This Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami

Gaston A. Fernandez of Indiana State University reviews This Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami, by Alex Stepick, Guillermo Grenier, Marvin Dunn and Max Castro.  The authors describe Miami as the de facto capital of Latin America; it is a city where immigrants dominate, Spanish is ubiquitous, and Denny’s is an ethnic restaurant. Are Miami’s immigrants representative of a trend that is undermining American culture and identity?  Drawing from in-depth fieldwork in the city and looking closely at events such as the Elián González case, This Land Is Our Land examines interactions between immigrants and established Americans in Miami to address fundamental questions of American identity and multiculturalism. Rather than focusing on questions of assimilation, as many other studies have, this book concentrates on interethnic relations to provide an entirely new perspective on the changes wrought by immigration in the United States. A balanced analysis of Miami’s evolution over the last forty years, This Land Is Our Land is also a powerful demonstration that immigration in America is not simply an “us versus them” phenomenon.

Read the book review at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00199.xf.