This book connects the history of immigration with histories of Native Americans, African Americans, women, the poor, Latino/a Americans and Asian Americans.

Studies on foreignness have increased substantially over the last two decades in response to what has been dubbed the migration/refugee crisis. Yet, they have focused on specific areas such as regions, periods, ethnic groups, and authors. Predicated on the belief that this so-called “twenty-first century problem” is in fact as old as humanity itself, this book analyzes cases based on both long-term historical perspectives and current occurrences from around the world. Bringing together an international group of scholars from Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America, it examines a variety of examples and strategies, mostly from world literatures, ranging from Spain’s failed experience with consolidation as a nation-state-type entity during the Golden Age of Castile, to Shakespeare’s rhetorical subversion of the language of fear and hate, to Mario Rigoni Stern’s random status at the unpredictable Italian-Austrian borders, to Lawrence Durrell’s ambivalent approach to noticing the physically visible other, to the French government’s ongoing criminalization of hospitality, to Sandra Cisneros’s attempt at straddling two countries and cultures while belonging to neither one, to the illusive legal limbo of the DREAMers in the United States. We are not born foreigners; we are made. The purpose of the book is to assert, as denoted by the title, this fundamental premise, that is, the making of strangers is the result of a deliberate and purposeful act that has social, political, and linguistic implications. The ultimate expression of this phenomenon is the compulsive labeling of people along artificial categories such as race, gender, religion, birthplace, or nationality. A corollary purpose of the book is to help shed light worldwide on one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: the place of “the other” amid fear-mongering and unabashedly contemptuous acts and rhetoric toward immigrants, refugees and all those excluded within because of race, gender, national origin, religion and ethnicity. As illustrated by the examples examined in this book, humans have certainly evolved in many areas; dealing with the “other” might not have been one of those. It is hoped that the book encourages reflection on how the arts, and especially world literatures, can help us navigate and think through the ever-present crisis: the place of the “stranger” among us.

This book reconceptualizes the history of US immigration and citizenship law from the colonial period to the beginning of the twenty-first century by joining the histories of immigrants to those of Native Americans, African Americans, women, Asian Americans, Latino/a Americans and the poor. Parker argues that during the earliest stages of American history, being legally constructed as a foreigner, along with being subjected to restrictions on presence and movement, was not confined to those who sought to enter the country from the outside, but was also used against those on the inside. Insiders thus shared important legal disabilities with outsiders. It is only over the course of four centuries, with the spread of formal and substantive citizenship among the domestic population, a hardening distinction between citizen and alien, and the rise of a powerful centralized state, that the uniquely disabled legal subject we recognize today as the immigrant has emerged.

Struggling to free itself from a century of economic decline and stagnation, the town of San Miguel de Allende, nestled in the hills of central Mexico, discovered that its "timeless" quality could provide a way forward. While other Mexican towns pursued policies of industrialization, San Miguel--on the economic, political, and cultural margins of revolutionary Mexico--worked to demonstrate that it preserved an authentic quality, earning designation as a "typical Mexican town" by the Guanajuato state legislature in 1939. With the town's historic status guaranteed, a coalition of local elites and transnational figures turned to an international solution--tourism--to revive San Miguel's economy and to reinforce its Mexican identity. Lisa Pinley Covert examines how this once small, quiet town became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to one of Mexico's largest foreign-born populations. By exploring the intersections of economic development and national identity formation in San Miguel, she reveals how towns and cities in Mexico grappled with change over the course of the twentieth century. Covert similarly identifies the historical context shaping the promise and perils of a shift from an agricultural to a service-based economy. In the process, she demonstrates how San Miguel could be both typically Mexican and palpably foreign and how the histories behind each process were inextricably intertwined.

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy—a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s—its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

