A Nation Of Strangers

From Governor General’s Award-winning author David A. Robertson comes the first book in a compelling new trilogy. A talking coyote, mysterious illnesses, and girl trouble. Coming home can be murder... When Cole Harper gets a mysterious message from an old friend begging him to come home, he has no idea what he's getting into. Compelled to return to Wounded Sky First Nation, Cole finds his community in chaos: a series of shocking murders, a mysterious illness ravaging the residents, and reemerging questions about Cole’s role in the tragedy that drove him away 10 years ago. With the aid of an unhelpful spirit, a disfigured ghost, and his two oldest friends, Cole tries to figure out his purpose, and unravel the mysteries he left behind a decade ago. Will he find the answers in time to save his community?

"From a daguerreotype of Chinese gold miners to contemporary images of I.N.S. agents working on the Mexican border, A Nation of Strangers examines the history and breadth of United States immigration through social documentary photography, portraiture, genre pictures, cartoons, illustrations, and broadsides. Organized chronologically around the major waves of immigration, these images span the history of photography. Contributing photographers include Eadweard J. Muybridge, Arnold Genthe, Lewis Hine, Jacob Riis, Augustus Sherman, Eugene Omar Goldbeck, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Alexander Alland, Russell Lee, Ansel Adams, Leonard Freed, Alex Webb, Don Bartletti, James Newberry, and Chester Higgins, Jr."--Back cover.

Harry S. Truman once said, "Ours is a nation of many different groups, of different races, of different national origins." And yet, the debate over what it means--and what it takes--to be an American remains contentious. Nationalist solidarity, many claim, requires a willful blending into the assimilationist alloy of these United States. Others argue that the interests of both nation and individual are best served by allowing multiple traditions to flourish--a salad bowl of identities and allegiances, rather than a melting pot. Tracing how Americans have confronted and relinquished, but mostly clung to group identities over the past century, Desmond King here debunks one of the guiding assumptions of American nationhood, namely that group distinction and identification would gradually dissolve over time, creating a "postethnic" nation. Over the course of the twentieth century, King shows, the divisions in American society arising from group loyalties have consistently proven themselves too strong to dissolve. For better or for worse, the often-disparaged politics of multiculturalism are here to stay, with profound implications for America's democracy. Americans have now entered a post-multiculturalist settlement in which the renewal of democracy continues to depend on groups battling it out in political trenches, yet the process is ruled by a newly invigorated and strengthened state. But Americans' resolute embrace of their distinctive identities has ramifications not just internally and domestically but on the world stage as well. The image of one-people American nationhood so commonly projected abroad camouflages the country's sprawling, often messy diversity: a lesson that nation-builders worldwide cannot afford to ignore as they attempt to accommodate ever-evolving group needs and the demands of individuals to be treated equally. Spanning the entire twentieth century and encompassing immigration policies, the nationalistic fallout from both world wars, the civil rights movement, and nation-building efforts in the postcolonial era, The Liberty of Strangers advances a major new interpretation of American nationalism and the future prospects for diverse democracies.

