When Reyna Grande's father leaves his wife and three children behind in a village in Mexico to make the dangerous trek across the border to the United States, he promises he will soon return from "El Otro Lado" (The Other Side) with enough money to build them a dream house where they can all live together. His promises become harder to believe as months turn into years. When he summons his wife to join him, Reyna and her siblings are deposited in...

"The population of the United States has diverse sources: territorial acquisition through conquest and colonialism, the slave trade, and voluntary immigration, which has been the greatest instrument of population expansion and has been central to the transition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from a rural-agricultural to an urban-industrial society. Recognition of the need for labor to develop and expand economic activity has been central...

Examine the origin, history and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens. The first in a long line of acts targeting the Chinese for exclusion, it remained in force for more than 60 years.

"This book looks at the role illegality or undocumentedness plays in our society and economy. It shows how the status was created, and how and why people, especially Mexicans and Central Americans, have been assigned this status. The first three chapters look at the histories of social exclusion. One looks specifically at the Mexican and Guatemalan contexts to understand why such large numbers of people from these countries enter the United States...

Looks into the lives, challenges, and successes of Chinese immigrants.

"This revelatory book chronicles the devastating human costs of deportation and the innovative strategies people have adopted to fight against the machine and redefine belonging in ways that transcend citizenship."--Page [3] of cover.

"A searing indictment of the white racial politics behind American immigration restrictions from Chinese Exclusion through the Trump presidency"-- Donald Trump's mainstreaming of anti-immigrant politics in 2016 was a mere reflection of the ugly norm of the past. Jones traces the dual foundation of open immigration for whites from Northern Europe and the racial rejection of slaves from Africa, Native Americans, and eventually, immigrants from other...

"Asian American Histories of the United States illuminates how an over-century-long history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the United States is fundamental to understanding the American experience and its existential crises of the early twenty-first century"--