This book provides the first detailed analysis of a crucial and distinctive element of Chinese foreign policy. Anne-Marie Brady follows the development of the Chinese Communist Party's 'foreign affairs' system since 1921, focusing on waishi, the external policies intended to influence and control both foreigners themselves as well as Chinese citizens' contact with and perception of outsiders. The term also comprises China's external relations—both official state-to-state and so-called unofficial or 'people-to-people' diplomacy. In effect, waishi activities encompass all matters related to foreigners and foreign things, not merely diplomacy. By managing the foreign presence in China and China's contacts with the outside world and by controlling the Chinese population, the author argues that waishi has proven to be one of the most effective tools in the CCP's repertoire for building and then sustaining its hold on power. Drawing for the first time on policy documents that underpin the phenomena they describe, Brady analyzes trends and developments in waishi during each chronological period. The book elucidates how the CCP's policies evolved: In the 1930s, the need for a broad united front in international relations warred with the desire to control the foreign presence in China; in the 1940s and 1950s, the Sino-Soviet alliance and ridding China of the traces of the 'semi-colonial' past took precedence; in the 1960s, the Sino-Soviet split led to China's claim as the center of world revolution; and in the past twenty years of reform, the focus has been the ongoing quest to create a modern nation-state as China opens up to the outside world. The author considers waishi's deeper meaning as an overriding approach to the 'foreign,' which links state-to-state diplomacy with the management of the foreign presence in China. Her groundbreaking research is based on a previously unexplored genre of waishi materials (almost all classified) in Chinese, extensive interviews with waishi officials and foreign participants of the system, as well as archival research inside and outside of China. The photograph used on the cover of the book was doctored by the Chinese government. The original photograph showed Edgar Snow standing on the Tiananmen podium with (reading from left to right) Snow, translator Ji Chaozhu, Mao Zedong, and Edgar Snow's wife, Lois Wheeler Snow. In the book's cover photograph, which was released internationally, Lois Wheeler Snow has been replaced by Lin Biao—at the time Mao's number two—shown prominently clutching Quotations from Mao Zedong, otherwise known as the Little Red Book. Lin Biao was no doubt inserted not only to show his ranking in the leadership but also to demonstrate that the shift towards rapprochement with the West which the Snow's visit to China in 1970 represented, was supported by the CCP's radical left as symbolized by Lin Biao.

"Becoming a Citizen is a terrific book. Important, innovative, well argued, theoretically significant, and empirically grounded. It will be the definitive work in the field for years to come."—Frank D. Bean, Co-Director, Center for Research on Immigration, Population and Public Policy "This book is in three ways innovative. First, it avoids the domestic navel-gazing of U.S .immigration studies, through an obvious yet ingenious comparison with Canada. Second, it shows that official multiculturalism and common citizenship may very well go together, revealing Canada, and not the United States, as leader in successful immigrant integration. Thirdly, the book provides a compelling picture of how the state matters in making immigrants citizens. An outstanding contribution to the migration and citizenship literature!"—Christian Joppke, American University of Paris

The book chronicles the various ethnic groups that immigrated to the United States since its independence. While some of the language and ideas discussed in this book may be outdated in today's world, it provides valuable insight into the commonly held values and concepts of the era in which it was written.

Immigration divides our globalizing world like no other issue. We are swamped by illegal immigrants and infiltrated by terrorists, our jobs stolen, our welfare system abused, our way of life destroyed--or so we are told. At a time when National Guard units are deployed alongside vigilante Minutemen on the U.S.-Mexico border, where the death toll in the past decade now exceeds 9/11's, Philippe Legrain has written the first book about immigration that looks beyond the headlines. Why are ever-rising numbers of people from poor countries arriving in the United States, Europe, and Australia? Can we keep them out? Should we even be trying? Combining compelling firsthand reporting from around the world, incisive socioeconomic analysis, and a broad understanding of what's at stake politically and culturally, Immigrants is a passionate but lucid book. In our open world, more people will inevitably move across borders, Legrain says--and we should generally welcome them. They do the jobs we can't or won't do--and their diversity enriches us all. Left and Right, free marketeers and campaigners for global justice, enlightened patriots--all should rally behind the cause of freer migration, because They need Us and We need Them.

Scholars, journalists, and policymakers have long argued that the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act dramatically reshaped the demographic composition of the United States. In A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered, leading scholars of immigration explore how the political and ideological struggles of the "age of restriction"--from 1924 to 1965--paved the way for the changes to come. The essays examine how geopolitics, civil rights, perceptions of America's role as a humanitarian sanctuary, and economic priorities led government officials to facilitate the entrance of specific immigrant groups, thereby establishing the legal precedents for future policies. Eye-opening articles discuss Japanese war brides and changing views of miscegenation, the recruitment of former Nazi scientists, a temporary workers program with Japanese immigrants, the emotional separation of Mexican immigrant families, Puerto Rican youth’s efforts to claim an American identity, and the restaurant raids of conscripted Chinese sailors during World War II. Contributors: Eiichiro Azuma, David Cook-Martín, David FitzGerald, Monique Laney, Heather Lee, Kathleen López, Laura Madokoro, Ronald L. Mize, Arissa H. Oh, Ana Elizabeth Rosas, Lorrin Thomas, Ruth Ellen Wasem, and Elliott Young