Books
Border Brokers by
Some 16.6 million people nationwide live in mixed-status families, containing a combination of U.S. citizens, residents, and undocumented immigrants. U.S. immigration governance has become an almost daily news headline. Yet even in the absence of federal immigration reform over the last twenty years, existing policies and practices have already been profoundly impacting these family units. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in San Diego over more than a decade, Border Brokers documents the continuing deleterious effects of U.S. immigration policies and enforcement practices on a group of now young adults and their families. In the first book-length longitudinal study of mixed-status families, Christina M. Getrich provides an on-the-ground portrayal of these young adults' lives from their own perspectives and in their own words. More importantly, Getrich identifies how these individuals have developed resiliency and agency beginning in their teens to improve circumstances for immigrant communities. Despite the significant constraints their families face, these children have emerged into adulthood as grounded and skilled brokers who effectively use their local knowledge bases, life skills honed in their families, and transborder competencies. Refuting the notion of their failure to assimilate, she highlights the mature, engaged citizenship they model as they transition to adulthood to be perhaps their most enduring contribution to creating a better U.S. society. An accessible ethnography rooted in the everyday, this book portrays the complexity of life in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. It offers important insights for anthropologists, educators, policy-makers, and activists working on immigration and social justice issues.
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9780816538997Publication Date: 2019-03-19
The Displaced by
In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries and dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year. The American people spoke up, with protests, marches, donations, and lawsuits that quickly overturned the order. But the refugee caps remained. In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience. Featuring original essays by a collection of writers from around the world, The Displaced is an indictment of closing our doors, and a powerful look at what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of refuge.
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9781419729485Publication Date: 2018-04-10
Home Now by
A moving chronicle of who belongs in America. Like so many American factory towns, Lewiston, Maine, thrived until its mill jobs disappeared and the young began leaving. But then the story unexpectedly veered: over the course of fifteen years, the city became home to thousands of African immigrants and, along the way, turned into one of the most Muslim towns in the US. Now about 6,000 of Lewiston's 36,000 inhabitants are refugees and asylum seekers, many of them Somali. Cynthia Anderson tells the story of this fractious yet resilient city near where she grew up, offering the unfolding drama of a community's reinvention--and humanizing some of the defining political issues in America today. In Lewiston, progress is real but precarious. Anderson takes the reader deep into the lives of both immigrants and lifelong Mainers: a single Muslim mom, an anti-Islamist activist, a Congolese asylum seeker, a Somali community leader. Their lives unfold in these pages as anti-immigrant sentiment rises across the US and national realities collide with those in Lewiston. Home Now gives a poignant account of America's evolving relationship with religion and race, and makes a sensitive yet powerful case for embracing change.
Call Number: E184.M88 A53 2019ISBN: 9781541767911Publication Date: 2019-10-29
The Ungrateful Refugee by
A Finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction "Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence." --The New York Times Book Review "Nayeri weaves her empowering personal story with those of the 'feared swarms' . . . Her family's escape from Isfahan to Oklahoma, which involved waiting in Dubai and Italy, is wildly fascinating . . . Using energetic prose, Nayeri is an excellent conduit for these heart-rending stories, eschewing judgment and employing care in threading the stories in with her own . . . This is a memoir laced with stimulus and plenty of heart at a time when the latter has grown elusive." --Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple fall in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials. Nayeri confronts notions like "the swarm," and, on the other hand, "good" immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions,The Ungrateful Refugee challenges us to rethink how we talk about the refugee crisis. "A writer who confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience." --Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofThe Sympathizer andThe Refugees
Call Number: HV640.5.I73 N39 2019ISBN: 9781948226424Publication Date: 2019-09-03
The Making of a Dream by
A journalist chronicles the next chapter in civil rights--the story of a movement and a nation, witnessed through the poignant and inspiring experiences of five young undocumented activists who are transforming society's attitudes toward one of the most contentious political matters roiling America today: immigration. They are called the DREAMers: young people who were brought, or sent, to the United States as children and who have lived for years in America without legal status. Growing up, they often worked hard in school, planned for college, only to learn they were, in the eyes of the United States government and many citizens, "illegal aliens." Determined to take fate into their own hands, a group of these young undocumented immigrants risked their safety to "come out" about their status--sparking a transformative movement, engineering a seismic shift in public opinion on immigration, and inspiring other social movements across the country. Their quest for permanent legal protection under the so-called "Dream Act," stalled. But in 2012, the Obama administration issued a landmark, new immigration policy: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which has since protected more than half a million young immigrants from deportation even as efforts to install more expansive protections remain elusive. The Making of a Dream begins at the turn of the millennium, with the first of a series of "Dream Act" proposals; follows the efforts of policy makers, activists, and undocumented immigrants themselves, and concludes with the 2016 presidential election and the first months of the Trump presidency. The immigrants' coming of age stories intersect with the watershed political and economic events of the last two decades: 9/11, the recession, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama presidency, and the rebirth of the anti-immigrant right. In telling their story, Laura Wides-Muñoz forces us to rethink our definition of what it means to be American.
