Immigrant Life in the US

Immigrant Life in the U.S. brings together scholars from across the disciplines to examine diverse examples of immigration to the paradigmatic 'nation of immigrants'. The volume covers a wide range of time periods, ethnic and national groups, and places of immigration. Contemporary Chinese children brought to the U.S. through adoption, Mexican laborers hired to work in the mid-west in the 1930s, Indian computer programmers hired to work in California, and more, are examined in a series of chapters that show the great diversity of issues facing immigrants in the past and in the present. This book emphasizes the complex tapestry that is the everyday experience of life as an immigrant and turns a critical eye on the place of globalization in the everyday life of immigrants. The contrasts it draws between past and present demonstrate the continued salience of national and ethnic identities while also describing how migrants can live almost simultaneously in two countries. This book will be of essential interest to advanced students and researchers of Sociology, History, Ethnic Studies and American Studies.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy, Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.