Whom We Shall Welcome examines World War II immigration of Italians to the United States, an under-studied period in Italian immigration history. Danielle Battisti looks at efforts by Italian American organizations to foster Italian immigration along with the lobbying efforts of Italian Americans to change the quota laws. While Italian Americans (and other white ethnics) had attained virtual political and social equality with many other groups of older-stock Americans by the end of the war, Italians continued to be classified as undesirable immigrants. Her work is an important contribution toward understanding the construction of Italian American racial/ethnic identity in this period, the role of ethnic groups in U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War era, and the history of the liberal immigration reform movement that led to the 1965 Immigration Act. Whom We Shall Welcome makes significant contributions to histories of migration and ethnicity, post-World War II liberalism, and immigration policy.

With the world turned upside down by the global pandemic, people of faith aligned to the upside-down kingdom of Jesus, are asking, how do we sing the Lord’s song in these times? How do we now live, worship, and serve amid such upheaval, insecurity, fear, grief, and social isolation? Is it just to endure the worst, or to seek the best by walking the way of the cross? Is there an invitation to renewed kingdom citizenship of heaven and earth? Our backgrounds will impact our responses as will our prayers, our scripture reflections, our worship, and our willingness to put the center of ourselves outside, to offer unlimited space for others. With backgrounds in medicine, physics, economics, missiology, theology, social activism, pastoral care, and spiritual companioning, these writers engage such questions. There is a cruciform shape to their reflections, and to the prayers and liturgies they include. We glimpse the One who is with us and for us in these troubled times, sharing our laments, fostering kingdom-heartedness, igniting our passions, offering tender mercies, decluttering our hearts, making peace, instilling courage, and inviting our participation. Though in crisis times our poverty of spirit is amplified, the kingdom of heaven is wide open. With contributions from: Terry Gatfield Athena Gorospe Ross McKenzie Tim MCowan Paul Mercer Sarah Nicholl Charles Ringma

Though debates over immigration have waxed and waned in the course of American history, the importance of immigrants to the nation's identity is imparted in civics classes, political discourse, and television and film. We are told that the United States is a "nation of immigrants," built by people who came from many lands to make an even better nation. But this belief was relatively new in the twentieth century, a period that saw the establishment of immigrant quotas that endured until the Immigrant and Nationality Act of 1965. What changed over the course of the century, according to historian Robert L. Fleegler, is the rise of "contributionism," the belief that the newcomers from eastern and southern Europe contributed important cultural and economic benefits to American society. Early twentieth-century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe often found themselves criticized for language and customs at odds with their new culture, but initially found greater acceptance through an emphasis on their similarities to "native stock" Americans. Drawing on sources as diverse as World War II films, records of Senate subcommittee hearings, and anti-Communist propaganda, Ellis Island Nation describes how contributionism eventually shifted the focus of the immigration debate from assimilation to a Cold War celebration of ethnic diversity and its benefits—helping to ease the passage of 1960s immigration laws that expanded the pool of legal immigrants and setting the stage for the identity politics of the 1970s and 1980s. Ellis Island Nation provides a historical perspective on recent discussions of multiculturalism and the exclusion of groups that have arrived since the liberalization of immigrant laws.