What's New about the "New" Immigration? Traditions and Transformations in the United States since 1965

by Halter, Marilyn; Johnson, Marilynn S.; Viens, Katheryn P.; Wright, Conrad Edick

• ISBN13: 9781137483867
• ISBN10: 1137483865
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-12-17
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Historians commonly point to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act as the inception of a new chapter in the story of American immigration. Whereas the previous system (itself based on the Immigration Act of 1924) limited newcomers and gave priority to applicants from northwestern Europe, the 1965 measure eliminated discriminatory national quotas and took into account family reunification, education, jobs, and professional training. As a result, the national and ethnic profile of immigrants to the U.S. changed dramatically, including large numbers of arrivals from the Caribbean, Central America, South America, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. This wide-ranging volume brings together scholars from various disciplines to probe this subject, considering what is genuinely new about post-1965 immigration (both documented and undocumented) and what continuities have persisted. The result is a rich and nuanced portrait of American society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, one that has been defined not simply by the fortunes of postwar liberalism, but also by the fall of the Soviet Union and the War on Terrorism.

Author Biography

Marilyn Halter is a Professor of History and American Studies at Boston University, USA. She is the author of Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860-1965 (University of Illinois Press, 1993); Shopping for Identity: The Marketing of Ethnicity (New York: Schocken, 2000); and African and American: West Africans in a Post-Civil Rights America with Violet Showers Johnson (NYU Press, 2014).

Marilynn S. Johnson is a Professor of History at Boston College, USA. Her titles include The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (University of California Press, 1993) and Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City (Beacon Press, 2003). She is currently completing a book on post-1965 immigration titled Boston's New Immigrants.

Katheryn P. Viens is the research coordinator at the Massachusetts Historical Society, USA. She is a co-editor of Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 1700-1850 (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1997) and Margaret Fuller and Her Circles (University Press of New England, 2013).

Conrad Edick Wright is the Ford Editor of Publications at the Massachusetts Historical Society, USA. His publications include The Transformation of Charity in Postrevolutionary New England (Northeastern University Press, 1992) and Revolutionary Generation: Harvard Men and the Consequences of Independence (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Marilyn Halter and Christopher Capozzola

PART ONE: THE CITY

1. 'The Metropolitan Diaspora: New Immigrants in Greater Boston; Marilynn S. Johnson

2. Racializing Latinos in the Nuevo South:Immigrants, Legal Status, and the State in Atlanta; Mary Odem and Irene Browne

3. The Politics of Place in Immigrant and Receiving Communities; Domenic Vitiello

PART TWO: SELF

4. 'Intergenerational Relations in Immigrant Families: Comparisons across Time and Space; Nancy Foner

5. Bosnians in Search of Community: Keeping Faith and Ethnicity Alive in Boston; Kristen Lucken

6. The Ties that Bind: Kinship, Religion, and Community among Nigerian Immigrants in the U.S.; Veronica McComb

PART THREE: SOCIETY

7. 'Engaging the Public Sphere: The Civic and Political Incorporation of Post-1965 Indian Immigrants; Caroline Brettell

8. Chinese American Participation in Transnational Activities and U.S.-China Relations; Xiao-huang Yin

9. U.S. Refugee Policy in the Post-Cold War Era: Balancing Humanitarian Obligations and Security Concerns; Maria Cristina García

10. Immigration Politics, Service Labor, and the Problem of the Undocumented Worker in Southern California; Thomas Jessen Adams