National Museum of American History:

Theory and Thinking about immigration and ethnicity

The two most important points I like to make about immigration and ethnicity in America are the two I made in the workshop: first the importance of networks in the immigration process- Tilly, Charles. “Transplanted Networks,” in Virginia Yans McLaughlin ed., Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 79 -95 ; Gjerde, Jon, “Following the Chain,” Immigration and Ethnic History Newsletter, May 2001, p. 1,3 – and second the way ethnic groups change over time.- Conzen, Kathleen, David Gerber, Ewa Morawska and George Pozzetta, “The Invention of Ethnicity: A Perspective from the U.S.A.,” Journal of American Ethnic History (Fall 1992) Volume 12, no. 1, pp. 3-41 and (long, international version) Horowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2000) (see Kazal, Russell. “Revisiting Assimilation: The Rise, fall and Reappraisal of a Concept in American Ethnic History,” American Historical Review 1995 Volume 100 no. 2, pp. 437-471, for a more traditional assimilationist approach, and Conzen, Kathleen “Mainstreams and Side Channels: The Localization of Immigrant Cultures,” Journal of American Ethnic History (Fall 1991) Volume 11, no.1, pp. 5-19, for an interesting take on the importance of regional variations in ethnic adjustments.). Other ideas that have become important of late are whiteness – how immigrants learn they are white and thus privileged, Barrett, James R. and David Roediger, “Inbetween Peoples: race, nationality and the ‘New Immigrant’ Working Class,” Journal of American Ethnic History (1997) Volume 16, no. 3, pp. 3-44, and the importance of groups who see themselves as diaspora people. Not members of their new nation: Kenny, Kevin, “Diaspora and Comparison: The Global Irish as a Case Study,” Journal of American History (June 2003) Volume 90, no. 1, pp. 134 and Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997)

Overviews and Reference Material

Taylor, Philip. The Distant Magnet: European Emigration to the U.S.A. (New York: Harper and Row, 1971) Very handy on changes in transportation, immigrant guides, the entire mechanics of migration

Jones, Maldwyn. American Immigration. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1992). Not as helpful as Taylor but still useful.

Gerstle, Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth
Century. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). More a very bold interpretation of ethnicity and race in Twentieth century America, but interesting about the changing place of white ethnics in that century.

Thernstrom, Stephan. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups.
(Cambridge: Belknap press, 1980). Just what it says, a huge, well done encyclopedia with substantive entries on groups and other topics.

Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity
in American Life (New York: Perennial, 2002). A very good introduction by group with good statistics and helpful summaries of each.

Bayor, Ronald. The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in
America. (New York: Columbia University press, 2004). This is more than ethnicity because it talks about blacks as well, but a good introduction to changing conditions of race and ethnicity and each essay is flowed by a score or more documents.

Multi Group Studies

Anbinder, Tyler. Five Points: The Nineteenth Century New York City
Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum. (New York: Free Press, 2001). Very readable and powerfully descriptive book detailing the lives of succeeding waves of immigrants in the Five Points (Lower East Side) section of New York. Largely about the Irish, it also discusses Italians, Chinese and Germans and Jews.

Barton, Josef. Peasants and Strangers: Italians, Rumanians, and Slovaks in
an American City 1890-1950. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975). Barton too emphasizes immigrant chains, and does a great job on it.

Diner, Hasia. Hungering For America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in
the Age of Migration (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001). Terrific book on food and ethnic identity.

Foner, Nancy. From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two great Waves of
Immigration. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). Excellent comparison of turn of the twentieth century immigration, Jews and Italians, to turn of the twenty first century, on virtually every topic (except religion), economic achievement, family and gender roles, education and schools. Dense but very good.

Gabaccia, Donna. We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of
Americans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1998). Less interested in how food is important to identity than how ethnic food was or was not incorporated into American cuisine.

