In the two decades since the first edition of this tremendously successful book appeared, a vast scholarship undertaken by historians, sociologists, economists, and cultural anthropologists has altered the contours of American immigration history, challenging scholars to rethink long-held perspectives. Insights derived from these diverse sources enrich the second edition of this popular text and have prompted important changes in emphasis and interpretation. Thoughtfully written to help student readers appreciate the varied pre- and post-migration experiences of the many groups and individuals who came to, and came to shape, the United States during this busy period, The Huddled Masses is essential reading for all enrolled in the United States history survey as well as specialized courses in Immigration and Ethnic Studies.
Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...Who wrote these words? And why? In 1883, Emma Lazarus, deeply moved by an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, wrote a sonnet that was to give voice to the Statue of Liberty. Originally a gift from France to celebrate our shared national struggles for liberty, the Statue, thanks to Emma's poem, slowly came to shape our hearts, defining us as a nation that welcomes and gives refuge to those who come to our shores. This title has been selected as a Common Core Text Exemplar (Grades 4-5, Poetry)
Against a backdrop of persecution, repression, humiliation and rampant anti-Semitism, Jews from The Former Soviet Union suffered a long and tragic history as the proverbial scapegoats of any societal, philosophical or turf issues. They were at the mercy of the whims or political stance of consecutive autocratic rulers. In 1979, a major phenomenon in Jewish history occurred when Soviet Jews, who were enslaved in a very real sense, began a struggle for freedom; they had defined goals to which the Jewish communities in United States and Israel responded, reaching out in tangible and effective ways on behalf of Soviet Jewry, beginning with our advocacy of human rights. Kruman takes the reader back to the beginning of Jewish presence in what evolved into the country of Russia, then subsequently the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, leading to an understanding of what factors led to the creation of the USSR, as well as those which led to its demise, and how these factors affected Jewish life specifically. Included are 14 personal interviews with Jews, now American citizens, caught up in the history of the Soviet Union, both fascinating and tragic.
This sweeping history of New York’s millions of immigrants, both famous and forgotten, is “told brilliantly [and] unforgettably” (The Boston Globe). Written by an acclaimed historian and including maps and photos, this is the story of the peoples who have come to New York for four centuries: an American story of millions of immigrants, hundreds of languages, and one great city. Growing from Peter Minuit’s tiny settlement of 1626 to a clamorous metropolis with more than three million immigrants today, the city has always been a magnet for transplants from around the globe. City of Dreams is the long-overdue, inspiring, and defining account of the young man from the Caribbean who relocated to New York and became a founding father; Russian-born Emma Goldman, who condoned the murder of American industrialists as a means of aiding downtrodden workers; Dominican immigrant Oscar de la Renta, who dressed first ladies from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama; and so many more. Over ten years in the making, Tyler Anbinder’s story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs. In so many ways, today’s immigrants are just like those who came to America in centuries past—and their stories have never before been told with such breadth of scope, lavish research, and resounding spirit. “Anbinder is a master at taking a history with which many readers will be familiar—tenement houses, temperance societies, slums—and making it new, strange, and heartbreakingly vivid. The stories of individuals, including those of the entrepreneurial Steinway brothers and the tragic poet Pasquale D’Angelo, are undeniably compelling, but it’s Anbinder’s stunning image of New York as a true city of immigrants that captures the imagination.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Special Sorrows carefully delineates the centrality of Jewish, Polish and Irish supporters in the United States to national liberation movements abroad and details how such movements shaped immigrant life in the United States.
“Tracy K. Smith’s poetry is an awakening itself.” —Vogue Celebrated for its extraordinary intelligence and exhilarating range, the poetry of Tracy K. Smith opens up vast questions. Such Color: New and Selected Poems, her first career-spanning volume, traces an increasingly audacious commitment to exploring the unknowable, the immense mysteries of existence. Each of Smith’s four collections moves farther outward: when one seems to reach the limits of desire and the body, the next investigates the very sweep of history; when one encounters death and the outer reaches of space, the next bears witness to violence against language and people from across time and delves into the rescuing possibilities of the everlasting. Smith’s signature voice, whether in elegy or praise or outrage, insists upon vibrancy and hope, even—and especially—in moments of inconceivable travesty and grief. Such Color collects the best poems from Smith’s award-winning books and culminates in thirty pages of brilliant, excoriating new poems. These new works confront America’s historical and contemporary racism and injustices, while they also rise toward the registers of the ecstatic, the rapturous, and the sacred—urging us toward love as a resistance to everything that impedes it. This magnificent retrospective affirms Smith’s place as one of the twenty-first century’s most treasured poets.
This work uncovers the human history underlying the state actions on immigration. It is a vivid and varied new look at some of the most shaping forces in American history and identity, and offers important new perspective on early twentieth century American-European relations. How did American isolationism after the Treaty of Versailles, accentuated by stringent immigration restrictions predominantly against Asians and Europeans, work to shape American identity? "Beyond the Huddled Masses" is a vivid look at the connection between the results of the Paris Peace Conference and the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924. Kristofer Allerfeldt identifies the threads of nativism, anti-Bolshevism, self-determination and fear that ran through America's participation in the Paris Peace Conference and then manifested themselves openly through the Immigration Acts. He taps into the early twentieth century American psyche to explore the rationalisation for the extreme policies of isolationism that so characterised the inter-war years in the United States.
This book connects the history of immigration with histories of Native Americans, African Americans, women, the poor, Latino/a Americans and Asian Americans.
