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

"This book reconceptualizes the history of U.S. 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, blacks, women, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and the poor. Kunal 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. This book advances new ways of understanding the relationship between foreignness and subordination over the long span of American history"--Page i.

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.

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.

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.

“There were live measurements of reactor temperatures. Three other buildings that hadn’t exploded. It was like a movie. Will they catch fire? Blow up? Melt down? Or won’t they…?” Readers who enjoyed Youth in Revolt and Bridget Jones's Diary won't want to miss this tale of a pale-skinned foreigner navigating life in Japan. How To Make Love to Foreigners is the diary of Randy Campbell, whose life, after moving to Japan, has taken him places he never expected. Fresh off the plane, he faces the challenges of learning Japanese, navigating the Tokyo train system, and compiling a list of women he's quick to bed, but terrified of committing to. With all this going on around him, Randy has to deal with threats from yakuza while filming a documentary, the racist comments of a girl who is in love with him, and feelings of helplessness when, on March 11, 2011, an earthquake strikes eastern Japan, unleashing a deadly tsunami that envelops a nearby coastline. With a radioactive wind drifting towards Tokyo from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, Randy discovers the terror and absurdities that arise during a devastating catastrophe. Inviting us in on the feelings you go through when everything—your career, the place you live, perhaps... even your life—seems about to be wiped away forever. From inside the book… “These buildings were important to national security. There were FBI, secret service, and CIA offices in some of these buildings. They needed guarantees that if another bombing took place, no one could just walk in and peruse their files.” “Uh-huh, but if I was the owner, why would I destroy my own buildings?” “These buildings were a terrorist target. They were the tallest buildings in New York. After the first bombing there were meetings about structural integrity, potential casualties, financial losses. But never in all these discussions did anyone imagine that somebody would try to fly a plane into these buildings. Or if they did, it would be something small, not a commercial airliner. “You have to think about this not from our point of view, but from the perspective of 1994. They really believed that someone was, at some point, going to drive another truck into the basement. Finish what they’d tried to do in ’93. This became a real panic after that Timothy McVeigh thing in Oklahoma City.” “Oh, yeah, that’s right. That was ’95.” “Yeah. The guy parked a fertilizer truck next to the building, and the whole thing came down. So the consensus at the time was that someone might try to blow up the buildings again. From the street level. Or the basement. Hell, even the subway was identified as a possible route. What no one wanted to talk about was that if you blew up the building from the basement, the entire structure might topple over. Like a domino. Anything in a thousand foot radius could be destroyed, including the other tower.” I took a sip of my drink. “That seems highly unlikely.” “I’m sure the engineers who designed Chernobyl said the same thing. Anyway, they came up with a plan that would prevent the building from toppling over.” “A controlled demolition.” “Exactly. A completely vertical collapse. So the building wouldn’t kill as many people. I mean, nowadays there are residential apartments in that area.” I looked at Dewey. I was interested, but unconvinced. How many others bought into the same crazy theories?