverse immigrant groups and their subsequent generations fared in this transition? Alba and Foner offer no simple answers, but rather show complex relations of contextual factors, processes, and outcomes. Looking at six nations on both sides of the Atlantic, this comparative work is a masterly exploration."--Steven Vertovec, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity "With its unique scope, this excellent book is a must-read for anybody interested in immigration. It deals with two continents, various immigrant groups, and many fields of inclusion. There is no other book like it."--Jan Willem Duyvendak, University of Amsterdam "This accessible and ambitious book thoughtfully compares the experiences and outcomes for immigrants in six host countries--Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Netherlands, and the United States. Exploring how national and local policies impact the reception and lives of immigrants, the authors demonstrate that no country has all the answers when it comes to immigration. This work fills a real gap in the literature and will have an impact."--Caroline B. Brettell, Southern Methodist University
A stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American and "illuminates the lives behind the current debates about Latino immigration" (The New York Times Book Review). When fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America.
From 1910 to 1940, over half a million people sailed through the Golden Gate, hoping to start a new life in America. But they did not all disembark in San Francisco; instead, most were ferried across the bay to the Angel Island Immigration Station. For many, this was the real gateway to the United States. For others, it was a prison and their final destination, before being sent home. In this landmark book, historians Erika Lee and Judy Yung (both descendants of immigrants detained on the island) provide the first comprehensive history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Drawing on extensive new research, including immigration records, oral histories, and inscriptions on the barrack walls, the authors produce a sweeping yet intensely personal history of Chinese "paper sons," Japanese picture brides, Korean students, South Asian political activists, Russian and Jewish refugees, Mexican families, Filipino repatriates, and many others from around the world. Their experiences on Angel Island reveal how America's discriminatory immigration policies changed the lives of immigrants and transformed the nation. A place of heartrending history and breathtaking beauty, the Angel Island Immigration Station is a National Historic Landmark, and like Ellis Island, it is recognized as one of the most important sites where America's immigration history was made. This fascinating history is ultimately about America itself and its complicated relationship to immigration, a story that continues today.
American historians have long been fascinated by the "peopling" of North America in the seventeenth century. Who were the immigrants, and how and why did they make their way across the ocean? Most of the attention, however, has been devoted to British immigrants who came as free people or as indentured servants (primarily to New England and the Chesapeake) and to Africans who were forced to come as slaves. Trade in Strangers focuses on the eighteenth century, when new immigrants began to flood the colonies at an unprecedented rate. Most of these immigrants were German and Irish, and they were coming primarily to the middle colonies via an increasingly sophisticated form of transport. Wokeck shows how first the German system of immigration, and then the Irish system, evolved from earlier, haphazard forms into modern mass transoceanic migration. At the center of this development were merchants on both sides of the Atlantic who organized a business that enabled them to make profitable use of underutilized cargo space on ships bound from Europe to the British North American colonies. This trade offered German and Irish immigrants transatlantic passage on terms that allowed even people of little and modest means to pursue opportunities that beckoned in the New World. Trade in Strangers fills an important gap in our knowledge of America's immigration history. The eighteenth-century changes established a model for the better-known mass migrations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which drew wave after wave of Europeans to the New World in the hope of making a better life than the one they left behind—a story that is familiar to most modern Americans.
