South Asians in Diaspora is a collection of essays concerning the history, politics, and anthropology of migration in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, as well as in the numerous overseas locations, such as Fiji, Africa, the Caribbean and USA, where South Asians migrated in the colonial period and after. It addresses the connections between migration, problems of identity and ethnic conflict from a comparative perspective, and highlights the role of shared colonial experiences in providing 'communal' solidarities and discord.

This volume investigates what role colonial communities and diaspora have had in shaping the Portuguese empire and its heritage, exploring topics such as Portuguese migration to Africa, the Ismaili and the Swiss presence in Mozambique, the Goanese in East Africa, the Chinese in Brazil, and the history of the African presence in Portugal.

This study argues for a radically new interpretation of the origins and evolution of the ethnic Mexican community across the US. This book offers a definitive account of the interdependent histories of the US and Mexico as well as the making of the Chicano population in America. The authors link history to contemporary issues, emphasizing the overlooked significance of late 19th and 20th century US economic expansionism to Europe in the formation of the Mexican community.

How did states come to monopolize control over migration? What do the processes that produced this monopoly tell us about the modern state? In Indian Migration and Empire Radhika Mongia provocatively argues that the formation of colonial migration regulations was dependent upon, accompanied by, and generative of profound changes in normative conceptions of the modern state. Focused on state regulation of colonial Indian migration between 1834 and 1917, Mongia illuminates the genesis of central techniques of migration control. She shows how important elements of current migration regimes, including the notion of state sovereignty as embodying the authority to control migration, the distinction between free and forced migration, the emergence of passports, the formation of migration bureaucracies, and the incorporation of kinship relations into migration logics, are the product of complex debates that attended colonial migrations. By charting how state control of migration was critical to the transformation of a world dominated by empire-states into a world dominated by nation-states, Mongia challenges positions that posit a stark distinction between the colonial state and the modern state to trace aspects of their entanglements.

In western countries, including the United States, foreign-trained nurses constitute a crucial labor supply. Far and away the largest number of these nurses come from the Philippines. Why is it that a developing nation with a comparatively greater need for trained medical professionals sends so many of its nurses to work in wealthier countries? Catherine Ceniza Choy engages this question through an examination of the unique relationship between the professionalization of nursing and the twentieth-century migration of Filipinos to the United States. The first book-length study of the history of Filipino nurses in the United States, Empire of Care brings to the fore the complicated connections among nursing, American colonialism, and the racialization of Filipinos. Choy conducted extensive interviews with Filipino nurses in New York City and spoke with leading Filipino nurses across the United States. She combines their perspectives with various others—including those of Philippine and American government and health officials—to demonstrate how the desire of Filipino nurses to migrate abroad cannot be reduced to economic logic, but must instead be understood as a fundamentally transnational process. She argues that the origins of Filipino nurse migrations do not lie in the Philippines' independence in 1946 or the relaxation of U.S. immigration rules in 1965, but rather in the creation of an Americanized hospital training system during the period of early-twentieth-century colonial rule. Choy challenges celebratory narratives regarding professional migrants’ mobility by analyzing the scapegoating of Filipino nurses during difficult political times, the absence of professional solidarity between Filipino and American nurses, and the exploitation of foreign-trained nurses through temporary work visas. She shows how the culture of American imperialism persists today, continuing to shape the reception of Filipino nurses in the United States.

Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire is the first in-depth look at the experiences of Puerto Rican migrant workers in continental U.S. agriculture in the twentieth century. The Farm Labor Program, established by the government of Puerto Rico in 1947, placed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers on U.S. farms and fostered the emergence of many stateside Puerto Rican communities. Ismael García-Colón investigates the origins and development of this program and uncovers the unique challenges faced by its participants. A labor history and an ethnography, Colonial Migrants evokes the violence, fieldwork, food, lodging, surveillance, and coercion that these workers experienced on farms and conveys their hopes and struggles to overcome poverty. Island farmworkers encountered a unique form of prejudice and racism arising from their dual status as both U.S. citizens and as “foreign others,” and their experiences were further shaped by evolving immigration policies. Despite these challenges, many Puerto Rican farmworkers ultimately chose to settle in rural U.S. communities, contributing to the production of food and the Latinization of the U.S. farm labor force.

What are the origins of the hostile environment for immigrants in Britain? Chosen as a BBC History Magazine Book of the Year 2021 and shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022 In the wedded stories of migration and the end of empire, Ian Sanjay Patel uncovers a forgotten history of post-war Britain. After the Second World War, what did it mean to be a citizen of the British empire and the post-war Commonwealth of Nations? Post-war migrants coming to Britain were soon renamed immigrants in laws that prevented their entry despite their British nationality. The experiences of migrants and the archival testimony of officials and politicians at home and abroad, retold here, define Britain’s role in the global age of decolonization.

A unique comparative overview of the motives, means, and experiences of three main flows of empire migrants from the nineteenth century to the post-colonial period: UK migrants to white settler societies; non-white entrepreneurs and workers, relocating within Britain's empire; and empire immigrants coming into the UK, especially after 1945.

This edited collection explores how migrants played a major role in the creation and settlement of the British Empire, by focusing on a series of Australian case studies. Despite their shared experiences of migration and settlement, migrants nonetheless often exhibited distinctive cultural identities, which could be deployed for advantage. Migration established global mobility as a defining feature of the Empire. Ethnicity, class and gender were often powerful determinants of migrant attitudes and behaviour. This volume addresses these considerations, illuminating the complexity and diversity of the British Empire’s global immigration story. Since 1788, the propensity of the populations of Britain and Ireland to immigrate to Australia varied widely, but what this volume highlights is their remarkable diversity in character and impact. The book also presents the opportunities that existed for other immigrant groups to demonstrate their loyalty as members of the (white) Australian community, along with notable exceptions which demonstrated the limits of this inclusivity.

In this rich interdisciplinary study, Sujani Reddy examines the consequential lives of Indian nurses whose careers have unfolded in the contexts of empire, migration, familial relations, race, and gender. As Reddy shows, the nursing profession developed in India against a complex backdrop of British and U.S. imperialism. After World War II, facing limited vocational options at home, a growing number of female nurses migrated from India to the United States during the Cold War. Complicating the long-held view of Indian women as passive participants in the movement of skilled labor in this period, Reddy demonstrates how these "women in the lead" pursued new opportunities afforded by their mobility. At the same time, Indian nurses also confronted stigmas based on the nature of their "women's work," the religious and caste differences within the migrant community, and the racial and gender hierarchies of the United States. Drawing on extensive archival research and compelling life-history interviews, Reddy redraws the map of gender and labor history, suggesting how powerful global forces have played out in the personal and working lives of professional Indian women.