Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity

By Paul Spickard, Laura Hooton, Francisco Beltrán

Book Overview

Almost All Aliens offers a unique reinterpretation of immigration in the history of the United States. Setting aside the European migrant-centered melting-pot model of immigrant assimilation, Paul Spickard, Francisco Beltr?n, and Laura Hooton put forward a fresh and provocative reconceptualization that embraces the multicultural, racialized, and colonially inflected reality of immigration that has always existed in the United States. Their astute study illustrates the complex relationship between ethnic identity and race, slavery, and colonial expansion.

Examining the lives of those who crossed the Atlantic, as well as those who crossed the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the North American Borderlands, Almost All Aliens provides a distinct, inclusive, and critical analysis of immigration, race, and identity in the United States from 1600 until the present. The second edition updates Almost All Aliens through the first two decades of the twenty-first century, recounting and analyzing the massive changes in immigration policy, the reception of immigrants, and immigrant experiences that whipsawed back and forth throughout the era. It includes a new final chapter that brings the story up to the present day.

This book will appeal to students and researchers alike studying the history of immigration, race, and colonialism in the United States, as well as those interested in American identity, especially in the context of the early twenty-first century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1138017701
• ISBN13: 9781138017702
• Release Date: September 2022
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 516 Pages
• Weight: 2.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Greatest Book on Race Formation in the US...ever!

This is one of the greatest books I have ever read. It really lays down the facts about the founding of the US and the implications for all minority groups involved. I feel as though everything I have been taught in public school was a fabricated enhancement of white power (I am white by the way). Finally, all the facts are in one place. I think every person in America should read this book.

Good for perspective

This book is written rather heavily in the voice of Spickard. His views and perspectives are bold and must be taken into consideration when reading, though he is dedicated and thorough in his work. He uses pie charts throughout to show the changing demographic, which is nice. He also is very picky about the terms he uses, making sure that the ideas behind the words are correctly chosen. I use it for my race and ethnicity class and find it to be useful, though sometimes in conflict with lectures and other sources. I'm not saying Spickard has his facts wrong, but that history involves multiple angles and his is but one good one.