A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America

by Aristide R. Zolberg

According to the national mythology, the United States has long opened its doors to people from across the globe, providing a port in a storm and opportunity for any who seek it. Yet the history of immigration to the United States is far different. Even before the xenophobic reaction against European and Asian immigrants in the late nineteenth century, social and economic interest groups worked to manipulate immigration policy to serve their needs. In A Nation by Design , Aristide Zolberg explores American immigration policy from the colonial period to the present, discussing how it has been used as a tool of nation building. A Nation by Design argues that the engineering of immigration policy has been prevalent since early American history. However, it has gone largely unnoticed since it took place primarily on the local and state levels, owing to constitutional limits on federal power during the slavery era. Zolberg profiles the vacillating currents of opinion on immigration throughout American history, examining separately the roles played by business interests, labor unions, ethnic lobbies, and nativist ideologues in shaping policy. He then examines how three different types of migration--legal migration, illegal migration to fill low-wage jobs, and asylum-seeking--are shaping contemporary arguments over immigration to the United States. A Nation by Design is a thorough, authoritative account of American immigration history and the political and social factors that brought it about. With rich detail and impeccable scholarship, Zolberg's book shows how America has struggled to shape the immigration process to construct the kind of population it desires.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Academic, Political Science

672 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just began my foray into this very lengthy exploration of the reasons for the politics of immigration. It's the first book I'm reading for my master's thesis.
This book provided high-quality cement for the foundation of my thesis.

[Al Lock · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are three parts to any good historical study.
1. Research - preferably in primary sources, with some secondary sources.
2. Narrative - weaving the information together.
3. Disclaimer - identifying what parts of the narrative are speculative, and especially what parts are subject to other interpretations.

Aristide R. Zolberg does an excellent job on part 1. Part 2 is a narrative that is pretty hard to take seriously because he contradicts his primary sources and his own research so often. And part 3 is completely missing in this work.

Examples of his contradiction to his researched source material, he points out that Ben Franklin stated that emigration was a right, that while Mr. Franklin saw some issues with the immigration of Germans, he was not in favor of limiting that immigration. Mr. Zolberg claims that Franklin's agenda (which was never put forward for any action) "entailed a higher degree of governmental intervention with regard to settlement and incorporation than the United States has ever engaged in to date" - a position he not only doesn't support with any facts, it completely ignores that the "agenda" was never suggested to be government action. Zolberg has turned the words of Ben Franklin into propaganda for his position, and while he reports the words accurately, he draws from them things not in those words. He does the same thing when he reports Franklin's opposition to the slave trade as opposition to blacks.

Well researched, the author needed someone to read this and point out all the logical fallacies and inconsistencies that he engages in while trying to justify his position. His constant weighting of words as greater than action is noticeable and eventually becomes ridiculous.

Definitely not recommended.

[Serge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zolberg argues that "immigration policy evolved in response to a series of crises, arising from the conjunction of changes in the configuration shaping the "push" in the world at large, and conditions within the United States governing the "pull". He is methodical in tracing this dynamic from the pre-revolutionary colonies to post 9/11 America. The tension between restrictionist and expansionist forces is more ingrained in American history than the occasional nativist outbursts that have punctuated our engagement with the world's upheaval last century. Zolberg is careful to highlight the particular and shifting political interests that influence policy changes at the "main gate" and the "back door" This book is a magisterial account of the most defining feature of the United States: its ambiguous embrace of its cosmopolitan roots.

[se lee]

로쟈 comments:
졸버그(Ari Zolberg)의 ‘A Nation by Design’(하버드대출판부, 2006)은 식민지 시대부터 현재까지의 미국의 이주정책을 국제 자본주의 및 국가 체제와, 자본 대 노동 및 국가 정체성과 관련된 국내 세력들 간의 관계속에서 추적함으로써, 토크빌이 미국을 방문했던 시대가 토크빌이 언급한 것처럼 무제한적인 이주가 허용되던 시대가 아니라, 각각의 주(state)나 연방 차원에서 다양한 이주정책이 관철되고 있었던 시기였다는 점을 증명한다. 그리고 이주 문제, 특히 국가의 이주 정책을 미국 예외주의라는 틀에서 보기보다는, 다른 국가와의 비교적 관점을 통해서 바라보고 있다.

[Raja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy was it a slog to get through, but sweeps broadly and packed with information