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aThe complex, ambiguous connections among the immigration past and present are given masterful treatment in From Arrival to Incorporation, which presents a series of case studies that are essential reading for anyone who seeks guidance in the interpretation of present-day immigration and its consequences for American society. This volume gives multi-dimensional depth to the contemporary landscape of diversity.a
--Richard Alba, co-author of "Remaking the American Mainstream"

The United States is once again in the midst of a peak period of immigration. By 2005, more than 35 million legal and illegal migrants were present in the United States. At different rates and with differing degrees of difficulty, a great many will be incorporated into American society and culture.

Leading immigration experts in history, sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science here offer multiethnic and multidisciplinary perspectives on the challenges confronting immigrants adapting to a new society. How will these recent arrivals become Americans? Does the journey to the U.S. demand abandoning the past? How is the United States changing even as it requires change from those who come here?

Broad thematic essays are coupled with case studies and concluding essays analyzing contemporary issues facing Muslim newcomers in the wake of 9/11. Together, they offer a vibrant portrait of Americaas new populations today.

Contributors: Anny Bakalian, Elliott Barkan, Mehdi Bozorgmehr, Caroline Brettell, Barry R. Chiswick, Hasia Diner, Roland L. Guyotte, Gary Gerstle, David W. Haines, Alan M. Kraut, Xiyuan Li, Timothy J. Meagher, PaulMiller, Barbara M. Posadas, Paul Spickard, Roger Waldinger, Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield, and Min Zhou.

This study traces the American tradition of the suspicion of immigrant populations spreading disease. From the cholera outbreak of the 1930s to the associations of Haitians and AIDS, the author shows how immigrant groups have been regularly slandered as carriers of particular diseases.

"Goldberger's War" chronicles one of the U.S. Public Health Service's most renowned heroes--an immigrant Jew who trained as a doctor at Bellevue, became a young recruit to the federal government's health service, and ended an American plague. He did so by defying conventional wisdom, experimenting on humans, and telling the South precisely what it didn't want to hear.

View the Table of Contents
Read the Introduction

aThe complex, ambiguous connections among the immigration past and present are given masterful treatment in From Arrival to Incorporation, which presents a series of case studies that are essential reading for anyone who seeks guidance in the interpretation of present-day immigration and its consequences for American society. This volume gives multi-dimensional depth to the contemporary landscape of diversity.a
--Richard Alba, co-author of "Remaking the American Mainstream"

The United States is once again in the midst of a peak period of immigration. By 2005, more than 35 million legal and illegal migrants were present in the United States. At different rates and with differing degrees of difficulty, a great many will be incorporated into American society and culture.

Leading immigration experts in history, sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science here offer multiethnic and multidisciplinary perspectives on the challenges confronting immigrants adapting to a new society. How will these recent arrivals become Americans? Does the journey to the U.S. demand abandoning the past? How is the United States changing even as it requires change from those who come here?

Broad thematic essays are coupled with case studies and concluding essays analyzing contemporary issues facing Muslim newcomers in the wake of 9/11. Together, they offer a vibrant portrait of Americaas new populations today.

Contributors: Anny Bakalian, Elliott Barkan, Mehdi Bozorgmehr, Caroline Brettell, Barry R. Chiswick, Hasia Diner, Roland L. Guyotte, Gary Gerstle, David W. Haines, Alan M. Kraut, Xiyuan Li, Timothy J. Meagher, PaulMiller, Barbara M. Posadas, Paul Spickard, Roger Waldinger, Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield, and Min Zhou.

How does one explain America's failure to take bold action to resist the Nazi persecution and murder of European Jews? In contrast to recent writers who place the blame on anti-Semitism in American society at large and within the Roosevelt administration in particular, Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut seek the answer in a detailed analysis of American political realities and bureaucratic processes. Drawing on exhaustive archival research, the authors describe and analyze American immigration policy as well as rescue and relief efforts directed toward European Jewry between 1933 and 1945. They contend that U.S. policy was the product of preexisting restrictive immigration laws; an entrenched State Department bureaucracy committed to a narrow defense of American interests; public opposition to any increase in immigration; and the reluctance of Franklin D. Roosevelt to accept the political risks of humanitarian measures to benefit the European Jews. The authors find that the bureaucrats who made and implemented refugee policy were motivated by institutional priorities and reluctance to take risks, rather than by moral or humanitarian concerns.