Americans in Waiting The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States

by Motomura, Hiroshi

• ISBN13: 9780195163452
• ISBN10: 0195163451
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In Americans in Waiting , Motomura discovers in our national past a simple yet powerful approach to immigration and citizenship. Rewriting the conventional story, Motomura uncovers how for over 150 years, many immigrants were immediately put on track to U.S. citizenship. They were entitled to overseas diplomatic protection and eligible to homestead land on the western frontier. Citizens-to-be were even allowed to vote. In sum, immigration was assumed to be a transition to citizenship, and immigrants were future citizens--Americans in waiting. Once central to law and policy, this view has all but vanished. Beginning in the early twentieth century, the United States began to treat its immigrants in one of two ways: as signatories to a contract that sets the terms of their stay in this country, or as affiliates who can earn rights only as they become, over time, enmeshed in the nation's life. Immigration is now seen too often as a problem to be solved, rather than a pillar of our nation's strength. A panoramic history of the past 200 years of immigration and citizenship in the United States, Americans in Waiting offers a clear lesson: only by recovering this lost history of immigration can we ensure that both current and future citizens share in the sense of belonging that is crucial to full participation in American life.

Author Biography

Hiroshi Motomura is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. A nationally recognized expert on immigration and citizenship law, he co-authored the widely used law school casebook, Immigration and Citizenship: Process and Policy (now in its fifth edition.) He has appeared on National Public Radio and CNN to discuss immigration issues and written many influential articles and essays on the topic.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Immigrants in America	3	(12)
Contract and Classical Immigration Law	15	(23)
Promises, Promises	38	(25)
All Persons Within the Territorial Jurisdiction	63	(17)
Alienage and the Ties That Bind	80	(16)
The Most Tender Connections	96	(19)
The Lost Story of Americans in Waiting	115	(21)
Transition at a Crossroads	136	(15)
The Meaning of Transition	151	(17)
Race, Belonging, and Transition	168	(21)
Taking Transition Seriously	189	(12)
Conclusion: The Idea of Americans in Waiting	201	(4)
Notes	205	(38)
Index	243