Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century
Book by Robert L. Fleegler, University of Mississippi
Reviewed by Caroline Merithew, University of Dayton
Summer 2016
Caroline Merithew of the University of Dayton reviews Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century, by Robert L. Fleegler. The book develops new arguments about belonging, citizenship, and the social construction of American identity between 1924 and 1965. It is a political and intellectual history that interweaves discussions of policy debates, public discourse, and educational curriculum to analyze changes in immigration law, societal reactions to immigrants and ethnics, and notions of pluralism. The author’s conceptualization of “contributionism” melds two positions that have been at the heart of immigration debates for 200 years.
Read the book review at https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12273