What do Americans want from immigration policy and why? In the rise of a polarized and acrimonious immigration debate, leading accounts see racial anxieties and disputes over the meaning of American nationhood coming to a head. The resurgence of parochial identities has breathed new life into old worries about the vulnerability of the American Creed. This book tells a different story, one in which creedal values remain hard at work in shaping ordinary Americans' judgements about immigration. Levy and Wright show that perceptions of civic fairness - based on multiple, often competing values deeply rooted in the country's political culture - are the dominant guideposts by which most Americans navigate immigration controversies most of the time and explain why so many Americans simultaneously hold a mix of pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant positions. The authors test the relevance and force of the theory over time and across issue domains.

BD^R Explores the educational and societal experiences of the 20th century American immigrant by using the situation of the Jewish immigrant as a case study. Approaches such questions as: Did the schools promote or hinder immigrants' quest for the American Dream? Was, and is, the melting pot a myth or reality? and, Are there prices to pay for the American Drea

An updated, penetrating, and balanced analysis of one of the most contentious issues in America today, offering a historically informed portrait of immigration. Americans have come from every corner of the globe, and they have been brought together by a variety of historical processes--conquest, colonialism, the slave trade, territorial acquisition, and voluntary immigration. In this Very Short Introduction, historian David A. Gerber captures the histories of dozens of American ethnic groups over more than two centuries and reveals how American life has been formed in significant ways by immigration. He discusses the relationships between race and ethnicity in the life of these groups and in the formation of American society, as well as explaining how immigration policy and legislation have helped to form those relationships. Moreover, by highlighting the parallels that contemporary patterns of immigration and resettlement share with those of the past - which Americans now generally regard as having had positive outcomes - the book offers an optimistic portrait of current immigration that is at odds with much present-day opinion. Newly updated, this book speaks directly to the ongoing fears of immigration that have fueled the debate about both illegal immigration and the need for stronger immigration laws and a border wall.

Fry seeks to interpret historical and contemporary expressions of American nativism with reference to Blumer's group position framework. Fry interprets these initiatives as collective attempts by self-identified natives to secure or retain prior or exclusive rights to valued resources against the challenges reputedly posed by resident or prospective populations on the basis of their perceived foreignness. Fry uses the perspectives of symbolic interactionism and rational choice theory to examine the history of American immigration and immigrant policies, and the politics of immigration reform. His research underscores the importance of institutionalized boundaries, the perception of threat, and power relations in negotiating questions of immigrant admittance and membership.