Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America / Edition 1

by Peter Schrag

Overview

In a book of deep and telling ironies, Peter Schrag provides essential background for understanding the fractious debate over immigration. Covering the earliest days of the Republic to current events, Schrag sets the modern immigration controversy within the context of three centuries of debate over the same questions about who exactly is fit for citizenship. He finds that nativism has long colored our national history, and that the fear—and loathing—of newcomers has provided one of the faultlines of American cultural and political life. Schrag describes the eerie similarities between the race-based arguments for restricting Irish, German, Slav, Italian, Jewish, and Chinese immigrants in the past and the arguments for restricting Latinos and others today. He links the terrible history of eugenic "science" to ideas, individuals, and groups now at the forefront of the fight against rational immigration policies. Not Fit for Our Society makes a powerful case for understanding the complex, often paradoxical history of immigration restriction as we work through the issues that inform, and often distort, the debate over who can become a citizen, who decides, and on what basis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520259782
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	05/01/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Peter Schrag, for many years the editorial page editor and later a weekly columnist for the Sacramento Bee, currently contributes to The Nation, Harper's, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications. He is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of several books, including Paradise Lost and California: America's High-Stakes Experiment (both from UC Press) and Final Test: The Battle for Adequacy in America's Schools. Peter Schrag is the 2010 winner of the Carey McWilliams Award from the California Studies Association.

Table of Contents

Contents
Sources and Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. A City upon a Hill
2. “This Visible Act of Ingurgitation”
3. “Science” Makes Its Case
4. Preserving the Race
5. The Great Awhitening
6. “They Keep Coming”
7. A Border without Lines

Epilogue

Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A fine history of nativist movements and the reasons why their rhetoric has been so seductive at particular points in history."—Publishers Weekly: Nonfiction (2)

"An exquisite rendition of America's long history of immigration and anti-immigrant backlashes."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Astutely teases out perennial contradictions."—Boston Globe

"This is a remarkably compact survey . . . Not Fit for Our Society is an important addition, even on a crowded bookshelf."—The Historian

"With an easy, direct writing style, the author has created a noteworthy intellectual rumination on the nature of anti-immigrant sentiment in the US."—Choice

Editorial Reviews

Schrag (Paradise Lost) offers a scholarly history of the political movements that have sought to restrict immigration to the U.S. since its founding—from the 19th-century Know-Nothing Party through the years of American eugenics “research” that vastly influenced the Nazis in the years leading up to WWII. He points out how the same anti-immigration and anti-immigrant arguments have been recycled across generations: most notably the idea that certain groups—be they the Irish, Jews, Chinese, or Mexicans—were “inassimilable.” Though he doesn't provide any especially new insights, Schrag has assembled a fine history of nativist movements and the reasons why their rhetoric has been so seductive at particular points in history. The book would have been well-served had Schrag devoted more time to untangling the provocative idea he concludes with: that rather than “becoming white” and thus acceptable—the path trod by previous generations of European and Jewish immigrants—today's Latino and Asian immigrants may be shifting the paradigm and derailing the very mechanism that keeps the U.S. on a locked pattern of exclusion and race-based fearmongering against new immigrants. (May)

Publishers Weekly

This is a remarkably compact survey . . . Not Fit for Our Society is an important addition, even on a crowded bookshelf.

Historian

An exquisite rendition of America's long history of immigration and anti-immigrant backlashes.

San Francisco Chronicle

Lays out a gripping history . . . . Sets the scene for the new immigration battles about to be staged on Capitol Hill and across the country.

Journal of Democracy

With an easy, direct writing style, the author has created a noteworthy intellectual rumination on the nature of anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S.

Choice

This is a very pleasant book about a very unpleasant subject.

Journal of American History

Tells the story of xenophobia in a fresh way and reminds us of how multifaceted it has been.

Contemporary Sociology

When it comes to immigration in America, a disconcerting truth applies: We’re for it in the past but not so much in the present. . . .  Not Fit for Our Society astutely teases out the perennial contradictions at work here.

Boston Globe

“This is a very pleasant book about a very unpleasant subject.

Journal Of American History

“Lays out a gripping history . . . . Sets the scene for the new immigration battles about to be staged on Capitol Hill and across the country.

Journal Of Democracy - Ray Suarez

“This is a remarkably compact survey . . . Not Fit for Our Society is an important addition, even on a crowded bookshelf.

The Historian - Dorothee Schneider

“An exquisite rendition of America's long history of immigration and anti-immigrant backlashes.

San Francisco Chronicle