From All Points: America's Immigrant West, 1870s–1952Indiana University Press, 2007 M05 11 - 649 pages A history of immigrants in the American West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and their effect on the region. At a time when immigration policy is the subject of heated debate, this book makes clear that the true wealth of America is in the diversity of its peoples. By the end of the twentieth century, the American West was home to nearly half of America’s immigrant population, including Asians and Armenians, Germans and Greeks, Mexicans, Italians, Swedes, Basques, and others. This book tells their rich and complex story—of adaptation and isolation, maintaining and mixing traditions, and an ongoing ebb and flow of movement, assimilation, and replenishment. These immigrants and their children built communities, added to the region’s culture, and contended with discrimination and the lure of Americanization. The mark of the outsider, the alien, the nonwhite passed from group to group, even as the complexion of the region changed. The region welcomed, then excluded, immigrants, in restless waves of need and nativism that continue to this day. “Written in the fashion of Oscar Handlin, this study makes a convincing case that immigration history comprises an essential part of the history of the American West, and that appreciation of the former and the roles played by myriad alien arrivals is essential for understanding the latter. . . . Barkan . . . combines vignettes based on immigrant reminiscences with keen analysis to explore four related themes: various groups’ arrivals, their economic influences, their effects on public policy, and their adaptation and assimilation. The resulting narrative is readable and informative. . . . Recommended.” —Choice “A remarkable synthesis of the West as a region of immigrants. It tells the story of how vital immigrants were to economic growth and modernization. This will be the prime reference for 21st century scholars of immigration and ethnicity in the American West.” —Annals of Wyoming, Spring 2010 |
Contents
1 | |
23 | |
PART 1 Laying the Groundwork IMMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRATION LAWS OLD AND NEW 1870s1903 | 35 |
PART 2 Opening and Closing Doors 19031923 | 95 |
PART 3 Give Me a Bug Please RESTRICTION AND REPATRIATION ACCOMMODATION AND AMERICANIZATION 19231941 | 223 |
PART 4 Americas Dilemma RACES REFUGEES AND REFORMS IN AN AGE OF WORLD WAR AND COLD WAR 19421952 | 353 |
APPENDIX | 463 |
NOTES | 489 |
575 | |
585 | |
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From All Points: America's Immigrant West, 1870s–1952 Elliott Robert Barkan No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
agricultural Alaska Ameri American West Angeles areas Arizona Armenians Asian Asian Americans Basque became border braceros California camps canneries census century Chinese Church citizens citizenship Colorado cultural de¤ned decades Dillingham Commission early economic enemy aliens ethnic European farm federal Filipinos foreign born Germans Greeks groups gure Hawai‘i Hawaiian History homeland Honolulu Idaho immigrants in¶uence industry Irish Issei Italians Japanese Americans Jewish Jews labor land later Latino living Los Angeles mainland Mexi Mexican Americans Mexico migration military Montana moved native newcomers Nisei Norwegians of¤cials Oregon organizations Paci¤c Northwest percent persons plantations political population Portuguese Press quotation race racial railroad region Relocation reported residents Roger Daniels rural San Francisco Scandinavians Seattle second-generation signi¤cant social society speci¤c strike Texas tion U.S. Supreme Court union United University urban Utah Valley wages Washington West’s western William Carlson women workers World