Shapers of the Great Debate on Immigration

Natives and immigrants, men and women, people from all regions, races, religions, and walks of life, have brought varying perspectives to the long-running debate on immigration. Drawing from a large cast of characters—from Thomas Jefferson, Booker T. Washington, and Cesar Chavez to Jane Addams, Henry Ford, and Patrick McCarran—this book introduces students to people who have contributed to U.S. immigration policy from the Revolution to the present. Showing how each person's opinion drew from personal experience and thus added a new dimension to the debate, the book encompasses such issues as immigration and economics, partisan politics, culture, public opinion, and ethics.

Arguments for and against immigration—culture, economics, foreign policy, race—recur repeatedly throughout U.S. history. Individuals assign them priority at specific times. The vignettes in the book put a human face on immigration policy and on abstract concepts such as labor markets. The book shows how individuals made difficult and sometimes contradictory decisions on this controversial issue.

MARY ELIZABETH BROWN is Assistant Professor in the Social Science Division of Marymount Manhattan College and also assists with special projects at the Center for Migration Studies. She has done research on the intersection of U.S. immigration and religious history and is the author of such books as Churches, Communities and Children: Italian Immigrants in the Archdiocese of New York, 1880-1945 (1995).