Immigrant Life in the US Multi-disciplinary Perspectives

This book collects the best new research on globalization and human subjectivity in a classic "nation of immigrants." Contributors from the fields of sociology, anthropology, history and women's studies focus on the everyday social interactions that have made schools, workplaces and neighborhoods key sites of cultural creativity, transformation and resistance.

Immigrant Life in the U.S. brings together scholars from across the disciplines to examine diverse examples of immigration to the paradigmatic 'nation of immigrants'. The volume covers a wide range of time periods, ethnic and national groups, and places of immigration. Contemporary Chinese children brought to the U.S. through adoption, Mexican laborers hired to work in the mid-west in the 1930s, Indian computer programmers hired to work in California, and more, are examined in a series of chapters that show the great diversity of issues facing immigrants in the past and in the present. This book emphasizes the complex tapestry that is the everyday experience of life as an immigrant and turns a critical eye on the place of globalization in the everyday life of immigrants. The contrasts it draws between past and present demonstrate the continued salience of national and ethnic identities while also describing how migrants can live almost simultaneously in two countries. This book will be of essential interest to advanced students and researchers of Sociology, History, Ethnic Studies and American Studies.

1. American Identities in a Global Era Donna Gabaccia and Colin Wayne Leach Part One: The Local and the Nation in a Transnational World 2. Elusive Citizenship: Education, the Press and the Struggle over Representtaion in Ninteeth-Century Napa, California 1848-1910 Linda Heidenreich 3. The Prehistory of the Cadenú: Class, Corruption, and Migration in Santo Domingo, 1965-1978 Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof 4. Between Fantasy and Despair: the Transnational Condition and high-tech Immigration A. Aneesh 5. Asian-Latinos: Japanese-Peruvians' Ethnic Adaptation and Social Mobility in New York abd Los Angeles Ayumi Takenaka Part Two: Family, School and Popular Culture 6. Adopted Children's Identities at the China/US Border Sara Dorow 7. Members of Many Gangs: Childhood and Ethno-racial Identity on the Streets of Twentieth Century America Mark Wild 8. 'Becoming' and 'Being' Chinese American in College: A Look at Ethnicity, Social Class, and Neighborhood in Identity Development Vivian Louie Part 3: Immigrant Labour 9. Workplace Identities and Collective Memory: Living and Remembering teh Effects of the Bracero Total Institution Ronald L. Mize 10. The Significane of Race in the Urban Labour Market: A Study of Employers Nelson Lim 11. 'Natural Mothers' for Sale: The Construction of Latina Immigrant Identity in Domestic Service Labour Markets Kristen Hill Maher 12. The Work and the Wonder in Studying Immigrant Life Across the Disciplines: An Afterword Colin Wayne Leach and Donna R. Gabaccia

Donna R. Gabaccia is the Mellon Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on gender and international migration, immigrant life in the United States, and Italian migration worldwide. Recent books include Immigration and American Diversity (2002), Italy's Many Diasporas (2000), and We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (1998)., Colin Wayne Leach is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research examines the phenomenology and politics of status distinctions made in the U.S., Western Europe, and Australia. He is co-editor of The Social Life of Emotions (2004).