Immigration, Assimilation, and the Cultural Construction of American National Identity

This book explores the relationship between immigration, assimilation, and narratives of American identity. The often self-congratulatory, mythic story of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants can feel hollow in a climate of minutemen brigades and deadlock on a strategy for moving forward regarding the millions of undocumented immigrants currently in residence. In this book, an in-depth examination of elite writing about immigration and assimilation over the course of the 20th century illuminates and offers important insights into the dominant narratives of national identity: Anglo-Protestantism, the melting pot, and multiculturalism.