Do historians "write their biographies" with the subjects they choose to address in their research? In this collection, editors Alan M. Kraut and David A. Gerber compiled eleven original essays by historians whose own ethnic backgrounds shaped the choices they have made about their own research and writing as scholars. These authors, historians of American immigration and ethnicity, revisited family and personal experiences and reflect on how their lives helped shape their later scholarly pursuits, at times inspiring specific questions they asked of the nation's immigrant past. They address issues of diversity, multiculturalism, and assimilation in academia, in the discipline of history, and in society at large. Most have been pioneers not only in their respective fields, but also in representing their ethnic group within American academia. Some of the women in the group were in the vanguard of gender diversity in the discipline of history as well as on the faculties of the institutions where they have taught. The authors in this collection represent a wide array of backgrounds, spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. What they have in common is their passionate engagement with the making of social and personal identities and with finding a voice to explain their personal stories in public terms. Contributors: Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp, John Bodnar, Maria C. Garcia, David A. Gerber, Violet M. Showers Johnson, Alan M. Kraut, Timothy J. Meagher, Deborah Dash Moore, Dominic A. Pacyga, Barbara M. Posadas, Eileen H. Tamura, Virginia Yans, Judy Yung

An updated, penetrating, and balanced analysis of one of the most contentious issues in America today, offering a historically informed portrait of immigration. Americans have come from every corner of the globe, and they have been brought together by a variety of historical processes-conquest, colonialism, the slave trade, territorial acquisition, and voluntary immigration. In this Very Short Introduction, historian David A. Gerber captures the histories of dozens of American ethnic groups over more than two centuries and reveals how American life has been formed in significant ways by immigration. He discusses the relationships between race and ethnicity in the life of these groups and in the formation of American society, as well as explaining how immigration policy and legislation have helped to form those relationships. Moreover, by highlighting the parallels that contemporary patterns of immigration and resettlement share with those of the past - which Americans now generally regard as having had positive outcomes - the book offers an optimistic portrait of current immigration that is at odds with much present-day opinion. Newly updated, this book speaks directly to the ongoing fears of immigration that have fueled the debate about both illegal immigration and the need for stronger immigration laws and a border wall.

aGerber uses sophisticated social theory -- quite elegantly -- for a readable and insightful analysis of the immigrants and what migration meant to them.a
--"Journal of American History"

a[I]n this excellent study . . . Gerber uses sophisticated social theory -- quite elegantly -- for a readable and insightful analysis of the immigrants and what migration meant to them. . . . Gerber also breaks new ground by analyzing the arhythma of letter writing -- how immigrantsa writing changed over time and what that reveals about their psychology, emotion, and adjustment. . . . Altogether, Gerber provides a fresh model and another high standard for scholars of American immigration.a
--"Journal of American History"

aGerber provides an insightful examination of the role letters play in the shaping of identity. . . . Will certainly help historians to address personal immigrant letters more critically.a
--"American Historical Review"

aAuthors of Their Lives is the definitive study of American and Canadian immigrant letters. David Gerber employs psychology, epistolary scholarship, as well as his superlative capacities as an empathetic reader, to reveal how letters constitute not only a record of immigrant experience, but were an agent in fashioning that experience. Authors of Their Lives is an invaluable contribution to transnational history at the most personal and persuasive level.a
--John R. Gillis, author of "Islands of the Mind: How the Human Imagination Created the Atlantic World"

aDavid Gerber provides a new reading of the immigrant letter. Though informed by social theory, it is Gerber's astute analysis which provides the reader a rare entree to the psychology ofparticular immigrants. A unique achievement!a
--Rudolph J. Vecoli, Professor of History, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

aThis is a fascinating book. David Gerber carefully analyzes the letter itself to focus on the development of individual identities in the face of migration.a
--Jon Gjerde, author of "The Minds of the West: The Ethnocultural Evolution of the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917"

