Immigration Books

El autor me mandó este libro de regalo y lo leí en cinco horas! Lo encontré muy bueno. Buena narrativa, locales bien elegidos, caracteres muy humanos, una historia que lo mantiene al lector interesado desde el primer capítulo hasta el último.
El segundo libro de este autor será tan bueno como éste, estoy segura.
Lo recomiendo de todo corazón!
A pesar de que muestra el nombre de otra persona, este comentario fue escrito por...
Christina Brett, autora de "A Sombra de Sus Pecados", "Old Sins Cast Long Shadows", "A Nice and Quiet Place" y "Double Dealing"

At four pages, eleven paragraphs (not incuding the introductory quote), thirty five sentences, and (sorry Georges) more words than I really wanted to count despite how cool it would have looked here, Ellis Island is a tome. It made me more intensely examine my own identity than all three hundred pages of What Color is Your Parachute even came close to doing. (Actually, I only read about four pages of that one too, but I could tell where it was going.) Ellis Island, however, was a complete surprise. The bit about what it means to be a Jew and the fact that that aspect of his identity is more concretely definied by its abscence than its presence, is profound. I mean, other people have said it, certainly, but this is, without a doubt, the clearest presentation I have encountered. I think it's particularly telling that he should set these musings in America, at Ellis Island. We, as Americans, particularly as white Americans, have a watered down and dissapated culture defined not by who we are, what we love, how we live etc., but what, ultimately, we are not. This small work was a four-page invitation to examine my relation to my roots, my country, and my culture. Ugh. I loved it.

Data is only one side to the realities existing in history. This work serves to balance the reader between cold, overhead retrospective data and warm, close-up human perspective creating a full picture of how we've arrived where we are. The first parts of the book are full of tables and graphs. This is followed by documents of the time, personal letters, court records... I highly recommend Ellis Island and the People of America to anyone interested in a brief (yet fufilling) picture of how the United States was populated.

I saw this and showed it to my 6yo daughter because of the cover - a young girl with the Statue of Liberty in the back. She was captivated and asked me to go back to reading it with her after having to stop for a while. Written in the doll's narrative, it's a very age-appropriate representation of some of the challenges and experiences of the immigrants to Ellis Island. Gently interspersed are themes of family and responsiblity.

This wonderful book, with several good photos, portrays the whole Ellis Island story very well. It brings out the scope of feelings and experiences the immigrants underwent in trying to enter a new homeland. The eagerness, hopes, fears, anxieties, confusion, drive, and often desperate feelings involved in coming to America from so many countries from around the world is shown clearly in the factual text, diaries, interviews, and telling photos of the faces of the hopefuls.

This book is covered perfectly with photos and text. The history is concise, the layout of the book is perfect and flows nicely.

This book really helped me with a project I was doing forHistory it had a lot of information including dates and accurateinformation. I loved reading it and I learned a lot to futher my reaseach on Ellis Island. None of the parts were boring and is wasn't hard to read ( I'm a seventh grader)it worked perfectly with what I was doing! I think if anyone wanted a good book on Ellis Island this is it!

How does a country deal with millions of people emigrating, and actually turn it into a positive thing? This is an important and interesting story of how Italy tried to redefine the concept of what is a nation, a colony, and an expatriate or citizen. In his engaging study of Italy's history, Mark Choate helps us to grasp the past, which gives meaning and lends understanding to present-day world issues.

My favorite quote: "If Britain had seized the lion's share of colonial territories, to Italy was left the hyena's share."

The powerful 2-volume ENCYCLOPEDIA OF IMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION IN THE AMERICAN WEST is a winner: it will appeal both to high school and college library holdings in offering a definitive reference cataloging both key immigrants and key migration patterns of different ethnic groups in the American West. From entries on Chinese early immigrants to Japanese internment, discussions are sometimes several pages in length and conclude with bibliographic material for further reading. Contributors work for historical societies, museums, and universities and provide both authority and clarity.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

Pipo Bui's work is shedding light on a facet of foreigners' identities rarely discussed. Stereotyping is usually seen as a victimizing process. Bui shows how stereotypes are effectively used by Vietnamese immagrants in Germany to protect themselves against other stereotypes. A Vietnamese restaurant owner will call her restaurant "Chinese" -- that's what the author calls masking.