Tag: immigration

The Land That Time Forgot: An Excerpt from “Landscapes of Care”

The following is an excerpt of Landscapes of Care: Immigration and Health in Rural America by Thurka Sangaramoorthy, which available now wherever books are sold. Sangaramoorthy offers a glimpse into how and under what conditions migrant workers from Latin America, the Caribbean, and other parts of North America seek, receive, and fashion care. This book provides new ways of reimagining… Continue Reading The Land That Time Forgot: An Excerpt from “Landscapes of Care”

Undocumented and Irish: An Excerpt from “Dreamland”

The following is an excerpt from Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction by Carly Goodman, available now wherever books are sold. Phenomenally well-researched and wide-ranging . . . . a feat . . . . Goodman hops smoothly from topics as diverse as the history of Irish immigration to the impacts of structural adjustment in West Africa… Continue Reading Undocumented and Irish: An Excerpt from “Dreamland”

New This Month: May

Happy May! We have a bunch of new books publishing this month. You can find the full list, including any new in paperbacks, on our Hot Off the Press page. Plus, if you want updates in your inbox every month about new titles and what’s happening at UNC Press you can sign up for our monthly eNews. An Army Afire: How the US… Continue Reading New This Month: May

New This Month: April

Happy April! We have a bunch of new books publishing this month. You can find the full list, including a bunch of new in paperbacks, on our Hot Off the Press page. Plus, if you want updates in your inbox every month about new titles and what’s happening at UNC Press you can sign up for our monthly eNews. Oconaluftee: The… Continue Reading New This Month: April

Refugees or Asylum-Seekers

The following is an excerpt from Detention Empire: Reagan’s War on Immigrants & the Seeds of Resistance by Kristina Shull, available now everywhere books are sold. Refugees or Asylum-Seekers The massive scope and devastations of the Vietnam War indelibly scarred US political and social life, reshaping subsequent US refugee politics. Growing public divisions over the war also help to explain the seeming paradox… Continue Reading Refugees or Asylum-Seekers

Child-Saving During World War II

The following is an excerpt from Suffer the Little Children: Child Migration and the Geopolitics of Compassion in the United States by Anita Casavantes Bradford, available everywhere books and e-books are sold. Collateral Humanitarianism Child-Saving during World War II Between 1940 and 1945, concerned Americans continued to improvise child evacuation programs to safeguard endangered children across the Atlantic. The nonsectarian coalition brought… Continue Reading Child-Saving During World War II

Maddalena Marinari: Whose Family is Worthy of Reuniting in the United States?

Today we welcome a guest post from Maddalena Marinari, author of Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882-1965, available now from UNC Press. In the late nineteenth century, Italians and Eastern European Jews joined millions of migrants around the globe who left their countries to take advantage of the demand for unskilled labor in rapidly industrializing nations, including… Continue Reading Maddalena Marinari: Whose Family is Worthy of Reuniting in the United States?

Tony Tian-Ren Lin: The Faithful Shall Not be Deterred

Today we welcome a guest post from Tony Tian-Ren Lin, author of Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream, out now from UNC Press. In this immersive ethnography, Tony Tian-Ren Lin explores the reasons that Latin American immigrants across the United States are increasingly drawn to Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism, a strand of Protestantism gaining popularity around the world. Lin contends… Continue Reading Tony Tian-Ren Lin: The Faithful Shall Not be Deterred

Author Interview: Thomas W. Hanchett on Sorting Out the New South City

In this Q&A, Thomas W. Hanchett discusses Sorting Out the New South City, Second Edition: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875–1975, available now from UNC Press. This updated edition includes a new preface by the author. One of the largest and fastest-growing cities in the South, Charlotte, North Carolina, came of age in the New South decades after the… Continue Reading Author Interview: Thomas W. Hanchett on Sorting Out the New South City

New Talking Legal History Interviews with Kimberly M. Welch and Jane Hong

The fourth and fifth episodes of the Talking Legal History podcast series featuring UNC Press works are up! The fourth episode features Siobhan Barco talking with Kimberly M. Welch about her book Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2018). Kimberly Welch is Assistant Professor of History and Assistant Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. She is a… Continue Reading New Talking Legal History Interviews with Kimberly M. Welch and Jane Hong

Jessica M. Kim: Roads and Walls in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica M. Kim, author of Imperial Metropolis:  Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941, published this month by UNC Press. In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop… Continue Reading Jessica M. Kim: Roads and Walls in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Hannah Gill: Silent Sam in Carolina del Norte