aModern world history is populated by untold millions of international migrants. They remain mainly anonymous. But some of them wrote home, notably from America. These letters are the most audible voice of such people. David Gerber interrogates this wonderful genre from every conceivable angle. He subjects letter-writing to the very closest dissection and in the most thoughtful and sensitive fashion. His book challenges the essential meaning of the act of letter-writing which, in this age of texting and instant communication, could not be more immediate in terms of our own daily lives.a
--Eric Richards, Professor of History, Flinders University, Australia

aThis is an agenda-setting book, and historians of immigration would be well served by, if not taking up its entire methodology, at least heeding its invocation to better incorporate the study of the personal into their histories.a
--"History: Reviews of New Books"

aEssential reading for scholars studying and interpreting the letters of immigrants, regardless of ethnic group.a
--"Journal of American Ethnic History"

In the era before airplanes and e-mail, how did immigrants keep in touch with loved ones in their homelands, as well as preserve links with pasts that were rooted in places from which they voluntarily left?Regardless of literacy level, they wrote letters, explains David A. Gerber in this path-breaking study of British immigrants to the U.S. and Canada who wrote and received letters during the nineteenth century.

Scholars have long used immigrant letters as a lens to examine the experiences of immigrant groups and the communities they build in their new homelands. Yet immigrants as individual letter writers have not received significant attention; rather, their letters are often used to add color to narratives informed by other types of sources.

Authors of Their Lives analyzes the cycle of correspondence between immigrants and their homelands, paying particular attention to the role played by letters in reformulating relationships made vulnerable by separation. Letters provided sources of continuity in lives disrupted by movement across vast spaces that disrupted personal identities, which depend on continuity between past and present. Gerber reveals how ordinary artisans, farmers, factory workers, and housewives engaged in correspondence that lasted for years and addressed subjects of the most profound emotional and practical significance.

In 1988, Sandi and Larry Zobrest sued a suburban Tucson, Arizona, school district that had denied their hearing-impaired son a taxpayer-funded interpreter in his Roman Catholic high school. The Catalina Foothills School District argued that providing a public resource for a private, religious school created an unlawful crossover between church and state. The Zobrests, however, claimed that the district had infringed on both their First Amendment right to freedom of religion and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Bruce J. Dierenfield and David A. Gerber use the Zobrests' story to examine the complex history and jurisprudence of disability accommodation and educational mainstreaming. They look at the family's effort to acquire educational resources for their son starting in early childhood and the choices the Zobrests made to prepare him for life in the hearing world rather than the deaf community. Dierenfield and Gerber also analyze the thorny church-state issues and legal controversies that informed the case, its journey to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the impact of the high court's ruling on the course of disability accommodation and religious liberty.

In 1988, Sandi and Larry Zobrest sued a suburban Tucson, Arizona, school district that had denied their hearing-impaired son a taxpayer-funded interpreter in his Roman Catholic high school. The Catalina Foothills School District argued that providing a public resource for a private, religious school created an unlawful crossover between church and state. The Zobrests, however, claimed that the district had infringed on both their First Amendment right to freedom of religion and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Bruce J. Dierenfield and David A. Gerber use the Zobrests' story to examine the complex history and jurisprudence of disability accommodation and educational mainstreaming. They look at the family's effort to acquire educational resources for their son starting in early childhood and the choices the Zobrests made to prepare him for life in the hearing world rather than the deaf community. Dierenfield and Gerber also analyze the thorny church-state issues and legal controversies that informed the case, its journey to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the impact of the high court's ruling on the course of disability accommodation and religious liberty.

Do historians "write their biographies" with the subjects they choose to address in their research? In this collection, editors Alan M. Kraut and David A. Gerber compiled eleven original essays by historians whose own ethnic backgrounds shaped the choices they have made about their own research and writing as scholars. These authors, historians of American immigration and ethnicity, revisited family and personal experiences and reflect on how their lives helped shape their later scholarly pursuits, at times inspiring specific questions they asked of the nation's immigrant past. They address issues of diversity, multiculturalism, and assimilation in academia, in the discipline of history, and in society at large. Most have been pioneers not only in their respective fields, but also in representing their ethnic group within American academia. Some of the women in the group were in the vanguard of gender diversity in the discipline of history as well as on the faculties of the institutions where they have taught. The authors in this collection represent a wide array of backgrounds, spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. What they have in common is their passionate engagement with the making of social and personal identities and with finding a voice to explain their personal stories in public terms. Contributors: Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp, John Bodnar, Maria C. Garcia, David A. Gerber, Violet M. Showers Johnson, Alan M. Kraut, Timothy J. Meagher, Deborah Dash Moore, Dominic A. Pacyga, Barbara M. Posadas, Eileen H. Tamura, Virginia Yans, Judy Yung