Call Number: JV6483 .W528 2018ISBN: 9780062560124Publication Date: 2018-01-30
Becoming a U. S. Citizen by
Everything you need to become a naturalized U.S. citizenThe sooner a green card holder becomes a U.S. citizen, the sooner he or she gains a host of benefits: the right to vote and apply for certain federal jobs, faster immigration for family, protection against deportation or new anti-immigration legislation, and more. But the application process itself can be long and confusing--and at worst, create a risk of deportation. With Becoming a U.S. Citizen, you can save months, or even years, and avoid complications. Learn how to: make sure you are eligible for citizenship understand the risks and rewards of applying fill out application forms study for the citizenship exam interview successfully, and deal with any setbacks. Becoming a U.S. Citizen also shows you how to ask for a reduced fee or take advantage of special exceptions if you have a disability, are in the military, or are the spouse of a U.S. citizen. The 10th edition is updated with the latest laws, procedures, and government policies. It includes sample forms, handy checklists, and a study guide to the citizenship exam.
Call Number: KF4710 .Z9 B73 2021ISBN: 9781413328967Publication Date: 2021-09-28
Refugee High by
Lit Hub's Most Anticipated of 2021 A year in the life of a Chicago high school that has one of the highest proportions of refugees of any school in the nation "A wondrous tapestry of stories, of young people looking for a home. With deep, immersive reporting, Elly Fishman pulls off a triumph of empathy. Their tales and their school speak to the best of who we are as a nation--and their struggles, their joys, their journeys will stay with you." --Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Award For a century, Chicago's Roger C. Sullivan High School has been a home to immigrant and refugee students. In 2017, during the worst global refugee crisis in history, its immigrant population numbered close to three hundred--or nearly half the school--and many were refugees new to the country. These young people came from thirty-five different countries, speaking among themselves more than thirty-eight different languages. For these refugee teens, life in Chicago is hardly easy. They have experienced the world at its worst and carry the trauma of the horrific violence they fled. In America, they face poverty, racism, and xenophobia, but they are still teenagers--flirting, dreaming, and working as they navigate their new life in America. Refugee High is a riveting chronicle of the 2017-8 school year at Sullivan High, a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric was at its height in the White House. Even as we follow teachers and administrators grappling with the everyday challenges facing many urban schools, we witness the complicated circumstances and unique education needs of refugee and immigrant children: Alejandro may be deported just days before he is scheduled to graduate; Shahina narrowly escapes an arranged marriage; and Belenge encounters gang turf wars he doesn't understand. Equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring, Refugee High raises vital questions about the priorities and values of a public school and offers an eye-opening and captivating window into the present-day American immigration and education systems.
Call Number: LC3733.C4 F57 2021ISBN: 9781620975084Publication Date: 2021-08-10
Dear America by
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER "This riveting, courageous memoir ought to be mandatory reading for every American."--Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow "l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured." --Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and Where the Past Begins "This book couldn't be more timely and more necessary." --Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of What Is the What and The Monk of Mokha Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called "the most famous undocumented immigrant in America," tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms. "This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book--at its core--is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can't. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home. After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom." --Jose Antonio Vargas, Dear America
Call Number: PN4874.V37 A3 2018ISBN: 9780062851352Publication Date: 2018-09-18
Web Resources
- American Immigration CouncilThe American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring.
- Immigrants' RightsThe ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project is dedicated to expanding and enforcing the civil liberties and civil rights of immigrants and to combating public and private discrimination against them.
- Migration Policy Institute - U.S. Immigration Policy ProgramThe U.S. Immigration Policy Program analyzes U.S. policies and their impacts, as well as the complex demographic, economic, political, foreign policy, and other forces that shape immigration to the United States.
- National Immigration Law CenterOne of the leading organizations in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income.