American Dreaming, Global Realities: Rethinking U.S. Immigration History

An introduction to the best from the new directions in U.S. immigration history

Representing a selection of the finest new research on immigration, American Dreaming, Global Realities explores the ways in which immigrant lives and those of their children are shaped by transnational bonds, globalization, family ties, and personal choice, and the ways in which they engender a sense of belonging and a sense of themselves as “Americans.”

American Dreaming, Global Realities considers a plurality of very specific historical, economic, regional, familial, and cultural contexts. This history reveals resistance and accommodation, both persistent older traditions and Americanization, plus the creation of new cultural forms blending old and new. The twenty-two interdisciplinary essays included in this collection explore the intricate overlapping of race, class, and gender on ethnic identity and on American citizenship.

Donna R. Gabaccia is Mellon Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of We Are What We Eat:  Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans and other books. Vicki L. Ruiz is a professor of history and Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California at Irvine, and the author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth Century America and other books.