aGerber uses sophisticated social theory -- quite elegantly -- for a readable and insightful analysis of the immigrants and what migration meant to them.a
--"Journal of American History"

a[I]n this excellent study . . . Gerber uses sophisticated social theory -- quite elegantly -- for a readable and insightful analysis of the immigrants and what migration meant to them. . . . Gerber also breaks new ground by analyzing the arhythma of letter writing -- how immigrantsa writing changed over time and what that reveals about their psychology, emotion, and adjustment. . . . Altogether, Gerber provides a fresh model and another high standard for scholars of American immigration.a
--"Journal of American History"

aGerber provides an insightful examination of the role letters play in the shaping of identity. . . . Will certainly help historians to address personal immigrant letters more critically.a
--"American Historical Review"

aAuthors of Their Lives is the definitive study of American and Canadian immigrant letters. David Gerber employs psychology, epistolary scholarship, as well as his superlative capacities as an empathetic reader, to reveal how letters constitute not only a record of immigrant experience, but were an agent in fashioning that experience. Authors of Their Lives is an invaluable contribution to transnational history at the most personal and persuasive level.a
--John R. Gillis, author of "Islands of the Mind: How the Human Imagination Created the Atlantic World"

aDavid Gerber provides a new reading of the immigrant letter. Though informed by social theory, it is Gerber's astute analysis which provides the reader a rare entree to the psychology ofparticular immigrants. A unique achievement!a
--Rudolph J. Vecoli, Professor of History, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

aThis is a fascinating book. David Gerber carefully analyzes the letter itself to focus on the development of individual identities in the face of migration.a
--Jon Gjerde, author of "The Minds of the West: The Ethnocultural Evolution of the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917"

aModern world history is populated by untold millions of international migrants. They remain mainly anonymous. But some of them wrote home, notably from America. These letters are the most audible voice of such people. David Gerber interrogates this wonderful genre from every conceivable angle. He subjects letter-writing to the very closest dissection and in the most thoughtful and sensitive fashion. His book challenges the essential meaning of the act of letter-writing which, in this age of texting and instant communication, could not be more immediate in terms of our own daily lives.a
--Eric Richards, Professor of History, Flinders University, Australia

aThis is an agenda-setting book, and historians of immigration would be well served by, if not taking up its entire methodology, at least heeding its invocation to better incorporate the study of the personal into their histories.a
--"History: Reviews of New Books"

aEssential reading for scholars studying and interpreting the letters of immigrants, regardless of ethnic group.a
--"Journal of American Ethnic History"

In the era before airplanes and e-mail, how did immigrants keep in touch with loved ones in their homelands, as well as preserve links with pasts that were rooted in places from which they voluntarily left?Regardless of literacy level, they wrote letters, explains David A. Gerber in this path-breaking study of British immigrants to the U.S. and Canada who wrote and received letters during the nineteenth century.

Scholars have long used immigrant letters as a lens to examine the experiences of immigrant groups and the communities they build in their new homelands. Yet immigrants as individual letter writers have not received significant attention; rather, their letters are often used to add color to narratives informed by other types of sources.

Authors of Their Lives analyzes the cycle of correspondence between immigrants and their homelands, paying particular attention to the role played by letters in reformulating relationships made vulnerable by separation. Letters provided sources of continuity in lives disrupted by movement across vast spaces that disrupted personal identities, which depend on continuity between past and present. Gerber reveals how ordinary artisans, farmers, factory workers, and housewives engaged in correspondence that lasted for years and addressed subjects of the most profound emotional and practical significance.