Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology, and Politics
Virginia Yans-McLaughlin
Abstract
Providing an interdisciplinary and global perspective on immigration to the United States, this book represents an important step forward in the development of immigration studies. The book aims to help redirect thinking on the subject of immigration by giving a summary of the current state of immigration studies and a coherent new perspective that emphasizes the international dimensions of the immigrant experience from the time of the slave trade to present-day movements of Asian and Latin American peoples. This book challenges ethnocentric American or European perspectives on immigration, di ... More
Providing an interdisciplinary and global perspective on immigration to the United States, this book represents an important step forward in the development of immigration studies. The book aims to help redirect thinking on the subject of immigration by giving a summary of the current state of immigration studies and a coherent new perspective that emphasizes the international dimensions of the immigrant experience from the time of the slave trade to present-day movements of Asian and Latin American peoples. This book challenges ethnocentric American or European perspectives on immigration, disputes the classical assimilation model of a linear progression of immigrant cultures toward a dominant American national character, questions human capital theory as an explanation of ethnic group achievement, reveals conflicting ethnic and racial attitudes toward immigration restriction, and examines the revival of interest in oral history, immigrant autobiographies, and other subjective documents.
Keywords:
immigration,
United States,
immigration studies,
slave trade,
American national character,
human capital theory,
ethnic group achievement,
immigration restriction
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 1991 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195055108 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195055108.001.0001 |