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Addresses some of the most prominent immigrant groups and the most striking episodes of nativism in American history. The introduction covers American immigration history and law as they have developed since the late eighteenth century. The essays that follow--authored by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists--examine the experiences of a large variety of populations to discover patterns in both immigration and anti-immigrant sentiment. The numerous cases reveal much about the immigrants' motivations for leaving their home countries, the obstacles they face to advancement and inclusion, their culture and occupational trends in the United States, their assimilation and acculturation, and their accomplishments and contributions to American life. From publisher description

Since the 1990s, immigrant settlement has expanded beyond gateway cities and transformed the social fabric of a growing number of American cities. In the process, it has raised new questions for urban and migration scholars. This article argues that immigration to new destinations provides an opportunity to sharpen understandings of the relationship between immigration and the urban by exploring it under new conditions. Through a discussion of immigrant settlement in Nashville, Tennessee, it identifies an overlooked precursor to immigrant incorporation—how cities see, or do not see, immigrants within the structure of local government. If immigrants are not institutionally visible to government or nongovernmental organizations, immigrant abilities to make claims to or on the city as urban residents are diminished. Through the combination of trends toward neighborhood-based urban governance and neoliberal streamlining across American cities, immigrants can become institutionally hard to find and, thus, plan for in the city.