The Good Immigrant

By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, troubling and uplifting, these "electric" essays come together to create a provocative, conversation-sparking, multivocal portrait of modern America (The Washington Post). From Trump's proposed border wall and travel ban to the marching of white supremacists in Charlottesville, America is consumed by tensions over immigration and the question of which bodies are welcome. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling UK edition, hailed by Zadie Smith as "lively and vital," editors Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman hand the microphone to an incredible range of writers whose humanity and right to be here is under attack. Chigozie Obioma unpacks an Igbo proverb that helped him navigate his journey to America from Nigeria. Jenny Zhang analyzes cultural appropriation in 90s fashion, recalling her own pain and confusion as a teenager trying to fit in. Fatimah Asghar describes the flood of memory and emotion triggered by an encounter with an Uber driver from Kashmir. Alexander Chee writes of a visit to Korea that changed his relationship to his heritage. These writers, and the many others in this urgent collection, share powerful personal stories of living between cultures and languages while struggling to figure out who they are and where they belong.

First published in 2016, The Good Immigrant has since been hailed as a modern classic and credited with reshaping the discussion about race in contemporary Britain. It brings together a stellar cast of the country’s most exciting voices to reflect on why immigrants come to the UK, why they stay and what it means to be ‘other’ in a place that doesn’t seem to want you, doesn’t truly accept you – however many generations you’ve been here – but still needs you for its diversity monitoring forms. This 5th anniversary edition, featuring a new preface by editor Nikesh Shukla, shows that the pieces collected here are as poignant, challenging, angry, humorous, heartbreaking and important as ever.

Conventionally, US immigration history has been understood through the lens of restriction and those who have been barred from getting in. In contrast, The Good Immigrants considers immigration from the perspective of Chinese elites—intellectuals, businessmen, and students—who gained entrance because of immigration exemptions. Exploring a century of Chinese migrations, Madeline Hsu looks at how the model minority characteristics of many Asian Americans resulted from US policies that screened for those with the highest credentials in the most employable fields, enhancing American economic competitiveness. The earliest US immigration restrictions targeted Chinese people but exempted students as well as individuals who might extend America's influence in China. Western-educated Chinese such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek became symbols of the US impact on China, even as they patriotically advocated for China's modernization. World War II and the rise of communism transformed Chinese students abroad into refugees, and the Cold War magnified the importance of their talent and training. As a result, Congress legislated piecemeal legal measures to enable Chinese of good standing with professional skills to become citizens. Pressures mounted to reform American discriminatory immigration laws, culminating with the 1965 Immigration Act. Filled with narratives featuring such renowned Chinese immigrants as I. M. Pei, The Good Immigrants examines the shifts in immigration laws and perceptions of cultural traits that enabled Asians to remain in the United States as exemplary, productive Americans.

A 2021 NATIONAL PARENTING PRODUCT AWARDS WINNER! The third installment in the New York Times bestselling Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series, featuring 100 immigrant women who have shaped, and will continue to shape, our world. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World is packed with 100 all-new bedtime stories about the lives of incredible female figures from the past and the present such as: Anna Wintour, Editor in Chief Carmen Miranda, Singer and Actress Diane von Fürstenberg, Fashion Designer Gloria Estefan, Singer Ilhan Omar, Politician Josephine Baker, Entertainer and Activist Lupita Nyong'o, Actress Madeleine Albright, Politician Rihanna, Entrepreneur and Singer Samantha Power, Diplomat This volume recognizes women who left their birth countries for a multitude of reasons: some for new opportunities, some out of necessity. Readers will whip up a plate with Asma Khan, strategize global affairs alongside Madeleine Albright, venture into business with Rihanna, and many more. All of these unique, yet relatable stories are accompanied by gorgeous, full-page, full-color portraits, illustrated by 70 female and nonbinary artists from 29 countries across the globe.

A Finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction "Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence.” —The New York Times Book Review "Nayeri weaves her empowering personal story with those of the ‘feared swarms’ . . . Her family’s escape from Isfahan to Oklahoma, which involved waiting in Dubai and Italy, is wildly fascinating . . . Using energetic prose, Nayeri is an excellent conduit for these heart–rending stories, eschewing judgment and employing care in threading the stories in with her own . . . This is a memoir laced with stimulus and plenty of heart at a time when the latter has grown elusive.” —Star–Tribune (Minneapolis) Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel–turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple fall in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials. Nayeri confronts notions like “the swarm,” and, on the other hand, “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee challenges us to rethink how we talk about the refugee crisis. “A writer who confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees

