Suchergebnisse

"Unguarded Border: American Émigrés in Canada during the Vietnam War examines one of the largest exoduses from the United States, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when over 50,000 Americans immigrated to Canada during the Vietnam War. For many this emigration was the best way for them to resist military service. Women and non-draft-age men also left to accompany draft-age men or to escape the political and social atmosphere of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s with which they were at odds. Author Donald W. Maxwell provides a definitive history of this exodus that is compelling, accessible, and brimming with insightful observations. Canada was an attractive destination. It was very easy for Americans to enter. U.S. residents needed no passport to enter Canada and could, from 1966 to 1972, apply to immigrate to Canada from within Canada. Canadian immigration officials refused to extradite military deserters and draft resisters if they otherwise qualified as immigrants. Émigrés who succeeded in Canada did so by identifying a specific place in which they could enjoy life on their own terms while eschewing the nation and the responsibilities it places on its citizens. Further, they embraced cosmopolitanism, detached from civic engagement and political identification, which they exercised by traveling beyond the bounds of their own country, by accepting aid from religious groups, and by pursuing higher education with fewer restrictions than in the United States. By delving into rich archival resources and firsthand oral histories, Unguarded Border reclaims the multifaceted and complex history of these U.S. émigrés who might otherwise be lost to history"--

In the mid‐1970s, many U.S. citizens who had not complied with the requirement that they participate in the military of the United States during the Vietnam War faced a dilemma. In the preceding decade, tens of thousands of them had immigrated to Canada—both legally and illegally—to resist compulsory military service. Richard Nixon refused to allow these resisters to return to the United States. His successor, Gerald Ford, allowed expatriates to return if they agreed to do alternative service. Jimmy Carter attempted to resolve the crisis with an amnesty. Canada did not participate in the Vietnam War and refused to extradite American men to the United States for violations of most conscription and military laws. However, in 1973, in the middle of an immigration crisis, Canada forced the hand of many Americans and others who had entered the country clandestinely by giving them only sixty days to reconcile their residency status with the Canadian government or to risk becoming illegal immigrants and to face deportation. The shifting matrix of laws on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border forced American exiles to decide whether to risk having a status that officially satisfied neither country, to accept the terms of the Ford or Carter repatriation plans and reclaim the perquisites of life in the United States, to remain illegal immigrants in Canada, or to acquire Canadian citizenship. Residency in Canada opened the possibility for a different type of citizenship for American men, one less concerned with their potential contribution to the military might of a nation and more tolerant of their freedom of expression, which might include opposition to war.