Gjerde, Jon. The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural
Midwest, 1830-1917. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). Terrific study of the settlement of the Midwest by immigrants and Yankees from New England. Shows the importance of migration chains, family and community structures, clashing values in a rural setting.

Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish,
Polish and Jewish Immigrants in the United States. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). An interesting look at how attitudes about the old country’s national fate influenced the approach of three immigrant group’s to American imperialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Smith, Judith E. Family Connections: A History of Italian and Jewish
Immigrant Lives in Providence, Rhode Island, 1900-1940. (Albany: State University of New York, 1985). Nice book that documents brilliantly the tightness of immigrant families -how the children of immigrants lived with or close to their parents often into middle age.

Vecoli, Rudolph and Suzanne Sinke eds. A Century of European Migrations,
1830-1930 (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1991). Great essays here by Gjerde, Ramirez, Alexander and others on groups from Hungarians, Slovaks and Norwegians to French Canadians. They emphasize networks in the migration process.

Nativism or anti immigrant movements, legislation and citizenship

Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-
1925. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1955). An old book, but still brilliant and nicely written, Higham shows how and why anti immigrant movements rose and fell in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Anbinder, Tyler. Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the
Politics of the 1850s. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) An interesting book that points out how the Know Nothing ant immigrant crusade was fueled by frustration over slavery.

Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European
Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) The best book on a topic of recent great interest, changing racist thought in America and its influence on attitudes about immigrants. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Italians, Jews and others in addition to blacks were considered racial inferiors.

Gyory, Andrew. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics and the Chinese Exclusion
Act (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press, 1998). A very readable, richly researched but controversial book on the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Gyory blames the politicians, not white workers, for exclusion.

Individual groups

The literature on separate groups is vast – the number of good books on Jewish Americans or Irish Americans for example could fill several pages. These are just books that I liked. They include some that have a broader purview than America – Bielienberg on the Irish, Gabaccia’s Diasporas on Italians, Luebke on Germans – because I think broader contexts and the potential for comparisons to immigrants in other countries are very helpful.

Asian Americans

Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston: Twayne,
1991)

Lui, Mary Ting Li. The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation,
and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn of the Century New York City.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005)

Okihiro, Gary. The Columbia Guide to Asian American History (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2001)

Tchen, John Kuo Wei. New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the
Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)

Wei, William. The Asian American Movement. (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1993)

German Americans

Luebke, Frederick. Germans in Brazil: A Comparative History of Cultural
Conflict During World War I. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Stat University Press, 1987)

Luebke, Frederick. Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and World War I.
(Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974)

Kazal, Russell. Becoming Old Stock: The Paradox of German American-
American Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004)

Irish Americans

Bielenberg, Andy. The Irish Diaspora. (Harlow, England: Longman, 2000)

Miller, Kerby. Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)

Kenny, Kevin. The American Irish: A History (Harlow, England: Longman,
2000)

Bayor, Ronald and Timothy Meagher eds. The New York Irish. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)

Italian Americans

Gabaccia, Donna. Italy’s Many Diasporas. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000)

Guglielmo, Thomas. White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)

Luconi, Stefano. From Paesani to White Ethnics: The Italian Experience in Philadelphia (Albany: State University of New York press, 2001)

Jewish Americans

Moore, Deborah Dash. At Home in America: Second Generation New York Jews. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981)

Howe, Irving. World of Our Fathers. (New York: Harcourt brace, 1976)

Mexican Americans

Fox, Geoffrey. Hispanic Nation: Culture, Politics and the Constructing of Identity. (Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press, 2000)

Montejano, David. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987)

Ruiz, Vicki. From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)

Sanchez, George J. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1940-1945. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)

Norwegian Americans

Gjerde, Jon. From Peasant to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway to the Upper Middle West. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985)

Polish Americans

Bukowcyk, John. And My People Did Not Know Me: A History of the Polish Americans. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987)

Pacyga, Dominic. Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the South Side, 1880-1922. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)

Download the Timothy Meagher Bibliography