“I felt like an alien who fell down to earth, not understanding the rules of the game, making all the possible mistakes, saying all the wrong things.” “Your whole life is in the hands of other people who do not always mean well and there is nothing you can do about it. They can decide to send you away and you have no control.” “The moment I enter the house, I shelve my American self and become the 'little obedient wife' that my husband wants me to be.” “The most difficult part is to find myself again. At the beginning I lost myself.” This jargon-free book documents and analyzes the experience of immigration from the female perspective. It discusses the unique challenges that women face, offers insights into the meanings of their experiences, develops gender-sensitive knowledge about immigration, and discusses implications for the effective development and provision of services to immigrant women. With fascinating case studies of immigration to the United States, Australia, and Israel as well as helpful lists of relevant organizations and Web site/Internet addresses, Immigrant Women Tell Their Stories is for everyone who wants to learn or teach about immigration, especially its female face. “It was like somebody sawed my heart in two. One part remained in Cuba and one part here.” Immigrant Women Tell Their Stories examines the nature of immigration for women through the eyes of those who have experienced it: how they perceive, interpret, and address the nature of the experience, its multiple aspects, the issues that it presents, and the strategies that immigrant women develop to cope with those issues. The women in this extraordinary book came from different spots around the globe, speak different languages and dialects, and their English comes in different accents. They vary in age as well as in cultural, ethnic, social, educational, and professional status. They represent a rainbow of family types and political opinions. In spite of their diversity, all these women share immigration experience. This book provides an understanding of the journeys they traveled and the experiences they lived to bring you new insights into what it means to immigrate as a woman and to frame effective strategies for working with—and for—immigrant women. “My father is the head of the house. When he decided to move to America [from India] my mother and us, the daughters, did not have much say. My mother and I were not happy at all, but it did not matter.” Immigrant Women Tell Their Stories provides you with historical and global perspectives on immigration and addresses: legal, political, economic, social, and psychological dimensions of immigration and its aftermath deconstructing immigration by age, gender, and circumstances major issues of immigrant women—language, mothering, relationships and marriage, finding employment, assimilation (how much and how soon), loneliness, and more resilience in immigrant women immigration from a lesbian perspective guidelines for the development and delivery of services to immigrant women “You may say that I am the bridge, the desert generation that lost the chance to have it my way. But I will do my best to raise my daughters to have more choices than I.” In this well-referenced book, immigrant women from Austria, Bosnia, Cuba, various parts of the former Soviet Union, Guatemala, India, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico, Pakistan, and the Philippines tell us their stories, recount what their experiences entailed and what challenges they posed, and teach us ways to help them cope successfully. “This was the best decision we could have made and the best thing we had ever done.”

How did immigrants to the United States come to see themselves as white? David R. Roediger has been in the vanguard of the study of race and labor in American history for decades. He first came to prominence as the author of The Wages of Whiteness, a classic study of racism in the development of a white working class in nineteenth-century America. In Working Toward Whiteness, Roediger continues that history into the twentieth century. He recounts how ethnic groups considered white today-including Jewish-, Italian-, and Polish-Americans-were once viewed as undesirables by the WASP establishment in the United States. They eventually became part of white America, through the nascent labor movement, New Deal reforms, and a rise in home-buying. Once assimilated as fully white, many of them adopted the racism of those whites who formerly looked down on them as inferior. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenants-the real estate agreements that ensured all-white neighborhoods-Roediger explores the mechanisms by which immigrants came to enjoy the privileges of being white in America. A disturbing, necessary, masterful history, Working Toward Whiteness uses the past to illuminate the present. In an Introduction to the 2018 edition, Roediger considers the resonance of the book in the age of Trump, showing how Working Toward Whiteness remains as relevant as ever even though most migrants today are not from Europe.

Immigration and health care are hotly debated and contentious issues. Policies that relate to both issues—to the health of newcomers—often reflect misimpressions about immigrants, and their impact on health care systems. Despite the fact that immigrants are typically younger and healthier than natives, and that many immigrants play a vital role as care-givers in their new lands, native citizens are often reluctant to extend basic health care to immigrants, choosing instead to let them suffer, to let them die prematurely, or to expedite their return to their home lands. Likewise, many nations turn against immigrants when epidemics such as Ebola strike, under the false belief that native populations can be kept well only if immigrants are kept out. In The Health of Newcomers, Patricia Illingworth and Wendy E. Parmet demonstrate how shortsighted and dangerous it is to craft health policy on the basis of ethnocentrism and xenophobia. Because health is a global public good and people benefit from the health of neighbor and stranger alike, it is in everyone’s interest to ensure the health of all. Drawing on rigorous legal and ethical arguments and empirical studies, as well as deeply personal stories of immigrant struggles, Illingworth and Parmet make the compelling case that global phenomena such as poverty, the medical brain drain, organ tourism, and climate change ought to inform the health policy we craft for newcomers and natives alike.