Today we welcome a guest post from Hannah Gill, author of the new revised and expanded edition of The Latino Migration Experience in North Carolina:  New Roots in the Old North State, just published by UNC Press. Now thoroughly updated and revised—with a new chapter on the Dreamer movement and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA)—Hannah Gill’s book… Continue Reading Hannah Gill: Silent Sam in Carolina del Norte

John Weber: Walls and Other Monuments to Failure

Today we welcome a guest post by John Weber, author of From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century. In the early years of the twentieth century, newcomer farmers and migrant Mexicans forged a new world in South Texas. In just a decade, this vast region, previously considered too isolated and desolate for… Continue Reading John Weber: Walls and Other Monuments to Failure

Julie M. Weise: African Americans and Immigrants’ Rights in the Trump Era

Back in 2008 when Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vied for the Democratic nomination, the “Will Latinos support a black candidate?” narrative dominated the news cycle. “Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color,” said a young Latina in a typical quote featured by the New York Times. “I don’t think many Latinos will vote for Obama.” Academic social science from new Latino settlement areas in the U.S. South seemingly confirmed the narrative: “Latino Immigrants come to the U.S. with negative stereotypes of black Americans,” declared a Duke research team after conducting a survey in Durham, N.C., in 2003. Yet though Clinton did dominate among Latinos in the 2008 primary, they rallied to Obama’s side once he clinched the nomination, delivering the country’s first black president a historically large margin of Latino votes that November. Continue Reading Julie M. Weise: African Americans and Immigrants’ Rights in the Trump Era

Mireya Loza: 100 Years of Mexican Guest Workers in the United States

The experiences of braceros reveal contradictions within U.S. immigration policy that render Mexican laborers as necessary and Mexican settlement as unnecessary and unwarranted. The Bracero Program cemented the idea that in modern America, Mexican workers could come in, contribute their labor and expect no avenues of permanent incorporation into American life and no legal protections as workers. The termination of the Bracero Program did not bring an end to Mexican guest workers as Mexicans found themselves recruited for H2 visas. This category of visa was first introduced in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and by 1986 the status was subdivided and the letter “A” was added for agricultural workers. H2-A laborers not only walk in the historical footprints of the braceros that came before them but many are the children and grandchildren of braceros, creating one more link in the century of Mexican guest workers in America. So after 100 years of guest workers policies, do we continue to create an unequal system in which a group of people are only valued as laborers and never given the opportunity of true belonging as American citizens? Continue Reading Mireya Loza: 100 Years of Mexican Guest Workers in the United States

Deirdre M. Moloney: The Muslim Ban of 1910

Certain immigrants, including Mormons, Hindus, and Muslims faced barriers in their effort to settle in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because they were perceived as adhering to belief systems that were un-American. Though those religiously based cases were small relative to those immigrants facing exclusion or deportation based on their poverty or on medical grounds, they suggest that religious bias has long been a significant factor in early federal immigration policies. Continue Reading Deirdre M. Moloney: The Muslim Ban of 1910

Elliott Young: Felons and Families

Even as one might criticize Obama for becoming the “Deporter in Chief,” he did not invent the pernicious rhetoric of good and bad immigrants. He merely followed in a long tradition that stretches back to the late nineteenth century when federal immigration restrictions were first written into law to keep out criminals, prostitutes, and the Chinese. Continue Reading Elliott Young: Felons and Families

Off the Page: Roundtable 1: Immigration

UNC Press is proud to host this first in a series of week-long virtual roundtables, featuring Press authors drawing on their work to address issues of contemporary concern. This week we share five short essays by leading scholars of immigration, including Elliott Young, Deirdre M. Moloney, Mireya Loza, Julie M. Weise, and Erika Lee. Continue Reading Off the Page: Roundtable 1: Immigration

Lon Kurashige: What Would Teddy Roosevelt Do?

It is important to recall Roosevelt’s positions on immigration because of the similarities between his day and our own. Immigration fears are a regular feature in today’s headlines as the United States (not mention the U.K. and European countries) wrestles with how much and in what ways to close its borders to newcomers. The same was true when Roosevelt became president. Continue Reading Lon Kurashige: What Would Teddy Roosevelt Do?

Video: Julie Weise on the History of Mexicans in the U.S. South

When Latino migration to the U.S. South became increasingly visible in the 1990s, observers and advocates grasped for ways to analyze “new” racial dramas in the absence of historical reference points. However, as this book is the first to comprehensively document, Mexicans and Mexican Americans have a long history of migration to the U.S. South. Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the… Continue Reading Video: Julie Weise on the History of Mexicans in the U.S. South