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Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States by Hiroshi Motomura

Call Number New Book Area JV6483 .M67 2007

Although America is unquestionably a nation of immigrants, its immigration policies have inspired more questions than consensus on who should be admitted and what the path to citizenship should be. In Americans in Waiting, Hiroshi Motomura looks to a forgotten part of our past to show how, for over 150 years, immigration was assumed to be a transition to citizenship, with immigrants essentially being treated as future citizens--Americans in waiting. Challenging current conceptions, the author uncovers how this view, once so central to law and policy, has all but vanished.

Americans in Waiting offers new ideas and perspectives on the current immigration debates.