"Today Asia provides four times as many newcomers to America as does all of Europe, and millions of other would-be U.S. citizens pour in yearly from throughout the non-European world. That is a stunning new reality whose ramifications affect every facet of American life. How this situation has evolved and what the next chapter holds are subjects that touch everyone who has ever wondered whether a nation professing to believe in human equality can create harmony among peoples fundamentally dissimilar--in color, culture, means, and expectations." "In reviewing more than two hundred years of the American experience, A Nation of Strangers shows that many of the questions raised by America's newest immigrants are identical to those raised by earlier waves. How many newcomers can the country comfortably absorb? What should be required of those seeking admission? Will the native-born suffer if foreigners come in? Every generation has grappled with such questions. The result has been a constant tension between the desire to welcome and the impulse to exclude. On one hand, America has taken in more immigrants than any other nation on earth. Yet, she has repeatedly given in to xenophobia and paranoia--and consequently excluded thousands fleeing Naziism or, more recently, trying to escape repression in Haiti." "In the beginning the immigrants--African slaves excepted--were overwhelmingly British; and colonial leaders assumed the United States would continue to be made up predominantly of Protestants of British origin. By the mid-1800s, however, that assumption was vanishing beneath a wave of Irish-Catholic and German immigration. Following the Civil War, blacks were granted naturalization and citizenship rights. Later in the century, a new flood of immigrants arrived--many of them Jews or Catholics from eastern and southern Europe. In the 1940s Chinese, East Indians, and other Asians were eligible for naturalization. By the middle 1980s, the English flow had become little more than a trickle. Great Britain ranked twelfth as a place of origin for newcomers--behind Mexico, the Philippines, Korea, Cuba, India, mainland China, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Jamaica, Haiti, and Iran." "Now, as America faces her largest immigration influx since the turn of the century, questions about her ability to absorb newcomers take on an added urgency--all the more so because the new group is more ethnically diverse than any previous wave in history. A Nation of Strangers analyzes the complicated array of political and social forces that have brought about the immigration increase and the startling changes in immigrant ethnicity, while providing important insights into the challenges those changes portend for the future and for all Americans, white and minority alike."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A “meticulously researched and buoyantly written” (Esquire) look at what happens when we talk to strangers, and why it affects everything from our own health and well-being to the rise and fall of nations in the tradition of Susan Cain’s Quiet and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens “This lively, searching work makes the case that welcoming ‘others’ isn’t just the bedrock of civilization, it’s the surest path to the best of what life has to offer.”—Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Homeland Elegies In our cities, we stand in silence at the pharmacy and in check-out lines at the grocery store, distracted by our phones, barely acknowledging one another, even as rates of loneliness skyrocket. Online, we retreat into ideological silos reinforced by algorithms designed to serve us only familiar ideas and like-minded users. In our politics, we are increasingly consumed by a fear of people we’ve never met. But what if strangers—so often blamed for our most pressing political, social, and personal problems—are actually the solution? In The Power of Strangers, Joe Keohane sets out on a journey to discover what happens when we bridge the distance between us and people we don’t know. He learns that while we’re wired to sometimes fear, distrust, and even hate strangers, people and societies that have learned to connect with strangers benefit immensely. Digging into a growing body of cutting-edge research on the surprising social and psychological benefits that come from talking to strangers, Keohane finds that even passing interactions can enhance empathy, happiness, and cognitive development, ease loneliness and isolation, and root us in the world, deepening our sense of belonging. And all the while, Keohane gathers practical tips from experts on how to talk to strangers, and tries them out himself in the wild, to awkward, entertaining, and frequently poignant effect. Warm, witty, erudite, and profound, equal parts sweeping history and self-help journey, this deeply researched book will inspire readers to see everything—from major geopolitical shifts to trips to the corner store—in an entirely new light, showing them that talking to strangers isn’t just a way to live; it’s a way to survive.

Set in Jaffa in between 1947 and 1951, this “fable-like historical novel of young love ... darkly humorous and touching” (Oprah Daily) is based on a true story during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people. Based on the true story of two Jaffa teenagers, Mother of Strangers follows the daily lives of Subhi, a fifteen-year-old mechanic, and Shams, the thirteen-year-old student he hopes to marry one day. In this prosperous and cosmopolitan port city, with its bustling markets, cinemas, and cafés on the hills overlooking the Mediter­ranean Sea, we meet many other unforgettable charac­ters as well, including Khawaja Michael, the elegant and successful owner of orange groves above the harbor; Mr. Hassan, the tailor who makes Subhi’s treasured English suit, which he hopes will change his life; and the very mischievous and outrageous Uncle Habeeb, who insists on introducing Subhi to the local bordello. With a thriving orange export business, Jaffa had always been a city welcoming to outsiders—the “Mother of Strangers”—where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived peacefully together. Once the bombardment of the city begins in April 1948, Suad Amiry gives us the grim but fascinating details of the shock, panic, and destruc­tion that ensues. Jaffa becomes unrecognizable, with neighborhoods flattened, families removed from their homes and separated, and those who remain in constant danger of arrest and incarceration. Most of the popula­tion flees eastward to Jordan or by sea to Lebanon in the north or to Egypt and Gaza in the south. Subhi and Shams will never see each other again. Suad Amiry has written a vivid and devastating ac­count of a seminal moment in the history of the Middle East—the beginning of the end of Palestine and a por­trait of a city irrevocably changed.

The National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller that became a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump "A generous but disconcerting look at the Tea Party. . . . This is a smart, respectful and compelling book." —Jason DeParle, The New York Times Book Review When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots. Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. As Jedediah Purdy put it in the New Republic, "Hochschild is fascinated by how people make sense of their lives. . . . [Her] attentive, detailed portraits . . . reveal a gulf between Hochchild's 'strangers in their own land' and a new elite." Already a favorite common read book in communities and on campuses across the country and called "humble and important" by David Brooks and "masterly" by Atul Gawande, Hochschild's book has been lauded by Noam Chomsky, New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, and countless others. The paperback edition features a new afterword by the author reflecting on the election of Donald Trump and the other events that have unfolded both in Louisiana and around the country since the hardcover edition was published, and also includes a readers' group guide at the back of the book.